An Enemy Of The People is a play written by Henrik Ibsen in 1882. It was originally written in Norwegian and I've always meant to read a straight translation of the work but as of now have only read the version found in this book, which is the adaptation done by Arthur Miller in the 1950's. Why is this less than ideal? Well, because Miller was who he was- an avowed leftist- who interpreted the protagonist in a certain way, and removed anything "problematic" which would dispute that interpretation.
Arthur Miller wrote, of course, The Crucible (1953), using the Salem Witch trials as an allegory for "McCarthyism", the US government's hunt for communists, most famously in Hollywood. The difference being that, while there were no actual witches in Salem, there certainly were communists- in Hollywood and elsewhere- who were up to no good. So while one might argue about means and methods, let's not kid ourselves here. Even when Miller attacked former friend Elia Kazan for naming names, he didn't deny what was going on; he merely called Kazan a "stool pigeon": "a person who provides privileged information, or (usually damaging) information intended to be intimate, concealed, or secret, about a person or organization to an agency, often a government or law enforcement agency". In any case, this was the lens through which Miller would, like so many others in the arts, view every bit of opposition or from then on: "McCarthyism!" reflexively being screeched whenever there was any pushback to whatever degeneracy was being championed. Miller even tried to say that Bill Clinton being investigated for having sex with an intern in the Oval Office was another "witch hunt". He was quickly challenged by Christopher Hitchens- no conservative- for this ludicrous suggestion; Hitchens went on to point out that, for someone so hyped about witch hunts silencing artists, Miller was curiously silent about the fatwa on Salman Rushdie. But of course, Miller was an infamous adulterer himself, having abandoned his wife and children to run off with Marilyn Monroe, so perhaps he just felt sympathy for Clinton. And whatever you think of Joseph McCarthy, he wasn't very likely to come leaping out at anyone- even a commie- with a machete or explosive fanny pack.
Miller was adapting this play only a few years after the end of World War II, and to his credit, was horrified by Dr. Stockmann's (Ibsen's) statements on the topic. But, as is so often the case with those devoted to a particular world view, he was unable to entertain the thought- or at least, admit to entertaining it- that someone he regarded as a brother in arms, so to speak, in the progressive cause could also hold abhorrent beliefs. Besides communism, of course, which is abhorrent in its own special way. So Miller dealt with this moral conundrum by simply removing the problematic passages from the play. This is one of them:
Miller's justification for this was that Ibsen couldn't possibly have meant what he said because- wait for it- he was a feminist. I almost laughed out loud when I read this (it's in Miller's introduction to his adaptation):
"In light of genocide, the holocaust that has swept our world on the wings of the black ideology of racism, it is inconceivable that Ibsen would insist today that certain individuals are by breeding, or race, or "innate" qualities superior to others or possessed of the right to dictate to others. The man who wrote A Doll's House, the clarion call for the equality of women, cannot be equated with a fascist."
I'm afraid this argument does nothing for me; to paraphrase Westley in The Princess Bride, I've known too many feminists. A lot of them absolutely think that they have the right to dictate to others. Miller also said that Ibsen was too much of an individualist to ever back an authoritarian ideology, which was also a bit much to swallow, considering that he- Miller- was a communist sympathizer who wrote for Marxist papers under a pseudonym. I mean, you can't get much more authoritarian than the communists. But this sort of willful blindness about the faults of those on your side- and of you, yourself- is quite common, whatever side of the aisle you're on politically. It's very difficult to call balls and strikes evenhandedly, without bias. It's also difficult to admit that people you admire for one reason or another can be utterly wrong to the point of evil on other issues. Or that people can be complete and utter hypocrites, advocating for rights for one group while seeking to restrict/remove them from others. One need look no further than the COVID craziness to prove this point: more often than not, it was the Tolerance & Love crowd which was shouting loudest for unvaccinated citizens to have their rights stripped from them, some even advocating that the unvaxxed be denied medical treatment. This behaviour, I must say, is much less of a shock for those of us who believe in the total depravity of man.