Common sense: a powerful weapon against hate

A blend of balance and wisdom. But also of simplicity that doesn't exclude depth. The risk is that it remains hidden within us. For fear of common sense.

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importance of common sense
Balance and moderation. Reasonableness and wisdom. But also simplicity that does not exclude depth. The common sense It is really a very powerful weapon for dealing with the complexity of reality and to mitigate the temptation to make hasty judgments or decisions based solely on instinct and opportunity.
Common sense is a possibility that affects various spheres of our daily lives: from our behavior towards others to the way we observe and evaluate everything around us. But it's still something we have inside us and we could even waste, as he said. Alessandro Manzoni, “keeping it hidden for fear of common sense.”

COMMON SENSE

Yes, common sense. That is, the trend of the moment, fashion, the single thought, like a herd. In this respect, common sense is a revolutionary response, a move that disrupts the conventions. And it becomes very useful, for example, to address and defuse phenomena such as violenceFirst verbal and then, maybe, even physical.

IMPORTANCE OF COMMON SENSE

Are we sure we can't do anything except complain to each other, almost as if to share our dismay, to stop , contain, and reduce the verbal hatred that is spreading everywhere? In individual and real relationships between people, in civic and civil life, in the swamp of the web. Are we sure we must delegate , with a clear sign of surrender, this problem —now one of the most powerful and viral in our existence— to the usual third parties, laws and magistrates, regulations and supervisory authorities?

My answers, as you may have understood, are both very blunt: no , I don't believe that verbal hatred and online hatred, two sides of the same horrible coin, can be reduced solely through interventions external to our behaviors, our lifestyles . To our ordinary education (or rudeness) and our ordinary common sense (or irresponsibility).

It doesn't take much

VERBAL HATRED LAW

Let me give just two examples, to clarify. You may have noticed that our lives in the mobility circuit (the means used is a matter of detail: car, bicycle, motorcycle, on foot, public transport) are polluted , every day, every hour, every minute, by a sort of creeping profanity . Where swear words, insults, blasphemies, and vulgar threats are no longer specific exceptions, but have become the rule. We already speak poorly, we have already pulverized Italian, and in the lexicon of citizens and communities, we have introduced profanity in place of Dante's language.

Second example. The swamp of the web generates, fuels, and amplifies even monstrous rumors . A truly toxic environment, as we have often denounced, where fake news (what we Italians call "bufale") goes hand in hand with the release of anger and frustration on social media, a venting ground for all manner of anger and frustration. It goes without saying that around online hatred, a true waste of the human person with respect to their identity and fullness, a "market of hate" has sprung up and grown . That is, this language, so devastating in its rituality, generates consensus, contacts, influxes, and therefore all things that someone monetizes. It is the same law, apparently of the jungle, but in reality of that thing that some still consider the Word, namely the market, the same law, I was saying, that has now made its way onto television programs. Those who insult, display, and incite hatred, those who sow and cash in on it, are a troupe of characters who generate ratings, for example on news talk shows and related topics, and as such are considered stars by the establishment. Stars who reap dividends, for their wallets, and who give dividends, for example, to the cynical TV host who pampers them and sends them into the arena, like bloodthirsty bulls in a bullfight.

READ MORE: What does it mean to have empathy?

COMMON SENSE IN EVERYDAY LIFE

If, therefore, the answer to verbal and online hate isn't just the rule, the fine, the law, the regulatory authority, and everything else you want to point to, what category should we refer to? In his book Odio online (Cortina Editori), Giovanni Ziccardi , professor of Computer Science at the University of Milan, among other solutions, calls for "reconstructing the rules of communication ." It seems difficult, and even cryptic, as a goal, but it's as simple and natural as one can imagine. It's just a matter of starting from the first step of this comeback (engraved in the verb re-construct): common sense . Something that sometimes seems, but fortunately is only an optical illusion, to have truly disappeared from our radars as men and women dragged into the hell of hate. Verbal and online.

COMMON SENSE FAMOUS QUOTES

  • < Common sense was there, but it was hidden for fear of common sense> Alessandro Manzoni
Common sense is so simple that we are capable of wasting it by not recognizing it, as if it were a reprehensible attitude. We prefer to follow the herd, what Manzoni calls "common sense", precisely in contrast to common sense: it is nothing other than the conformism of manner. Today fueled by the diluvial messages via Internet.
  •  Ralph Waldo Emerson
The American philosopher's phrase may seem like an exaggeration. But we live in times in which common sense is certainly a rare commodity, andintelligence At the highest levels, by its very nature, it is scarce. The scarcity, in this case, is not that we are not equipped, according to some perverse design of Mother Nature, with common sense, but simply that we avoid it. We don't consider it useful and, with a certain amount of presumption, we think we can do without it.
  • Descartes
In his famous Speech on the method, The French philosopher warns us that we are all endowed with common sense. But do we know how to use it?
  •  Ennio Flaiano
Calling common sense "ridiculous" just because it seems simple isn't senseless, just stupid. And stupidity, as we know, can cause great harm.
  •  Giorgio De Chirico
Genius is always an exception. And in this case, common sense can be a limit to its ability. creativity and to its freedom of expression, just like logic. But beware: geniuses are rare, and it's best not to feel part of this very small minority of women and men.

SOME WONDERFUL PREVENTION AGAINST HATE:

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