Hi Thanks for your post Marcel. I suppose I have to own up and say that I did not read/receive the original article which stared all of this. It's more the notion of 'common sense' I was interested in as I think it is a hugely loaded term politically. The great American writer C Wright Mills and the Italian writer Antonio Gramsci have a lot to say on the subject of 'common sense' and 'critical thinking' . I think you are dead right ..you do have to think through the term 'common sense', as it implies that there is common knowledge or that the state of things is obvious or 'natural' when often things could not be further from the truth. Seeing things for what they are involves a lot of work and thinking beyond what is presented as 'the natural state of things as they have always been. Love and Marriage are obvious examples. The romantic notion of marrying for love is an historically relative newcomwer. In many cultures today it is still not seen as a reason for marrying. They don't go together like a horse and carriage as the song would have us believe. But in western cultures, the romantic movement from the 16th century onwards in art, poetry, music, literature etc would have us believe it was the natural state of affairs. Marriage has historically been more about rights of property. Here are a couple of links.....see what you think and let me know http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-gram.htm (Only the first couple of concepts...I wouldn't read the entire article) http://www.infed.org/thinkers/wright_mills.htm Regards Gordon
