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Several years ago, I went through an Ibsen phase. I read all of his plays that I could get my hands on. The only play out of that great hoarding-moment that I haven't yet read is Peer Gynt. I've been saving it.
There is much to be said about Ibsen. I want to focus on one of his plays, An Enemy of the People (1882), which Ibsen wrote partly (or, probably more accurately, very much directly) in response to criticism that he received for his earlier play Ghosts (1881). That play centered on some issues that nineteenth century Norwegian society couldn't much appreciate—things like suffering from hereditary syphilis, sibling incest, and whether or not to opt for euthanasia.
Even today, in some parts of the world especially, these are still topics laden with controversy; for conservative audiences in Norway near the turn of the twentieth century, the play was an outrage. Ghosts, of course, is a great play, and is now considered to be among the best and most important of Ibsen's works. But little does that help the playwright, who had to sell performances of his works—and, for someone who was as much concerned with ideas as with aesthetics, he also sought to push the thoughts behind the plays. Ibsen can, in fact, come across rather crudely as a playwright, in the sense that neither his ideas nor their execution tend to be subtle. Some plays, like The Wild Duck (1884), are more nuanced—but An Enemy of the People is probably the best example of Ibsen raging at full throttle against what he thought he needed to rage against. In this case, the brunt of his sharp pen was borne by what are variously known as the masses, the majority, and society.
It is clear what Ibsen thought of the masses (who had failed to understand his work). Here is a little summary, taken from An Enemy of the People:
“I am in revolt against the age-old lie that the majority is always right.”
Fair enough. Now, again, and a little more vehemently:
“The majority is never right. Never, I tell you! That’s one of these lies in society that no free and intelligent man can help rebelling against. Who are the people that make up the biggest proportion of the population—the intelligent ones or the fools?”
Just to dig in a little more, and to clarify the stakes:
“The most dangerous enemy of the truth and freedom amongst us is the compact majority.”
“I have already told you that what I want to speak about is the great discovery I have made lately—the discovery that all the sources of our moral life are poisoned and that the whole fabric of our civic community is founded on the pestiferous soil of falsehood.”
And, just in case anyone were under the impression that the mighty Ibsen needed any of them:
“You see, the point is that the strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.”
Given the background to the play, An Enemy of the People can—and should, to some extent—be read autobiographically, as reflecting the situation and state of mind of the artist at the time. The above quotations, taken out of the context of the play, may as well have been jotted down by someone listening to Ibsen railing to a friend against his traditionalist, conformist, narrow-minded critics. Yet, to leave it at that would be doing the play an injustice; there is more to it than personal indignation.
An Enemy of the People takes place in a small spa town in southern Norway and chronicles the struggle of a medical officer, Dr. Stockmann, who dares to speak up for an unpalatable truth (and is ultimately punished for doing so). The tension of the play builds around the nature and revelation of this truth, which at first only takes the form of vague rumors, and on whether or not the truth will finally publicized. Word on the street is that Dr. Stockmann is ready to print a damning article about the spa baths. Given that the town largely relies on the spa baths for its income, it is in the town's best (read: economic) interest to hush and play down any potential problems with them. A newspaper has agreed to print Dr. Stockmann's article: the samples of the water that he had sent away to get tested have turned out, as he already suspected, to be contaminated. The article provides all the details. You would think—and Dr. Stockmann at first seems to believe and expect—that people will be happy to learn the truth about the baths. One might say that Dr. Stockmann saved the town...
This expectation turns out to be painfully misguided. People refuse to believe that the baths are really contaminated, political squabbles ensue, vested interests are exposed and squared up, and Dr. Stockmann slowly but steadily begins losing friends and erstwhile supporters left and right. He is warned that he is putting his family in jeopardy if he stands by publication of the article. The members of the newspaper office have their own reasons for printing the piece (to expose the town's corruption, to bring down the ruling elite, and so on), but they soon begin to question these motivations: in the end, is it really worth it to damage the town in this way?
Dr. Stockmann, fed up, decides that he doesn't need his article to be printed. He calls for a town meeting—speaking directly to the people is better anyway. He'll share the crucial information in this manner, and be done with it. No need to rely on the whims of the fickle printers. At the town meeting, instead of simply going ahead and relaying the information from his article, Dr. Stockmann feels the need first to go on a sustained rant about how important new ideas are held back by authoritative stupidity, about how the majority is never right, and so on (see above quotations for the gist). The audience, perhaps understandably, feels personally attacked and insulted, designates Dr. Stockmann an enemy of the people (there we have our title), and finally storms off. The next morning, we find ourselves in Dr. Stockmann's study, which has been shattered by the angry mob. His entire family suffers the consequences; no one will have anything to do with the Stockmanns, who are now banned and fired and shunned and whatnot. Dr. Stockmann's wife is scared that people will harm them, and urges her husband to heed the advice of one of their last well-wishers to leave town. Dr. Stockmann will have none of it: he's staying right where he is, the strongest man in town because he is all alone.
Ibsen did not straightforwardly identify with his protagonist. He actually took an ambiguous, rather skeptical view of him, thinking that he might have gone too far in his desire to get the truth out. Ibsen wrote to his publisher: "I am still uncertain as to whether I should call [An Enemy of the People] a comedy or a straight drama. It may [have] many traits of comedy, but it also is based on a serious idea." Perhaps the very nature of the act of taking the truth absolutely seriously is comical. Certainly, in this day and age—in the so-called post-truth era—the idea that someone would give themselves up entirely to The Truth seems funny (and would furthermore be translated quickly, I suppose, to something more like their Truth, for we generally no longer believe in The Things; only their things).
One of the most interesting questions, I think, is what a scientist ought to do—how far they ought to go—when they have knowledge about something particularly devastating. Especially when the public, and/or other institutions, are motivated to disbelieve or actively oppose this knowledge. This question is as relevant today as it was back in Ibsen's time. The most obvious case that comes to mind is that of climate change. In fact, substitute early scientists working on the effects of anthropogenic climate change for Dr. Stockmann, and you wouldn't be far off in terms of public reaction. (I wonder, incidentally, if anyone has more formally/systematically analyzed An Enemy of the People in this context. I think that it would be worth it.)
What to do with and about unpopular knowledge is a perennial problem for scientists as well as for other thinkers, not least those who seek to transcend the bounds of conventional morality. Think of Nietzsche and the sort of overcoming that he advocated of the old moral-religious remnants of Christianity, which, although no longer truly believed in, were still enacted by people. The nod to Nietzsche is not arbitrary—there is much of the German philosopher in Ibsen's play and general outlook. A favorite line from Thus Spoke Zarathustra would not look out of place in An Enemy of the People: "The higher we soar, the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly." You might imagine Dr. Stockmann thinking this to himself in his study. The greatest ideas are not (immediately) seen by everyone for what they are, precisely because they are great.
Morality seems to be and become more entrenched in people's lives than any other kinds of belief, and to change the shape that it takes—especially when wanting to change it both radically and widely—is one of the most difficult and problematic tasks that one can face. Yet there are many who believe precisely that this ought to be done. The greatest spurs to action tend to morally motivated. The key goes back to the initial question: how far ought one to go to try to overthrow systems or (re)educate? Dr. Stockmann uses no violence, which is as it should be. In a way, he does invite violence to come over his family, which is dubious. While he may be happy to receive the blunt force of public outrage, he cannot in the same way subject his family to it. If he doesn't protect himself, he should still wish to protect his loved ones.
Dr. Stockmann has his science, which was solid, and he thought he had to means to spread knowledge, which turned out to be unreliable. In the end, he will be vindicated, to the extent that the contaminated spa water will harm the town's inhabitants. Will they rue not having listened to him, then? In the end, Ibsen was vindicated, too. We still read his plays—and where are his critics? In the shadowiest shadows of history.
Perhaps Ibsen said it best in Ghosts: "It's not only what we have inherited from our father and mother that walks in us. It's all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have no vitality, but they cling to us all the same, and we can't get rid of them." It is up to the cultural analysts—the philosophers, the artists—to bring to light, if not to replace, these ideas.