In an increasingly polarized world, folks claim to want compromise. We were educated with the Hegelian belief that issues have a “thesis, antithesis, synthesis.” That is not often true, and I would like to make the distinction between “compromise” and “common sense.”
Compromise is a logical meeting point along an agreed upon axis. The best example is haggling. I want to buy something, you want to sell it, and we simply have to agree on a price. But many real life problems are not like that, and deep philosophical issues almost never are.
Common sense, on the other hand, is a gestalt merge, where all we think is formulated into an intuitive position often difficult to explain in words. If my common sense tells me that it is stupid to own something, I will not buy it at any price.
Whether a fetal tissue is a person does not have a compromise view _ some claim from moment of fertilization, some say at viability, but all are absolutely sure they are right and will not budge. But at least it is on a common axis. A less contentious example is house hunting. It is possible for two people to compromise on how much they should spend. It may not be possible for them to agree on the commonsense feel that they should or should not buy a house at all.
Neither compromise nor common sense work all the time, but for the most part it is differing positions on common sense that make compromise impossible. The polarization all around now reflects artificially fossilized viewpoints generated by their media. Media, of course, contains no common sense at all because it is particularly linear, logical, and brittle. Often with no middle view at all.
I can’t claim common sense _ as a middle view _ would solve everything. But at least recognizing it would make issues more coherent.
HuntingtonHarborThoughts 