Truth Is a Potato: A Journey into Tolstoy's Resurrection

Abstract

The over-intellecualization of the questions of Truth and Justice only muddy the challenge of living correctly and alienate us from actual practicable answers, answers which have been here, Tolstoy argues, for millenia. Tolstoy, through the character of Prince Nekhlyudov in Resurrection, oppose simplicity and hard-scrabble peasant wisdom to the labyrinths and mountains of intellectualism and state-sanctioned correctness. This article explores Tolstoy's ideas regarding the nature and substance of Truth, pursing them through the author's biography as well as the experiences of the Prince. It concludes that, for any flaws in his reasoning, his beliefs still offer a viable solution to the complex and minute and numerous doubts which surround any debate in our modern, data-ridden world.