-Winston S Churchill, 11 November 1947
The consequences of the meeting are immediate and, for Stockmann's family, dire. Dr. Stockmann has himself been fired by the spa, obviously, and intends to go into private practice to support his family. But his brother Mayor Pete informs them that a petition is being taken from house to house, getting the townspeople to pledge not to use his services. His daughter, a teacher, is fired from her job for specious reasons, and his two sons are beaten up at school by a mob of other boys. Even his friend, Captain Horster, is relieved of his position for supporting Stockmann at the meeting. The windows are smashed out of their house by youngsters throwing rocks, and must be boarded over because the glazier is afraid to be seen doing business with the town pariah. In addition, their landlord evicts them. It's a bad scene all the way around, and who is to blame for it?
In Part VII (see below) I had a go at Dr. Stockmann for being a pompous, arrogant elitist, disdainful of the people and their (to him) petty concerns. This remains true; while Dr. Stockmann admirably decides to stay in the town and stand against the mob, his hyperbolic speeches lead to the sneaking suspicion that he's rather enjoying being a martyr. And he could stand to show a bit more concern for his family who, though loyally standing with him, are bearing a good deal of the town's abuse. Of course, his father-in-law, the factory owner, is very much directly to blame, as he's the one pouring the sludge into the water system and contaminating it. If he was an ethical, honest man, as soon as he knew what damage his company was causing, he'd work to put a stop to it and find another way to dispose of the waste rather than simply denying what was happening. Obviously- as is usually the case- the politicians, in this case Mayor Pete and his minions, are also to blame for their rampant corruption and lack of ethics, as is (also as usual) the press, for the same reasons. The dominating factor- or sin, if you will- in these three parties (the factory owner Kiil, Mayor Pete, Aslaksen and the other members of the press) is that of greed, for money and/or power. Because of their greed, they are willing to compromise themselves, lie, slander, and manipulate to get the results they want, regardless of the damage they will cause or even the lives they will risk.
Speaking of manipulation, this brings us to the last group of people to blame for this entire debacle: the townspeople themselves. They, as a whole, behave reprehensibly through the last half of the play, though not for the same reasons mentioned above. Rather, it is fear that motivates them to abandon rational thought and decency. This fear is understandable; they are staring at the very real possibility of losing their jobs and their homes, and not being able to provide for their families. But fear is not a justifiable excuse for behaving badly- or being manipulated into bad behaviour. At the top of this post, I shared a Churchill quote about democracy being the worst type of government, apart from every other type. This is true; we in the west generally get the governments we deserve, for good or ill. Mostly ill. Not that I think many people deserve Justin Trudeau, but the fact remains that enough voted for him- mostly in Upper Canada- to drag him over the finish line once again, albeit with a minority. He eked out this win in part by stoking the fears a lot of Canadians had about Covid and pretty much declaring anyone who opposed his stupid mandates enemies of the people. But I digress... the townspeople here preferred to be told reassuring lies and believe them than to examine the facts for themselves and thereby face unpalatable truths. We can blame the politicians for telling those lies-and the press for covering for them- but no one forced the people to abandon critical thought and reason; they panicked and did that to themselves.
Their fear works in two ways. The first is that it stokes anger and turns some of the townspeople into bullies and thugs- they send threatening letters, break windows, pummel Stockmann's sons. Just as an aside, as I was rereading the play, Dr. Stockmann's comments about the threatening, unsigned letters sounded very prescient about modern online threats and bully tactics: "The big patriots with their anonymous indignation, scrawling out the darkness of their minds onto dirty little slips of paper..." The other way which this fear manifests itself is in cowardly behaviour. The newspaper declares Stockmann an "enemy of the people" and in his usual overly dramatic way, Dr. Stockmann embraces the label almost triumphantly. But the fact of the matter is, most people aren't his enemy, they're just afraid to speak up because they fear- not unjustifiably- that the bullies in the town will turn on them next. We see numerous examples of this: Petra's boss fires her because of the anonymous, threatening letters she receives, not because she has any personal animus towards the doctor's daughter. The glazier won't replace their windows not because he doesn't want their business, but because he's afraid, as Mrs. Stockmann says to her husband: "You don't realize- people don't like to be pointed out. He's got neighbours, I suppose..." The same applies to their landlord; he doesn't particularly want to lose good tenants, but he fears the repercussions of keeping them on. Even the signatories of the petition are not all participating because they actually want to, as Mayor Pete lets slip when he's telling his brother about it: "I don't think a single family will dare refuse to sign it." Dr. Stockmann also remarks bitterly on how most of his friends have deserted him: "The crowd lets out one roar, and where are they, my liberal friends? I bet if I walked down the street now not one of them would admit he ever met me!" Again, all this seems remarkably contemporary; how many evil things have been pushed upon our societies over the last number of years- from gender clap trap to segregationist Covid policies- simply because a lot of people knew, or rather, know, that they're wrong, immoral, but fear to speak up and take a stand? If we the people are too fearful to say and do what is right, don't be surprised when we get cowards for leaders, or worse- unscrupulous leaders who prey upon and use the cowardice of the populace for their own ends. Government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" is only as good as the folks propping it up.
I've been fairly critical of Dr. Stockmann throughout my review, but he does utter what I think are the lines which the entire play revolves around, during his otherwise mostly regrettable rant at the town meeting:
"I am in revolt against the age-old lie that the majority is always right!... Was the majority right when they stood by while Jesus was crucified? Was the majority right when they refused to believe that the earth moved around the sun and let Galileo be driven to his knees like a dog? It takes fifty years for the majority to be right. The majority is never right until it does right. "
This is, of course, true; the best we can hope for with majority rules is that most people will not vote for insane or immoral policies and/or leaders. But this isn't always true, as we have daily proof. For example, aborting babies is immoral. It was immoral when the majority of people believed it to be so, and it's still immoral now, when the majority of people in this country are okay with it. There is no will, I know, either in politicians of any stripe or in the majority of the people to even set limits on it. But the majority is not right on this, and won't be right as long as it supports the killing of innocents. It will never be right until it does what is right.
So those are my thoughts on An Enemy Of The People; it stretched out over more posts than I had originally intended, but I think that it's a good play to read through and observe that human nature never really changes very much. It also doesn't go amiss to reflect upon how we ourselves would act if pressured to lie or compromise, on pain of social- or even financial- ruin. Such a situation, sadly, is not as unthinkable as it would have been a few years ago.