Tolstoy and Privilege

Tolstoy's search for the "meaning of life" is chronicled in his A Confession. He seeks answers from the "experimental sciences" and the realm of philosophy, only to find them wanting. He analyzes the ways that those in his social circle - wealthy, educated - have responded to the quest for meaning; again, he comes up wanting. Tolstoy's quest turns a corner when he opens his eyes beyond his social circle and realizes that his circle does not reflect the "whole of humanity" and that in his blindness, he has missed out on a crucial path to realizing life's meaning.

Tolstoy reflects, "It seems so strange to me now, so utterly incomprehensible, that in my reasoning of life I could have overlooked the life of humanity that surrounded me on all sides and that I could have been so ridiculously mistaken as to think that my life, and the life of Solomon and Schopenhauer, was the true, normal life, while the lives of millions was not worthy of attention".

Tolstoy's narrative reflects the danger of unrecognized social and economic privilege, a blindness to the whole of experience. Typically, we consider privilege in terms of recognizing questions of justice, particularly as it applies to notions of race and gender. Tolstoy broadens the implications of privilege to matters of faith and meaning; and, as Tolstoy asserts, "Without faith, it is impossible to live".

The question of privilege is not, then, a late 20th century question of the social sciences. Rather, it is one with broad implications for the humanities. How does privilege blind us in our quest for answers to the "big questions"?