All human words and thoughts are a Loch Ness, placid and navigable on the surface, mysterious and muddy in the depths. Thus, it is not even obvious that blue has to exist or that it means the same thing to all people. In many civilizations there was no distinction between blue and red, Homer described the sea as “wine-colored” in the Iliad, and there are many color blind people who do not know they are color blind. Maybe my pain is different from that of my friends, that would explain my fear of the dentist. It occurs to a greater extent with more complex concepts such as forgiveness, defense or freedom. Do they mean the same for everyone? Wittgenstein already said that philosophy is etymological debates, not epistemological ones.
All this may seem like the ramblings of idle people. In fact, there are people who believe that many complexities and disquisitions can be fixed with a little common sense. The problem is that common sense has serious limitations. It can mean logic, coherence and reasonableness, but at different times in history it has implied the wrong things. For example, an iron ball falls faster than a feather; that buying a home is better than renting it; that direct current is better than alternating; that junk bonds are bad or that homeopathy works for some ailments. Common sense is also no use when determining interest rates, defining money, operating open-heartedly, or managing a large company. It is even less useful for reaching complex agreements or ruling on laws, for that you need lawyers, specific terminology, long documents and courts.
To manage complexities, unfortunately you have to work hard: analysis, competent specialists, knowledge and methodologies that allow learning from mistakes are required. Even so, things often go wrong, but that should not confuse us, the fact that an economist is wrong does not mean that the astrologer and his horoscopes are right.
All of this is particularly applicable in the field of security, where good caulking is insufficient. In security matters, any error or failure can be catastrophic; there are no administrative infractions, only mortal sins. Furthermore, the unexpected is always part of the expected, because the enemy will always want to surprise.
In Israel, unfortunately, all this has been confirmed. The suicide attack carried out by Hamas has been operationally sophisticated and devastating, it has applied the morality of a velociraptor and appears politically and militarily irrational. It was unexpected and contrary to all common sense. One can speculate that it has been caused by a miscalculation, is part of a larger strategy, or is the product of unexpected power dynamics of a secret group that wants to watch the world burn.
What happened in Israel serves to remind us of the importance and complexity of security. A country is always immersed in a cruel game of chess, International Grand Master level, in which human lives are lost. In this struggle, common sense is of little use, like the fifth wheel of the car. Perhaps it is because, in some contexts, common sense could mean a set of generalities learned as an adolescent that seem to have universal application. In any case, I wish conflicts could be resolved with that “gentlemen, you can't fight here, this is a war room” by President Merkin Muffley from Red Telephone? We fly to Moscow.
