How Fraiser Reveals the Way to Connect to the Common People
The moral case for making sure you connect with the ordinary person.
Author’s Note: If you’d like to check out more about how to understand common differences more, check out two of the pieces at the bottom of this one.
So many people talk about the idea of the common person.
They talk about it as if it's a concrete concept that everyone agrees on. After all, it wouldn't be common if it wasn't something many people understand. It has to be widely viewed as true for it to be referenced as such. However, if you actually talk with people, you often find that different people have different ideas about what they understand to be a common person. There are all kinds of ways in which people don't think something is common whereas others think it is. Which makes the idea of commonality kinda suspicious when you consider it in that context. If so many people have such an uncommon understanding of what common is, how do we come to know what is or isn't true at all?
Put simply, we have to find a way to build it from the ground up. Even among people's disagreements, there are ways in which they do in fact agree. Certain aspects of it are in fact, common. If you can get people to agree on those fundamental aspects, then you can find yourself somewhere to go. A foundation on which to build the other stages to ultimately agree on what a common person is. Through that process, you do in fact have a commonality, in the people themselves. Then you have to get it out there to others so you can get other people on board with it. This is an ongoing process which in many ways you'll never really get to the end of. When you close it down, you end up getting away from that commonality.
You also have the problem that those who make the arguments for a common person are more often than not, very uncommon. They think things through in ways in which others don't. This creates something of a contradiction. Only those who are uncommon can articulate the idea of what the common person is. What they have to watch out for is losing touch with what a common person is.
Fraiser at it's core is a fantastic example of how to go about this process. Fraiser Crane, as played brilliantly by Kelsey Grammer, is decidedly uncommon. He lives the kind of life that most people don't really have access to. He lives in a great apartment in a great city, has a job in radio which many people would covet, or at least would have historically at the time of the show. Yet as time goes on, we see him find his way towards a more common way of thinking. He's no longer as removed from the way ordinary people live. In large part thanks to the fact that he's living with his father Martin and his care giver Daphne. They are much more common than Fraiser himself.
It gives him a window into the way ordinary people think, and he doesn't turn away from it. While it's far from an easy process and sometimes he does reject it, ultimately he becomes a common person.
Explore how to connect with a common person by checking out Fraiser as soon as you can.
You can watch Fraiser on Hulu as well as Amazon.