For most of us, the first time we heard certain truths described as “self-evident” was in the Declaration of Independence
While Thomas Jefferson’s use of the term was to shore up the decision of the Colonies to withdraw their consent from King George, he also highlighted something very important.
Namely, that there are basic truths that do not change.
This means that genuine truth doesn’t have an expiration date.
What was objectively true in 1776 remains true and will always remain true.
Such truths are an effective benchmark by which to measure the rightness or wrongness of a given proposition.
This is something we seem to have lost sight of in our time.
Where the founders were more concerned with the forms, or principles, that were at stake, we’re much more focused on issues.
We tend to focus on technicalities rather than the basic truths involved.
Jefferson explained this tendency in a letter to his friend Peter Carr in 1787:
“State a moral case to a plowman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.”
This is not a condemnation of education; it is the recognition that the words “knowledge” and “wisdom” don’t mean quite the same thing.
We have a personal duty to examine and vet the truth for ourselves.
That means we must be capable of studying and reasoning beyond what we are told.
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