"In The Temple And Marketplace"

Atheism doesn’t bother me, in and of itself. It’s a weird world, and occasionally a cruel one, and I guess I can understand how one can look at it and conclude, coldly and rationally, that there isn’t a God up above. The multitude of gods that we as people are privileged, for the first time, with easy access to must seem a bit like a cosmic buffet to the discerning atheist. The hubbub in heaven and the crowds in Paradise, the wealth of a dozen dozen omnipotent entities stretching across the skies, leaves me feeling rather disillusioned when I think about it. As a culture, we are dealing for the first time with the idea of living in a global community, where everyone’s beliefs are thrust nakedly into the public sphere for all to see and gawk at. I can’t say that I would malign anyone for choosing, in such a crowded marketplace, not to buy into anything at all.

I guess what I have a problem with is militant atheism, the sort of belief that seeks not only to repudiate all forms of faith in a higher power, organized or otherwise, from one’s own heart, but strives towards a larger goal. This sort of atheism, it seems to me, is dedicated to cutting away at and tearing down the sanctity and the holiness that generally goes along with religion, and stripping it of every veneration that it is possible to take away. It is a philosophy of unrelenting cynicism, not just about the present day and the value of religion in it, but about whether the institution of religion might ever have had value. You know these people, just as I do; those who mock Christians for venerating a man two thousand years dead, and those who cackle gleefully whenever a new religious scandal breaks, for whom it has become fashionable to scoff at God and those who pray to Him.

I sometimes wonder what our generation, of which I am indelibly a part, of pampered, disaffected, agnostically inclined middle-class American children will look like when middle age sets in. Will we have come around and reluctantly accepted the religions of our parents? Will we maintain our aggressive atheism, and eventually become the first generation to insist en masse that no crosses be raised over our headstones? Or will we create something entirely new out of this mishmash of beliefs we are confronted with?

It would be rather impolite of me, somewhere in all this polemicizing, to fail to mention my own beliefs. I am a Jew, and I am proud that I was raised as one, and there is very little about the holidays and the culture and the assorted mishegas of the most cantankerous religion of all that I do not hold close to my heart. At the same time, I don’t hold strictly to all of Jewish belief, and feel that it doesn’t violate the spirit of Judaism to accept and consider all other beliefs that I come across. Above all, I don’t believe that you have to accept a particular belief system, nor to conform to ideas that are thousands of years old, to call yourself a Muslim or a Christian or a Hindu or a Jew. Sticking to the basics of kindness and understanding towards the people you meet, I believe, is enough. The religion of today is individualistic, and the role of our spiritual leaders has changed from shepherd to wilderness guide. Instead of herding a passive group of souls to one particular vision of Paradise, I prefer to think of today’s rabbis and priests and imams as giving us the skills to find our way in the wilderness, and trusting that each of us will end up in time at the spot that is best for us.

Jean Valjean is the Most Dumbfoundingly Lucky Character Ever (Also, 100th Post! Hooray!)

Hey! So, happy 100th post, all ye viewers! According to the Stats button on my page, people have looked at my disconcertingly incoherent ramblings just over 5,700 times since this thing went up, and for that I can only (humbly) say, thank you kindly for reading.

For today's topic, we have one of the downright coolest characters from the most popular musical on Wooster campus, behind Rent anyway: Jean Valjean! It occurred to me not too long ago, that if you set aside the nineteen years he spends off-screen in a French jail, he might just be the luckiest goddamn character I have ever seen.

Just so we're clear, I'm not discounting the "nineteen years a slave of the law", or the years and years offscreen where he's presumably looking over his shoulder every five minutes for Javert. I get that part, and I get that it stinks. But if you shave off the pre-play, what you find is a staggeringly lucky man.

Consider the following:

**ALL KINDS OF SPOILERS BELOW**

At the beginning of the play, Valjean is paroled from prison and struggles to find work. But just when he's most desperate, a kindly bishop takes him in, feeds him and gives him a place to sleep. Valjean repays him by robbing the joint and escaping. He's subsequently caught by the French police and dragged in front of the bishop, who's in every position to press charges... but the bishop not only lets Valjean go, he gives him the stolen goods outright, plus extra silver candlesticks. (And converts him to Christianity to boot.)

Several years later, we run into Valjean again, who is now a wealthy factory owner and mayor, living the good life under an assumed name. (Presumably, his opponent in the mayoral election didn't think to ask where the hell this guy came from.) He only has one nagging problem: he's still wanted for parole-breaking, and somewhere out there, police inspector Javert is hunting him down. Lo and behold, he runs into Javert, who... doesn't even recognize him. And as if that weren't enough to tell Valjean he's safe, Javert then tells him that they've already 'caught' Valjean and are putting him on trial. Putting a patsy in jail in Valjean's place would clear his name permanently. Fate has given him a literal get-out-of-jail-free card.

Of course, Valjean is a principled man and rejects the offer. Fair enough. So what happens? Does he go to court? To prison? Are there any consequences for him? Nope; he overpowers Javert and gets away scot-free.

Much later, we meet Valjean again in Paris, who has apparently retained his wealth and raised Cosette to adulthood (the fact that his social class doesn't change after he reveals his identity is why I don't have "losing the factory and the mayoralty" under the 'consequences' thing up there. Clearly, it didn't affect his wealth that much). He runs into Javert again, but escapes again. Later, a band of vandals plan to rob his house, but their plans are thwarted by other characters without Valjean ever lifting a hand.

Now here's where it gets really interesting. Through a complicated series of events, Valjean ends up joining the student resistance in the streets of Paris. For some reason, he decides to go up and talk to them while wearing a French army uniform. Unknown to Valjean, they've just captured Javert (who was working as a spy inside their ranks) and are thus not in the best of moods. And he's walking right up to the barricade, bold as brass and wearing a French Army Uniform.

Somehow, not only do the students not shoot him dead in the street, they give him a rifle and a chance to fight on the barricade. He does, doesn't get hurt, earns the trust of Enjolras in the process, and as a reward receives custody of Javert. Here is another time where Fate has given Valjean a huge opportunity that he's too principled to take; instead of offing Javert, he sets him free.

In another, later, fight on the barricade, literally everyone there is killed--except Valjean and the person there who is most important to him, namely Marius, who he saves. An uninjured Valjean escapes with Marius, encounters Javert in the sewers, and once again avoids arrest or really any penalty at all. Moreover, Javert kills himself soon afterwards, removing any danger of arrest (because Valjean basically became Javert's obsession, and it seems like nobody else in the French police really cared about one parole-breaker from two decades ago). Valjean himself dies of old age soon afterwards, with his daughter and her fiancé by his side, safe in bed, with the knowledge that his greatest fear (that his past will rise up and taint his daughter's life) will not come to pass.

 (And they get to sing this song.)

Sounds like a pretty charmed life, wouldn't you say? Especially when you consider how many other characters in this play meet their death by violence.

Enjolras and Valjean are Kinda Jackasses

Whooo! Hello again, blogosphere, I survived the weekend. Among the many highlights of my Friday and Saturday was an epic production of Les Miserables in Cleveland's Playhouse Square theater. For a lot of the show, I was scribbling down random notes on paper I happened to have, and here's a couple things I came up with during the course of the show.

-I've always been fascinated by Enjolras. I've always been fascinated by characters that are one-dimensional just in general. I suppose that's because they're so patently unrealistic, but when you try to imagine meeting them in real life, it makes you wonder: what the hell happened in Enjolras's past that he so detests the regime? What exactly is it that drives him? We don't know, and that makes him kind of fascinating.

-Be that as it may, Enjolras is a jackass. So, to an extent, is Jean Valjean, and so is Javert. All of them seem to be engaged in a discussion of abstract moral ideals, and all of them seem forget about the people they're supposed to be fighting for or protecting. It's easy to see with Javert; he's committed to upholding the law, but not to protecting the people the law is meant to serve. But in the production I saw, Valjean is guilty of this as well. When a broken Fantine reveals her story after being beaten by Javert, instead of comforting her, Valjean's reaction is that he screwed up again. By ejecting Fantine from his factory, Valjean ruined her life, and he defaults to the thought "I have a duty to make up for this sin". He sort of forgets that Cosette is a person who needs rescuing, instead of just an animate way for him to redeem himself.

Meanwhile, Enjolras funnels everything that happens in the play into the revolution. When Lamarque's death is announced, there's no mourning or tears, for his death doesn't affect the upper-class revolutionaries. "Lamarque is dead/His death is the hour of fate", announces Enjolras, and the ABC Café boils. Eponine is even worse; shot by a police sniper, she was on a mission from Marius that had nothing to do with the revolution, but Enjolras turns her name into a battle cry. They never spoke while she was alive, but after her death, now she's important.

 
There's a rather obvious disconnect between the revolutionaries and the poor people that they claim to represent, and Enjolras is right in the middle of it. Marius speaks more truth than he knows when he says "Only one man, and that's Lamarque/Speaks for the people here below". The revolutionaries, privileged college students who have never known poverty, certainly don't speak for the poor. Instead of backing reforms, aid for the ill and sick, soup kitchens and the like, the denizens of the ABC Café turn to revolution and ultimately end up helping no one. There was a striking scene in this production during "Look Down", where several of the beggars gather around Enjolras. They're on their knees, looking up at him and waiting for some hope, and he's blathering on about "anger in the land" and "cut[ting] the fat ones down to size". You look at the beggars and it's perfectly obvious; they couldn't care less about his message, they want to eat!

It's telling that "Look Down" begins with the beggars' cry for someone to notice them--"Look down and see the beggars at your feet... Look down, look down, upon your fellow man", but ends the exact same way, even after the students have shown up and been duly appalled at the injustice. It just goes to show how little impact the students actually had on the 'squalid streets of Paris'. Taken in this context, it's hardly surprising that Enjolras's hoped-for revolution never came. The people never arose; the authorities were correct ("No one is coming to help you to fight/You're on your own"). Disconnected from the people they claimed to be fighting for, the students died alone on the barricade. Enjolras cries "Do you hear the people sing/Singing the song of angry men?", but the only people singing are the revolutionaries. "Finale" is where the true desire of the downtrodden-hope, and freedom, and spiritual salvation-finally comes through.