When truth is no longer self-evident

I recently was asked a question about the Founding Fathers: whether they erred by assuming what they saw of human nature would be universally true. In response to their Declaration “we hold these truths to be self-evident” this person wanted to know if the ‘we,’ ‘the truths,’ and the ‘self-evident’ are still true in practice?

Obviously, the self-evident isn’t what it was 200+ years ago. We don’t speak the Founders’ language anymore. “Life” doesn’t include the unborn, “liberty” is now confused with licentiousness, and “the pursuit of happiness” has transmuted into an expectation that everyone is entitled to an upper middle class lifestyle, regardless of accomplishment or responsibility exhibited. Though it doesn’t make it any less “truth,” the worldview of the Founders is widely rejected in today’s society. In fact, the rejection of that worldview, or the very idea that ANY worldview could contain universal truths, means we can’t even meaningfully speak of a ‘we’ now.

As my questioner pointed out, when there are no longer shared values there are two means of creating unity: making it beneficial to the individual, or creating a ‘bunker mentality’ (my words) through external threat. The War on Terror/Extremism/Whatever certainly fits the latter methodology…but it’s an expensive and potentially destructive way for any society to define itself. And in today’s “me-first,” radically individualistic culture, which admits to no higher goal than self-actualization, there is little market incentive to subordinate any part of self into a higher whole. I would say this is a direct result of the rejection, first of Godly authority, then of subsequent levels of any authority that impinges on the Self. Regardless, it doesn’t bode well for our ability to sustain a civilization. These nihilistic visions of apocalyptic futures, so common in the sci-fi genre today, are probably a subconscious admission of what the tyranny of individualism is bringing about:

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." - John Q. Adams, 6^th President of the U.S.