Jean Valjean And Javert

From Campaign For Liberty:

Jean Valjean and Javert


By Jerry Salcido

View all 12 articles by Jerry Salcido

Published 09/17/10



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Jean Valjean and Javert



Have you read Les Misérables? It is a book for the ages, a true classic. Every virtue and every vice that can bless or plague an individual, society, or government is demonstrated and explained in great detail through the experiences of wonderfully complex characters.



As you may know, the two dominant characters are Jean Valjean and Javert, the former being a reformed ex-convict, the latter an obdurate state detective. I'm sure many have written about what Jean Valjean and Javert represent and I believe a million analogies could be made, but of the many apparent parallels I found in Jean Valjean and Javert a dichotomy between freedom and its enemy, force, often carried out through its vehicle, the state. Freedom is of course embodied by Jean Valjean, with the state personified by Javert.



Jean Valjean was in prison for nearly two decades for stealing a loaf of bread and for subsequent attempts at escape. His imprisonment and release makes him hopeless and he accepts himself as a felon and an evil man. Surprisingly, he is shown kindness by a bishop who allows him to stay in his home for the night, but having convinced himself of his own degeneracy Jean Valjean steals the bishop's silverware. Jean Valjean is arrested and brought back to the bishop the next day, but the bishop tells the police officers that he gifted the silverware to Jean Valjean. The bishop also gives Jean Valjean his only prized possession, silver candlesticks, and tells Jean Valjean to use them to become an honest man. The bishop's kindness troubles Jean Valjean, but despite that experience Jean Valjean steals money from a young chimney sweep later that day. It is at that moment that Jean Valjean realizes what he has become, and horrified, he commits to gain redemption and do good thereafter. The problem, however, is that this last criminal act makes him a wanted man and he is forced into a life of evading the law.



Jean Valjean subsequently changes his name and invents a manufacturing process for beads which is cheaper and more efficient than the competition and consequently brings him great wealth. He builds factories, employs young women who have no other options for employment, gives his millions to charities, helps the poor at every step, and revives a flailing regional economy. The people beg him to be their mayor; he refuses only to submit later at the continued insistence of the people.



Javert came to know Jean Valjean when Jean Valjean was in prison. He does not recognize Jean Valjean the mayor, but ends up working for Jean Valjean as one of the city's police inspectors. Javert believes he recognizes Jean Valjean and dedicates himself to finding out whether he is the ex-convict who is now wanted by the state.



Javert cares nothing for the good that Jean Valjean has done. He has no respect for how Jean Valjean helps the poor or employs hundreds of people. The only thing he cares about is that the state must take Jean Valjean's liberty to satisfy the demands of the law. A Jean Valjean look-alike is arrested in Jean Valjean's place, and Javert is moved off of the real Jean Valjean's scent. At the trial of the Jean Valjean look-alike, Jean Valjean admits before the tribunal that he is the real Jean Valjean and that the man who is arrested is innocent.



Javert arrests Jean Valjean and as you can imagine the factories Jean Valjean built stop producing and rust away. His employees lose their well-paying jobs and become poverty stricken. The poor he helped no longer have relief. The region falls into a depression. Everything that one productive individual was able to create disappears by a simple act of the state.



Jean Valjean escapes from prison and goes into hiding. Javert stays close on his heels and over the years they have near run-ins, but ultimately it is not until many years later that they once again come face to face, except this time Jean Valjean has the upper hand. Javert has been captured by revolutionaries who are intent on overthrowing the monarchy and installing a republic and they have condemned Javert to death. Jean Valjean arrives on the scene of the insurgency with a personal mission to save his daughter's betrothed, who is one of the revolutionaries. When Jean Valjean sees that Javert is the insurgents' captive he asks for the privilege of killing Javert. Of course Jean Valjean, a redeemed man, has no such intent, and instead lets Javert go free.



Jean Valjean's kindness confuses Javert and forces Javert to question his entire life as he has served only one master, the state, and the state does not incorporate love, mercy, or kindness, yet that is exactly what Jean Valjean showed Javert. Only hours later Javert once again runs into Jean Valjean, who is carrying his daughter's nearly dead fiancé. Javert arrests Jean Valjean, but troubled by Jean Valjean's show of mercy, lets him go free.



Not knowing what to make of what he has done in letting Jean Valjean go or in what Jean Valjean did in sparing his life, Javert faces the possibility for the first time that there may be a higher power than the state, and this torments him. He wonders at whether he has been serving the wrong master, because he knows that according to the state he must arrest Jean Valjean, but to do so would create a great injustice in that Jean Valjean just spared his life and is a good man who continually does good to others. Finding no way to reconcile the requirements of the state with the requirements of his newly discovered higher law, Javert ultimately decides to throw himself into the rapids of a raging river, killing himself.



One must ask if the revelation that the state is not the end-all be-all of existence was really so terrible to Javert that he had to resort to suicide to escape the implications of this newly discovered information. Simply put, yes. Javert's world turned upside down in finding that every decision he ever made may not have been absolutely right and that what he thought was his god, the state, was in fact a farce.



We see Javerts all around us today. To them the state is a god. Nothing surpasses it. Look at the Javerts in our government. They do not act in our best interests because their god is the state and that is what they serve. They believe that they are serving the highest power in every decision they make, and therefore, the consequences of their actions are unimportant. Javert did not care when he single handedly ruined an entire regional economy, put hundreds of people out of work, and caused general distress to many people. He was doing his duty. He was serving the state, and therefore, he was doing what was right. Likewise, the Javerts of today start wars, rob people of their property, and micromanage individuals' lives through laws because they believe that by so doing they are serving their god.



These Javerts of the world are very dangerous because they truly are convinced that they are serving an infallible god, and their religion is force. When someone believes he is doing what is right he is able to commit social and individual havoc without remorse of conscience. As Voltaire observed, "As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities." Such is the case with Javerts. They allow liberty and freedom to be supplanted by the state. They believe that liberty is something that can properly be given, controlled, and taken away by the state. Is it any wonder that we are engaged in perpetual war and have the type of foreign and domestic policies that we do when our leaders maintain such an absurd philosophy?



But it isn't just our representatives who ascribe to the Javertian thought process. American Joe is allowing his own rational and logical capabilities to be replaced by what the state mandates. Rather than asking whether a policy is in conformance with correct principles he relies on a cop out that the law is the law -- there is no right or wrong when it is the law we are talking about. He seems to have taken for truth what Reverend Lovejoy from The Simpsons said: "Once the government approves something, it's no longer immoral!"



On the bright side, in spite of the many Javerts we encounter more people are discovering that Javertianism is deeply flawed. More people are finding that liberty is the only true path because when people are left free, like Jean Valjean, they produce and provide not only for themselves but for others as well. When left free, the Jean Valjeans of the world do good. They create businesses, they help the poor, and they act for the betterment of self and society. It is the Jean Valjeans of the world who fill the coffers of charities, the dinner plates of the hungry, and the prescriptions of the sick. Most importantly, it is the Jean Valjeans who keep people free because they are not interested in force -- they are interested in the well being of others.



We live in exciting times, because although there will always be Javerts, more Jean Valjeans are entering the scene and even some Javerts are transforming into Jean Valjeans. Some Javerts are discovering, like the Javert did, that there are higher powers, such as natural rights, that transcend the state, and that the focus should be on preserving those higher powers. Jean Valjean ultimately will be, just as in Les Misérables, victorious, and Javert will be forced to self destruct. So here's to you, Jean Valjeans.







Copyright © 2010 Jerry Salcido