Not all the people are to blame of course; nor are they all directly at fault in Ibsen’s play, despite the good doctor’s diatribe against democracy in the fourth act. To the degree they are at fault, it is that they put their trust in leaders who really care about only their own interests, not any real public good.

First performed (in Norwegian) in 1883, Ibsen’s play is set in a small town recently revitalized by tourism from putatively healthful “baths”, a project originated by Dr. Stockman, and actually built and financed by his brother, the mayor, and various other wealthy town leaders. The doctor, as naive scientist, belatedly discovers that the new construction has led to contamination and some work will have to be re-done, or bathers will be sicker, not healthier, for having come. To the doctor the course of action is obvious – we have a problem we have to fix immediately, and he at first feels a hero for his discovery. The town leaders, including his brother, see only extra expense to satisfy the silly doctor’s imagination – these microbes are invisible after all. And worse, they see the doctor’s noise-making driving away the town livelihood!

Various other characters in the town, including a newspaper editor, seem pulled one way and then another trying to ingratiate themselves with, while themselves influencing, the mass of public opinion. This inconstant venality is emphasized in the last act, after the doctor has been declared an “enemy of the people” – all those who heap injustices on his family “dare not” do otherwise, for fear of public opinion.

But the part I remember most from reading the play in college 20 years back is this call for the advance of truth against majority opinion, from the middle of the doctor’s rant against the “masses”:

The truths of which the masses now
approve are the very truths that the fighters at the outposts
held to in the days of our grandfathers. We fighters at the
outposts nowadays no longer approve of them; and I do not believe
there is any other well-ascertained truth except this, that no
community can live a healthy life if it is nourished only on such
old marrowless truths.

Who are modern analogs of the good Dr. Stockman, who only hoped to bring out truths necessary to advance the public good? Bruce Sterling gives a pretty good rant on the subject – herewith some modern candidates for “enemy of the people” (or in modern terms, “hater of America”):

• Dr. Robert T. Watson, of the World Bank, fired as chair of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
• Elizabeth Blackburn, stem cell research advocate, fired from the US President’s Council on Bioethics.
• Dr. James Zahn, formerly of the US Dept. of Agriculture, personally censored by USDA superiors from talking about his research on airborne microbial contamination.
• Bruce Boler, formerly an Environmental Protection Agency representative in Southwest Florida – Boler resigned in protest after being forced to approve projects that harmed the environment he was supposed to be protecting.
• Jack Spadaro, demoted within the US Mine Safety and Health Administration, after criticizing the government’s investigation (of which he was a part) of an immense slurry spill in Kentucky in 2000.
• My old professor Dr. Kurt Gottfried, with the Union of Concerned Scientists – ok, he hasn’t been fired or demoted: maybe he’s not speaking out enough yet!
• Rodney Rocha, NASA engineer concerned about Columbia’s return, whose request for photographic inspections was denied.
• Colin Campbell, “peak oil” prognosticator
• Hans Blix – the inspectors did their job well, there were no WMD’s.
• US Marine Scott Ritter and former weapons inspector – he knew there were no WMD’s too.
• FBI September-11th whistleblower Coleen Rowley.
• Richard Clarke, who warned the incoming Bush administration to focus on terror (ignored until too late), and later become a token cybersecurity czar, resigning after failing to influence any real progress on the issue.
• Sherron Watkins, Enron financial whistleblower (except she told the truth to the wrong people…)
• Ok, I can’t resist one politician here: Dr. Howard Dean – rejected by the people of America for his outspokenness on many topics we ought to be caring about…

There are more, but not nearly enough. Who else is willing to combat public opinion, to speak out, very likely to their own detriment, on the truths their “leaders” don’t want heard?

But, you say, maybe some of these brave men and women are just wrong? Maybe they had their own venal purposes – a quest for notoriety, perhaps? Or to at least sell their own books? There certainly are some hucksters out there, perhaps a few of those on my list. So how do we tell, between the false prophets and the true?

Perhaps there’s no easy answer. But think about it for yourself, read up on this stuff, look into your own heart, and above all, ignore as far as you can the media spin, which always favors popular opinion over truth.

And remember, as Dr. Stockman says at the end of Ibsen’s play:

The strongest
man in the world is he who stands most alone.