Words From The Experts

Each of these quotes ties into the quotes from the novel providing support to the argument presented by each one as well as to my overall thesis statement.

Stanley Grenz

"Postmodernism affirms that whatever we accept as truth and even the way we envision truth are dependent on the community in which we participate. ... There is no absolute truth; rather, truth is relative to the community in which we participate."

    This quote supports the idea that the community (the majority) determines what is true, and that there is more than one truth about any given topic because the truth is relative to the community that is being observed. These words highlight an important definition of what is meant by 'the majority' in my thesis statement. The majority is not necessarily the majority of people in the world, it can be the majority of people in a community like Harlem in IM, it can also be the majority of people in a city, state, or country.

Richard Rorty

“So we cannot define ‘true’ in terms of satisfaction, nor of anything else. We can only explain our sense that, as Davidson says, ‘the truth of an utterance depends on just two things, what the words mean and how the world is arranged’ by explaining how we go about finding out these two things, and by pointing out that these two inquiries cannot be conducted independently.”

    Language is the vehicle we use to explain our arguments and to describe what we see around us. Even though different languages can be translated, these translations are only approximate and can mean completely different things depending on who you ask. This is also true of slang which is found throughout Invisible Man. I choose to interpret 'how the world is arranged' to mean what the balance of power is in a given environment. In Invisible Man the narrator is rarely in a position of power to influence the truth of his community, and so he is placed into the position of accepting what the majority of his community has decided is the truth about things like social equality, and his place in the world.

Elliot Sober

“Whether a statement is true is an entirely different question from whether you or anybody believes it. ...  There can be truths that no one believes.”

    This quote serves as a reminder that even though there is a spectrum of truths available, it doesn't necessarily mean that someone has to believe in every single one of them. This allows truths to be changed or discarded once they have lost their value, and is something that is demonstrated in Invisible Man during the eviction scene. It could be considered a truth that the Marshall had every right to evict the old couple from their house since they hadn't paid their mortgage, but none of those assembled believed this after the narrators speech. Instead they adopted the truth that dispossession is wrong and affects all of them so they should defend each other at every opportunity.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

“Thereby men do not flee from being deceived as much as from being damaged by deception: what they hate at this stage is basically not the deception but the bad, hostile consequences of certain kinds of deceptions. In a similarly limited way man wants the truth: he desires the agreeable life-preserving consequences of truth, but he is indifferent to pure knowledge, which has no consequences; he is even hostile to possibly damaging and destructive truths.” (pg 45.)
    Nietzsche's words suggest that truth is a social construct that is created so that people can feel at peace with the way they are and the way things are around them. This is true in Invisible Man because by accepting the truths of social equality, and proper behavior he is content for a time in the place society has put him in and the path society has allowed him to take. This is also true of his stint in the Brotherhood because believing in the truth of the goodness of the Brotherhoods goals the narrator is not bothered by any violence that must be perpetrated in defense of the Brotherhoods ideals, or any sacrifices that must be made by him to complete these goals.
“Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.” (pg 63)
    The narrators speech, and the Brotherhoods zealous approach to persuasion and change are both evidence the strong convictions are the best weapons to use in cutting down an existing truth to make way for a new truth. Any time the truth accepted by the majority is changed in the novel it is the result of a  strong conviction and will to see it changed.