Les Miserables has many detours of sorts, or rather pools of reflection at something or the other. Some sort of essays, thought-chains which explore some aspect of Paris, France, the world then. Sometimes, it is about revolutions, at other times, other ideas. I am in the last quarter of the book. When there is so much depth and thinking going on, it is difficult to keep reading quickly. One can do so with dialogues and the story lines, but essays need slower pace. Sharing a beautiful passage I read today, here below. This passage/view from somewhere in the middle of nineteenth century, a view of the world and a hope for the world to come.
"...And what revolution are we going to bring about? I just told you: the revolution of the True. From the political standpoint, there is only one principle: the sovereignty of man over himself. This sovereignty I have over myself is known as Liberty. Wherever two or more such sovereignties gather together, the State begins. But in this gathering together, there is no abdication. Each sovereignty concedes a certain portion of itself to form the common right. This portion is the same for all. The identical nature of the concession that each makes to all is known as Equality. Common right is nothing more nor less than the protection of all shining on the right of each. This protection of all over each is known as Fraternity. The point of intersection of all these aggregate sovereignties is known as Society. This intersection being a junction, the point is a node. Hence what is known as the social bond. Some say social contract; which is the same thing, the word contract being etymologically formed by the notion of a bond. Let's understand each other in regard to equality; for if liberty is the high point, equality is the base. Equality, citizens, is not the levelling of all the vegetation, a society of tall blades of grass and short oak trees, a community of envies leaping at each other's throats; it is, in civic terms, all aptitudes having the same opportunity; in political terms, all votes having the same weight; in religious terms, all consciences having the same right. Equality has an organ: free and compulsory education. The right to the alphabet - that's where we have to start. Primary school imposed on everyone, secondary school offered to everyone - that's the rule. From the school that is identical springs the equal society. Yes, education! Light! Light! Everything comes from light and everything comes down to it. Citizens, the nineteenth century is great, but the twentieth century will be happy. Then there will be nothing left of the old history; there will be no more fear, like there is today, of conquest, invasion, usurpation, rivalry between nations by force of arms, civilizations interrupted by some marriage of kings, a birth in the hereditary tyrannies, the division of nations by congress, dismemberment through the downfall of some dynasty, some battle between two religions going head to head, like two billy goats in the shadows, on the bridge of the infinite; they will not have to fear any more famine, exploitation, prostitution caused by distress, misery casued by unemployment, and the scaffold, and the blade, and battles and all the armed robberies casued by chance in the forest of events. People will be happy. The human race will live upto its law, just as the terrestrial globe lives up to its law; harmony will be reestablished between the soul and the star. The soul will gravitate around the truth, just as the star does around the light. Friends, the moment we have reached, this moment in which I am speaking to you, is a sombre moment; but this is the terrible price the future extracts. A revolution is a tollgate. Oh, the human race will be delivered, lifted up and consoled! We swear to it on this barricade. Where will the cry of love go up from if not from the height of sacrifice? O, my brothers, this is the very spot where those who think and those who suffer come together as one; this barricade is not made of cobblestones, or wooden beams, or scrap iron; it is made of two heaps, a heap of ideas and a heap of pain. Misery meets the ideal here. The day embraces the night here and says to it: I am going to die with you and you will be born again with me. From this embracing of all sorrows springs faith. Suffering brings its agony here, and ideas their immortality. This agony and this immortality are going to mingle and compose our death. Brother, whoever dies here dies in the radiance of the future, and we will enter a grave entirely lit up by dawn."
Perhaps a linking thought is that people seem to do the best from that is in front of them (building on K's idea). One can regard one's place in history, but there is little one can do about it. One can just play the road, do the next thing that seems like the best option. And with these steps, one by one, what we call the narrative of history is shaped.
But we often tend to forget of the way the world has been shaped. We live in the present with its good and bad, and forget how the world has changed, and evolved. And each step forward brings its own issues, yet, from the times - isn't it a better world for more people? Perhaps. While living in some sort of history, one cannot say much about anything, it is a moving thing, difficult to be a good judge. But it would be wanting on our part not to appreciate the way the world is today, not for everyone, but perhaps more people than ever before live in basic comfort and access never ever witnessed by perhaps even the kings of prior times. And yet, if one just takes a glance at sustainable development goals, and the inequality, our age has its own big battles to fight - from access to water to a freedom of being. And then after all this, after everything, after all this talk about progress, access, one wonders whether we have got the map itself wrong - when one looks at the malaise & some sort of mediocrity and an emptiness that excessive comfort breeds.
But these are conjectures. As noted above, one or an age perhaps does what seems like the best option at that point, and although hindsight loves to weave everything as a narrative or rationale, it is not a narrative, neither a rationale. Every point in time has its own decision matrix which other times cannot judge well. We can perhaps just be grateful for the deeds of the great people of any time. The shoulders of giants, as they say.