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Subcultures Of Common Sense

Decent Essays

Consider the following predicament: you are hit by a car and the driver evacuates the scene. Is it common sense to file a police report or hunt down the perpetrator yourself? I believe most Americans will choose the former over the latter based on their perception of common sense. However, if someone chooses to seek retribution for the hit and run by themselves, do they then lack common sense or does their common sense merely differ from ours? The Merriam Webster dictionary defines common sense as a “sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts.” Do all people then have the same judgement towards all situations? Culture, I believe, is what may blur these lines of judgement based on what is “common …show more content…

However, the more I define cultures and try to conclude where differences in common sense may arise, the more questions I discover. Common sense, though defined, does differ amongst cultures. Much like any belief, common sense is interpreted through different eyes. Religion, region, and other traditions can greatly impact this interpretation. When identifying common sense, many may merge common sense into the same realm as morality. Again, the question arises, can morality differ between a culture as well? As you can see the very definition of what a culture is and how they can differ between others, truly shows the complexity of humanity. Complexity amongst humans is what makes defining groups of us into specific cultures, difficult. There are too many variables to accurately state that one person believes and follows certain traditions solely because of their location, birth, religion, traditions, etc. I believe that idea of being apart of cultures and subcultures is in question, but the idea of common senses stems more from specific questions. For example, the vast majority of people in first-world countries have used stoves to cook with. Therefore, the vast majority of people in the first-world know not to touch a stove when either the light is on or the flames are burning. Resting a flammable object on the hot stove, thinking it as a countertop, would be an interference of common sense in their culture because of their past experience and knowledge of

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