The actual chapter at hand is focused on the fact that Myriel was not a political activist of any sort. Though an orientation toward caring for those most in need may be seen as political, for Myriel it was just a matter of following Christ. What I actually want to think about here today is a comment made in passing in the text.
As a brief aside, after commenting on Myriel’s own poverty and it’s relation to his work with the poor (despite the fact that Myriel could have lived more lavishly) Hugo says the following:
Let it be said in passing that the hatred of luxury is not a sensible hatred. It implies a hatred of the arts. But in a churchman, outside his rites and ceremonies, luxury is a defect.
The connection that Hugo draws between a “hatred” for luxury and a “hatred” for the arts is an interesting one. First I don’t think it inconsequential that he uses the word hatred. It moves the conversation away from one of the lines of excess and opulence in the direction of a binary rigidity. It also ties that same binary connection to the arts. As a result, this false dichotomy is created where the arts have an intrinsic connection to luxury and a step away from excess and opulence is a dangerous step in the direction of hating or destroying the arts. By implication, a love of the arts requires a love of luxury, maybe even by extension, the inference that art is for, and potentially only a product of, those who have access to luxury.
This is surely a product of Hugo’s own position within his culture and the realities of the times he was living in - but it’s not a far cry from how some people think in the 21st century. Just today my kids were watching an episode of “Real Housewives of Dubai” and one of the housewives made a comment along the lines of “I have a real understanding and appreciation of luxury” as though that provided some sort of reason why she should have this special access to extreme opulence while the working class in her city, the ones actually building (often in very unsafe conditions) all of the monuments to excess find themselves cramming into tiny apartments with their other (mostly immigrant) coworkers just to survive. The darkside of what she was saying is “there are those who do not understand or appreciate luxury and it would be wasted on them.” Put more crassly, it’s very close to saying “poor people were born to be poor and rich people were born to be rich, and who are we to challenge that order of things?”
The idea that being opposed to that kind of opulence and excess is somehow an opposition to the arts is terrible. Art and creativity are a natural part of who we are, and some of the best stories told and the best music made come from people living in extreme poverty. The concentration of “the arts” with the wealthy who live luxuriously is more about time and control than anything else. Art should be for the commons.
I love a lot of what Hugo has to say in this novel so far, but damn - the “you can’t love art without defending opulence and luxury” take is a transparently terrible one. Sorry Hugo, you’re wrong.
It makes me think of the beauty that we’ve already noted Myriel was so keen to surround himself with - not opulence or luxury, but his flower garden and his view that beauty has it’s own value. That’s where art falls - valuable in and of itself, not because it’s a symbol of luxury.