Tonight, one of my grandsons is going with friends to see the wonderful musical ‘Les Miserables’. I’ve seen this great show several times, whenever my wife and I drive through France it is Les Mis that plays on the car’s audio system. And I think for everyone, one of the high spots of Les Mis is the gloriously funny (but so true) song “Master of the House” (see video) by the devious and thoroughly unpleasant innkeeper Monsieur Thénardier:
As I think of this song and read its words I cannot but think of the arch con-man and crook Donald Trump. Watch the video and it seems to me that we are watching a metaphor for American 2025. How well Trump has taken in half of America and how well he is using his misbegotten talents and usurpation of power to – in his words -“screw” the world. Monsieur Thénardier would have understood this well and admired Trump; they are two of a kind, each trying to pull a fast one over others for their own advantage. For that is what is at the root of transactional actions and at the root of the gambling man’s ethos; men like Trump sitting in smoke filled rooms playing poker, each trying to “screw” the other card sharps by whatever means fair or foul.
In this world, the world now being made real by Trump and Vance, there is no room for philanthropy or, more important, altruism. As the song tells us “Nothing gets you nothing” – that was the bleak message to President Zelenskyy. But, I ask, where would the world and mankind be without altruism – doing things for others just because they are the right thing to do, not for payment or other rewards. In the past other rich Americans such as Andrew Carnegie – an immigrant from Scotland gave away much of his wealth to good causes across America and the wider world. And what sort of world would we live in if people only did something for an agreed “pay back” – doctors, nurses, teachers, policemen, the man next door to an elderly neighbour, the woman police officer who arrives at a crime where someone has been badly injured? I don’t remember there being a transactional aspect, a deal being made by the Good Samaritan when he found the injured traveller on the road; the Good Samaritan didn’t look down at the injured man and say “You don’t have many good cards in your hand……so what’s in it for me if you want my help” as Donald Trump would undoubtedly have done.
Not
many weeks ago we watched firefighters in America working night and day, going
the extra mile to keep the blazes in Los Angeles under control. I would wager
not one of them thought of their pay back as they did this – it was their job
but above that it was the right thing to do and at that point in time payment
was not the thing they thought about. And at that time I seem to remember both
Mexico and Canada – two nations in the gun sight of Trump at the moment – sent
firefighters and equipment to California without asking for payment or payback;
they did it because it was the right thing to do. And, I read this morning “One
hundred and thirty six countries offered assistance to the USA in the aftermath
of 9/11 – America’s darkest hour – and none asked for their money back.” Mmmmm
– Trump and America might need to rethink their moral compass.
In the transactional, begger my neighbour, world of Donald Trump, a world without altruism the weakest “go to the wall”, the fires can rage or the towers tumble unless a “deal” can be made. Many Americans might not understand the aphorism “the weakest go to the wall” but it tells us much. It dates from mediaeval times when many of the great English and European churches and cathedrals were constructed. In those long past days churches were not only places of worship but gathering places – markets might be set up, people might go there for warmth and protection and they could often be very full of people. It became the custom to build a ledge, a seat running around the walls of the nave of the church where the old, the infirm, the weak could go and sit away from the crowded central area – “the weakest go to the wall”.
In
the world of Trump, Vance and Monsieur Thénardier nothing is free - as the
innkeeper sings: “nothing gets you nothing, everything has got a little price”
- and within that, the law of the jungle operates, where dog eats dog, man eats
man; the basic courtesies, dignities and humanities - as we saw from Trump and
Vance in the Oval Office last week - cease to exist. Then, only a few survive. The
weakest may wish to go to the wall for a seat and for safety but they will find
no Good Samaritan. Instead they will find a Trump or Thénardier demanding to see their hand of cards before a
deal might be made and a seat be given. And, if it continues, the very rule of
law breaks down for there ceases to be a point where there can be common
agreement upon what is the right thing to do, and what is right and what is
wrong. And at that point, common humanity ceases.
Seventy years ago this year the great American novelist Jack Kerouac published his iconic and seminal work "On the Road" - a book that arguably changed the world (including me). In that book he posed the question "Whither goest thou America in thy shiny car in the night....". American needs to ask itself that hard question now in 2025.
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