Peggy Noonan has this column in the WSJ, comparing her great-aunt's acceptance of needed health measures upon her immigration from Ireland a century ago and the irresponsible quarantine-breaking of some people returning from Ebola-infected areas today.  The broader point comes near the end:

It must be noted that all this--the quarantine argument, the travel ban--is another expression of the deep, tearing distance between America's professional and political elites, who operate as if they are estranged from common sense, and normal people, who are becoming more estranged from the elites, their oblivious and politicized masters.

That distance has been growing all my adult life, but the Ebola argument has brought it into sharper relief. The elites should start twigging onto it. They are no longer immediately respected, their guidance is not reflexively taken. They seem more immersed in political thinking--what is the ideologically enlightened position to take, where's the boss on it?--than in protecting public health.

Or thinking commonsensically, like your great-aunt.

Which is too bad because great-aunts built America.

Those that Ms. Noonan calls "normal people" I call "persons of sense."  The other side is not just "elites."  It started that way, but the dearth of sense among educators,  media moguls, and the celebrities that too many people look up to have caused a spread of Common Sense Deficit Disorder throughout our society. 

This is one of the greatest dangers to our society today.  It looms in the background of the actual root causes of crime -- permissive parenting, standardless schools, and acceptance of excuses for wrongdoing.