1/3: On cities taking in migrants, many of rough and uncertain character, at high cost & safety risk to themselves.
Hypothesis: Think of the priest in the powerful early scene of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables and the Broadway play and Hollywood movie. …
2/3: The priest takes in a debased and unknown-to-him Jean Valjean, recently escaped from brutalizing prison—and gives him food and shelter at risk to himself and his assistants—and allows him to steal property belonging to the parish—and lies about it to the police, saying it was a gift.
3/3: The priest represents the moral tradition that says the needs of others requires that you bear any cost and risk to yourself.
That is: (1) Selfless (the self is of less value), (2) Sacrifice (net loss to self), (3) for benefit of Others.
So: I wonder how much Les Misérables’s cultural influence is at work in the migrant crisis.
Good point.
And another reason why I have not been enamored of this book/play/movie.