Ah yes - Les Miserables. The French novel published in 1862 by Victor Hugo. Later becoming a star studded, timeless and highly revered and praised musical production that is Les Mis (Miz). Cameron Mackintosh's smash hit and long running musical production telling the story through musical theatre launched in 1985. Hugo's story is timeless no matter how it's told. I remember the book being too long for a kid, emotionally stunted while lacking discipline to power through a work of epic proportions. Enchanted watching the musical struck a chord. Wonderful music filled with anthems you know; songs one quickly grows to love, leaving the theatre with a song in your heart.
What looks like just another Broadway musical is surprisingly complex and fascinating. It's a story intricately woven together through intertwined relationships over the course of 20 years. Told through music. The singing tells the story. Expresses the turmoil and tenderness of relationships as well as their complexity and complication. Sweeping instrumental interludes capturing the turmoil the characters and the grander society live during the French revolution. As a whole the work examines the human existence from nearly every imaginable perspective. Rich like wine with hints of nuanced emotion expressed through universal human struggle. The longing of meaningful existence through fulfilling relationships. Triumph while enduring humanity. Knowing others and self. Love. Revenge. Survival. Moral compromise driven by realizing unwanted hardship. Restoration through evolution and transformation. Secrets. Motivations. The conflict between good and bad. A surprisingly thorough examination of the human condition.
Examination applied in education through many disciplines. Music. Philosophy. History. Literature. Politics. Psychology. Sociology. I can imagine the excitement educators experience after reading each semester's papers written by students confronting all of it. Exploration commented with perception to demonstrate clarity in understanding. A triumph in intellectual exercise and pursuit.
The story entices me with a moral questions too strong to resist.
What committed crime lend themself to being dissolved into humanity?
Without enforcement and associated restitution to society. Side-stepped accountability.
Where does accountability reside?
When is debt to society finally forgiven?
Does society operate from personal conviction, moral code or agreed upon laws? Where laws an extension of rigorous debate or negotiated through compromise? Justice sits on the delicate balance of a scale. Is enforcement black and white in enforcement from Javert's standpoint? Or does enforcement exist in the grey space between the extremes. Balancing circumstance with motivation as in Jean Valjeans life? A judge is charged with the burden of reconciling conflict in the two extremes. Media somehow made all of us the jury without viewing evidence in the context and confine of law. Realize just like the extremes in color, humanity stands somewhere in nuanced negotiation of polar extreme. How does appropriate reconciliation happen in the struggle of context?
Jean Valjean broke a window pain and stole a loaf of bread because his family was starving and his sister's child was close to death.
Valjean knows the sacrifice of 19 years being imprisoned and inhumanely identified as number 24601 under Javert's purview. Jean Valjean's life ambitions put on hold while paying a penalty to society, disproportionate to the actions he took under duress.
Javert spends the rest of his life pursuing Jean Valjean with a vengeance assuming Valjean is a criminal for life because he committed a relatively minor infraction of the law. Javert used intimidation to motivate Jean Valjean to discourage further infractions. "Do not forget my name. Do not forget me prisoner 24601."
We are at an inflection point in the story when Jean ValJean is upset because after release from prison he feels slighted and penalized for actions taken 20 or so years ago. Fired from a new job on a farm because the blemish on his past is discovered. Jean Valjean is payed half of what the other men get for the same work.
Struggle continues due to the mark of Cain on his character. He makes his way to a church and a bishop offers Jean Valjean nourishment coming from a place of charity, 'what we have, we have to share.' Left alone Jean Valjean steals a chalice worth twice what he was paid working on the farm.
Jean Valjean is quickly returned to the church by law enforcement, for stealing the silver cup.
In a remarkable moment of compassion the bishop tells Jean Valjean he forgot the silver candlesticks playing it off as if the items in question were given by our Bishop. By the kindness extended, Jean Valjean vows to take the bishops advice be become an instrument of God in his life.
JeanValjean rights his life and becomes successful in business and for all intents and purposes extends his own act of kindness by supporting a child named Cosette, a woman named Fantine is no longer able to provide for. Valjean sees a parellel to his families earlier struggles. The concession provide by the bishop was a turning point.
While Jean Valjean demonstrates he paid back his debts tenfold while Javert continues vengeful pursuit for rest of the store.
How long until debts to society are repaid?
And again -
When do criminal acts regardless of motivation fade into humanity?
The answers aren't known. However, they are being negotiated in real time while controversy is stirred to affect an outcome based on volatile emotional reaction without the accompanying rigor of debate. Debate was simpler in more homogeneous less dense geographic space. Advances in and easy access to transportation across oceans and continents combined with a more population density creates heterogeneity. Lack of continuity in shared experience and priorities creates conflict. As population exponentially increases, debate and agreement become far less likely and demands more effort that most are willing to make. Therein lies the harmony of humanity falling short of potential. Differences exist but often difficult to integrate due to conflict. There's a puzzle with more pieces than anyone knows what to do with, but not because completion is impossible. Because collective understanding how they belong together requires more work than most are willing to undertake.
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