Les Miserables and Justice

Then his heart burst, and he began to cry. It was the first time that he had wept in nineteen years.

When Jean Valjean left the Bishop's house, he was, as we have seen, quite thrown out of everything that had been his thought hitherto. He could not yield to the evidence of what was going on within him. He hardened himself against the angelic action and the gentle words of the old man. "You have promised me to become an honest man. I buy your soul. I take it away from the spirit of perversity; I give it to the good God."

This recurred to his mind unceasingly. To this celestial kindness he opposed pride, which is the fortress of evil within us. He was indistinctly conscious that the pardon of this priest was the greatest assault and the most formidable attack which had moved him yet; that his obduracy was finally settled if he resisted this clemency; that if he yielded, he should be obliged to renounce that hatred with which the actions of other men had filled his soul through so many years, and which pleased him; that this time it was necessary to conquer or to be conquered; and that a struggle, a colossal and final struggle, had been begun between his viciousness and the goodness of that man.

- Victor Hugo in Les Miserables

Watching the Discovery Channel one evening, I found out something I never would have thought about. The orbit and rotation of the Earth create hot and cold currents that interact and create streams in the seas. Baitfish and plankton follow these streams as the seasons change. This is why whales migrate.

It helps to peer beyond the skin-deep observations we make and rash value judgments that arise from them. Often things are not as they seem on the surface.

That is why the value of justice is vastly overrated. The greatest assault on pride, hatred, and hardness of heart is the unconditional pardon and kindness of one who is other. Our mind tells us that tit-for-tat, exhortation, carrot-and-stick straight-line power and manipulation are the answers to change. It turns out that this is not the case. Thank God for penetrating thinkers like Hugo who re-orient our often skin-deep observations.- DOB