BENNETT

UNIVERSITY
Assignment-What is
the problem of
Common Sense
approach?
SUBMITTED BY- MANPREET SINGH DHILLON
ROLL NO- L19BALB118
SUBMITTED TO- Dr. DEBABRATA BARAL
SUBJECT- SOCIOLOGY
 INTRODUCTION AND CONCEPTUALIZATION

The sociologist who did most to lay bare the illusion of understanding created by common
sense was Emile Durkheim. He argued tirelessly that the systematic investigation of a subject
was not possible unless the investigator freed himself from his preconceptions of it. Basically
he was trying to say that the preconceptions and opinion made through common sense
approach are of limited experience and cannot be universal. Durkheim gave a brilliant
demonstration of the superiority of the sociological approach over the common sense through
his study of suicide. His argument was that suicide was a social fact that though it looks like a
very personal choice but if we try to look beyond this we will come to an outcome that due to
several society pressures a person get advanced to suicide.
Sociology is different from common sense , it has a body of concepts ,methods and data
whereas common sense is a generalized form of individuals thoughts , so what happens is
even educated or uneducated people start believing that their common sense is as such as the
common sense of the whole human kind . In sociology ,the situation is different as a greater
room of ambiguity and disagreement. In India ,among students the use of common sense is
most in evidence in papers because every student knows something about his country’s caste
,culture but the real problem comes when he is given a paper to write an topic of any other
country or region’s then he found himself out of his depth. Basically no student can learn
how to construct a proper sociological argument unless he is taught to handle empirical
material relating to every type of society and in sociology one should put his patriotic zeal
aside.
Sociology is not about economic ,political or domestic life ,it is not about the class caste or
community.It is about the interconnections among all these and then coming to an conclusion
rather than come to a particular conclusion because of our own preconceptions. One example
is of M.N Srinivasa, shortly after independence a whole range of village monographics began
to be published by trained anthropologists and these have altered our perception of rural India
and Indian society in general. So M.N Srinivasa formulated the Indian distinction between
the book view and the field view of Indian society and drawn attention to the errors of the
former researcher who came to their conclusion through their biasness.
The problem with common sense approach is that it is not only localized but also bound by
several regional factors which are place,class,community,gender and so on and it does not
even question its own origins and presuppositions.Common sense is based on a limited range
of experiences of particular people in particular places and times and this take people to
believe that their way of doing things is the right way or the reasonalble way and other ways
of acting in these regards strike them as being not only wrong but also against the common
sense.
 EXAMPLE-1
UNABLE TO REPAY LOAN,TECHIE SHOOTS
SELF(THE TIMES OF INDIA)
Ghaziabad, a 35 year old software engineer allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself
in front of his wife in his house in indirapuram .Police said VikasTiwari was not able to repay
the loan due to which he committed suicide. Vikas worked with a private company in Noida
and is now survived by his wife and three children .Vikas’s wife Hemaprabha said when
Vikas returned from office he looked worried and he called her into the bedroom and he put a
pistol on his head and shot himself. His last words were “take care of yourself”.
Initial probe revealed that Vikas has taken a loan on which he was not able to repay and he
wanted to sell his house to repay the loan but his wife opposed his decision.
Basically this is a case of suicide which most of the people will think it is done only by
personal choice but we try to look beyond the picture and raise a question that why Vikas
decided to end his life and left his wife and children all alone then we will come to an
outcome that though Vikas ended his life by himself but there was a lot of society pressure on
him to maintain his image as a well established economic stable man and the fear of
embarrassment in his mind that what people will think about him .These society factors are
the main reasons behind his suicide and in the end from this example we come to a
conclusion that suicide is not because of individual choice but it is more because of society
pressure.
 EXAMPLE-2
MLA KULDEEP SINGH SENGAR CHARGED
KILLING SURVIVOR’S DAD.(THE TIMES OF
INDIA)

New delhi:Expelled BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar being tried for raping a minor was on
Tuesday slapped with the additional charge of murder for conspiring to kill the survivor’s
father after framing him in a false case.
District Judge,Dharmesh Sharma clubbed two case on related to the alleged murder of the
survivor’s father and the other related to framing him in a case of possession of illegal
arms.The court charged Sengar and nine others for offences punishable under IPC section
302(murder),506(criminal intimidation),341(wrongful restraint)120B(criminal
conspiracy)and193(false evidence) and under section 25 of the arms act.Framing charges in
the second case ;transferred to it from the supreme court ,the trial court viewed the murder as
a part of a larger conspiracy to alter,silence,and prevent the father from pursuing the
complaint in the rape case of his daughter in 2017.
Though this example might look very irrevelant for this topic of the assignment but we look
this case a from other perspective we will get one question into our mind which is how
people Sengar get elected to such powerfull posts in the society and the answer to it is that
because of our own biasness we elect our policy makers to such posts.Whileelcting we don’t
see what is the qualifications of the candidate and what is his previous political record
whether I previously where he was elected some development was done or not. We just give
that person on the basis of his Party for example in 2014 elections so many undeserving
candidates got elected just because they beloged to a particular party which was enjoying a
good popularity.This practice might satisfy our personal biasness but it will never serve the
purpose of the development and prosperity.
 EXAMPLE-3
TRIPLE TALAQ BILL SAILS THROUGH RAJYA
SABHA(THE HINDU)
The Muslim Women(protection of rights on marriage)Bill 2019, better known as the triple
talaq bill was passed in the Rajyasabha .
The ruling BJP comfortably managed the number in favour of the legislation,which
criminalises instant divorce by Muslim men.
In the 240-member House,99 members voted in favour of the bill,84 opposed it while 57
members stayed away – by either walking out,abstaining or being absent.Minutes after the
vote,Prime Minister NarendraModi tweeted that by abolishing triple talaq,”Parliament
corrects a historical wrong done to muslim women”.
As many as eight Congress MPs were absent during vote,including Sanjay Singh,who
resigned just hours before. Janta Dal (united) and AIADMK members walked out .While
BSP MPs opposed the bill during the debate, they were absent during the voting.
This bill is a very good step towards the women rights in our society and but if we think why
it was needed we will get to know about the status of women in our society that we are in
21th century but still there are so many rights of which women are being deprived of and
talaq e biddat issue was one of them. We can raise a parallel example to this which is the
sabrimala temple issue in which women are not allowed in the temple.
What I am trying to say here is that Though the passing of “THE TRIPLE TALAAQ BILL”
shows a positive sign of progress in Women rights but it raises a question on our society
which is why it the triple talaq bill was needed and the rights of which muslim women were
being deprived of were not there in first place.
 CONCLUSION

I believe that if one will turn himself away from the accumulated concepts,methods and data
of sociology in general and study without leaving his biasness and preconceptions aside will
lag behind in the long run.His thinking will get limited and he will never learn to construct a
proper sociological argument and on the other hand if one sticks to the methods ,concepts and
put his preconceptions and common sense approach aside will never face any problem in
writing any paper whether it is a topic of kinship in Africa,or religion in Indonesia,or social
mobility in france.
 REFERENCES
Correspondent, Special. “Triple Talaq Bills sails through Rajya Sabha .” THE HINDU, 2019: 1.

Dubey, Avishek Kumar. “Unable to repay loan,techie shoots self.” THE TIMES OF INDIA, 2019: 5.

DURKHEIM, EMILE. Suicide,A study in Sociology. Glencoe: The free press, 1951.

Garg, Abhinav. “Sengar charged with killing survivor's dad.” THE TIMES OF INDIA, 2019: 17.

Srinivasa, M.N. “Indian's Village.” 1960: 1-14.