Lessons from “Les Mis” in the Age of Trump

Last updated on: October 25, 2016 at 10:44 am by Carl Gregg

Lessons from “Les Mis” in the Age of Trump 2016-10-25T10:44:08-04:00 Carl Gregg

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Les Misérables premiered on Broadway in 1987, after earlier versions in France and London. I first encountered Les Mis in the early ‘90s. My church youth group took at trip to New York City that included seeing Les Mis. I had never paid attention to the musical before—other than seeing the ubiquitous t-shirts with the image of Cosette on the front. But after seeing the musical live in New York City, suddenly all of my peers were listening not only to the 1987 Original Broadway Cast recording, but also — if you were really cool — the 1989 3-CD Complete Symphonic Recording, featuring the entire score.

Perhaps because the musical’s title is often abbreviated — or because I never learned French — but it was a while before I appreciated that the full title of this musical, Les Misérables, literally translates as “The Miserable Ones.” More loosely translated, Les Misérables could be rendered as “The Poor Ones,” “The Wretched Poor,” “The Victims,” or “The Dispossessed.” I recently had the occasion to re-listen to “Les Mis” as part of a Music Sunday at the congregation where I serve as minister, and the musical led me to reflect anew about the desire for change that has emerged on both the left and right during this presidential election season.

Dorothy Day said that the problem is our “acceptance of this lousy, rotten system.” Part of what she meant is that we too often accept that the way things are is the way things have to be. The truth is that paradigms shift, revolutions happen, and things can, have, and will continue to change. In the U.S., we seek to use our democratic process to make the system less “lousy” and “rotten” and more “just.”

That word democracy combines two Greek roots: demos (meaning “people”) and kratos (meaning “power” or “rule”). So democracy literally means, “power to the people.” The opposite is an aristocracy (“rule by an elite.”) Or in a more extreme form: prior to the French Revolution, one person (the king) ruled by an absolute monarchy. And his tyranny inspired the French Revolutionary cry for “liberté, égalité, fraternité.” Challenging the “divine right of kings,” the people demanded liberty, equality, and a respect for our common humanity. That demand for social and economic justice echoes in the chorus “Do You Hear the People Sing?”

Perhaps the biggest misconception about the musical is that it is set during the French Revolution. La grande revolution started in 1789 and includes all those famous moments such as attacking the Bastille and Marie-Antoinette facing the guillotine. But the insurrection featured in the musical is the 1832 June Rebellion in Paris, more than three decades after the end of the French Revolution. Victor Hugo witnessed that 1832 insurrection personally: “He walked the streets of Paris, saw the barricades blocking his way at points, and had to take shelter from gunfire” (Robb 173-4).

In the end, the 1832 Paris Uprising was a failed revolution. Most of the insurrectionists, many of them young students, lost their lives in the struggle, but in the words of the poet Seamus Heaney:

once in a lifetime

The longed-for tidal wave

Of justice can rise up,

And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change

On the far side of revenge.

Believe that further shore

Is reachable from here.

Historically, we began to witness increasing “power to the people” with the 1688 Glorious Revolution in England, the 1776 American Revolution, and the 1789 French Revolution.

But it’s important to remember that many of our nation’s founders — those leaders of the American Revolution against the tyranny of the British monarchy— those same American revolutionaries were also wary of giving too much power to the people. To take just one example, we did not have a direct election of senators until 1912—well over a century after the Revolutionary War. Prior to the 14th Amendment, the senate was seen by our country’s elites as a necessary balance to the more volatile, directly-elected House of Representatives.

I noted earlier that word democracy (demos + kratos) means “people power.” A related word from the ancient Greek that is once again relevant in our current political landscape is demagoguery (demos + agein, “to lead”). A demagogue is someone who seeks to lead people by “manipulating popular prejudices, making false claims and promises, and building arguments based on emotion rather than reason.” So while “Les Mis” can lead us to get caught up in cheering the students bravely storming the barricades in the struggle of liberty, equality, and our common humanity, that same angry discontent can also be cynically enflamed into mob violence, which we’ve seen happening at political rallies in our own country.

Be wary of political leaders who seek liberty, equality, and humanity only for some and not for all, who seek to divide us against one another instead of affirming the worth and dignity of all. Can you hear the call to solidarity with all of humanity? Even when we are tempted to look away or move quickly past, do you hear them? Do you see them: the miserable ones of this earth, the dispossessed. Those who are longing to be free? “Do You Hear the People Sing?”

The author, educator, and activist Parker Palmer has written an important recent essay titled, “Will Fascism Trump Democracy?” He concluded with the final stanzas of a poem by W. H. Auden titled “September 1, 1939”: “That’s the date [less than 80 years ago] on which Germany invaded Poland, launching a war fueled by a fascism more virulent than most Americans imagined possible.” Auden’s poem was published the next year in 1940, but its words continue to resonate today. Reflecting on the unexpected rise of fascism in his day, Auden wrote:

All I have is a voice

To undo the folded lie,

The romantic lie in the brain

Of the sensual man-in-the-street

And the lie of Authority

Whose buildings grope the sky:

There is no such thing as the State

And no one exists alone;

Hunger allows no choice

To the citizen or the police;

We must love one another or die.

Do you hear the people sing?

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