The American Political Science Review

Ibsen’s Political and Social Ideas Author(s): Philip George Neserius Source: The American Political Science Review, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Feb., 1925), pp. 25-37 Published by: American Political Science Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2938890 Accessed: 04-03-2018 01:07 UTC

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IBSEN’S POLITICAL AND SOCIAL IDEAS

PHILIP GEORGE NESERIUS

Man, “to be himself,” is “to realize himself.” This funda- mental thought became a beacon of light which Ibsen unhesi- tatingly followed through financial distress, through social isolation, and through severe and often malicious criticism by his contemporaries. To advance the country and elevate the people was Ibsen’s cardinal aim, which he consistently strove to attain.’ He dared to be himself; he spoke the truth when he saw it, and fought for his convictions. If one never commits himself, he never expresses himself; his self becomes less and less significant and decisive. Calculating selfishness is the annihi- lation of self. This was not true of Ibsen. In a letter to Bj6rn- son he says: “Had I to decide on an inscription for the monu- ment, I should chose the words: “His life was his best work.” So to conduct one’s life as to realize one’s self seems to be the brightest attainment possible to a human being. It is the task of one and all of us, but most of us bungle it.”2 Ibsen strove for this attainment, firmly believed in living his self, in being taken as his own personality, in being understood. He separated himself from his own parents, because a position of half-understanding was unendurable to him.’ He also left his country, voluntarily exiling himself, to be better able to deliver his message. During this period of residence abroad nearly all of his works were written. He faced a storm of discussion, approving and disapproving, which must have assured him that he had again aimed correctly and struck well at another timeworn, declining institution of society.

Such blows Ibsen deemed necessary to arouse the people from

1 Samtliche Werke, Bd. 1, Intro. 2 Letters of Henrik Ibsen, p. 359. 3 Ibid, p. 146.

25

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26 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW

the rut into which their thinking had fallen, to present to them

problems which they had not stopped to analyze and indicate to

them that a solution was possible, though the future would have to work it out for them. The idea of reforming organized insti-

tutions and above all of bringing about political reforms was

repugnant to Ibsen. It was a wrong aim, for nothing can set

society right, except society itself by living its self in unrestrained freedom.4 To aid society in finding its weak points, by

shattering its long cherished idols, by leading it on to the truth

was his aim. Ibsen has opened channels for discussion which practically deal with all the fundamental phases of human life.

His attitude toward the relation of the individual to society, toward democracy in general and, above all, his view on the

emancipation of women are phases of his works which captivate and hold the interest of students.

Ibsen does not, as Schiller and Goethe, picture the struggle of one suppressed class of society against another, not even the

struggle of the masses against tyranny, but the revolt of an individual against existing society and against the conditions such

society creates. In the Catiline we have the work of a genius in revolt against the ruling class and institutions.5 His tendency to view the individual as a unit, whose interests are diametrically opposed to the general interests of the state, dates from this work. Henceforth, his entire thought revolves about the relation of the individual to society, and this becomes the chief and central

problem of Ibsen’s writings. He directs his revolutionary polem-

ics against the government of human society as at present

organized.

Ibsen is the most convinced and consistent poetic champion of individualism. Early in his career he was fascinated by the virtue of self-reliance, militantly advancing against the authority

of state, church and family. The conflict between the individual

and the political state, the individual in discord with the author-

ity-sanctioned superficiality of the church as a religious institu- tion, we meet in Catiline and in Brand. Brand advances forcibly

4Heller, 0., Henrik Ibsen, p. 67.

5 Reich, Emil, Henrik Ibsen’s Dramen, p. 14.

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IBSEN’S POLITICAL AND SOCIAL IDEAS 27

against the spiritual lassitude that prevents the individual from developing a more personal and, therefore, more intimate feeling for his religion. “Formerly each man was a member of the church, now he is a personality.”‘ It is this expression of one’s personality that does not suit the Provost, the representative of society as it is. He thus expresses it to Brand: “Hitherto you paid too much attention to the particular needs of individuals; between ourselves, that is a grave fault. Weigh them in the lump, comb them all with the same comb; believe me, you will not repent it.”, But since Brand is not that kind of shepherd, he cannot conform to the principles of life as outlined by the Provost, and totally misunderstood by the people among whom he had lived and worked, he dies as he had existed on the height unattained by any other fellow-being of the lowland.

In Love’s Comedy Ibsen challenges society to the fight for moral and intellectual consistency against universal sham. The weak- ness of society is the general belief or pretense that love, ideal and lofty, is everlasting in the union of lovers. Falk takes it upon himself to expose the irony of this belief and to denounce society for sheltering and perpetuating such a lie. Viewed in the light of his later utterances on similar occasions, we feel the depth of Ibsen’s indignation against such social lies in Falk’s words:

And this they think is living, Heaven and earth, Is such a load so many antics worth? For such an end to haul up babes in shoals, To pamper them with honesty and reason, To feed them fat with faith one sorry season?8

And in reply to Svanhild’s suggestion to flee, he says:

Is not the whole world everywhere the same? And does not Truth’s own mirror in its frame Lie equally to all the sons of men?9

Falk strives to free himself from the evil of the social lie, for to him to be free means to do what he is called upon to do, to assist in fighting sham and pretense.

6 Archer’s translation of Ibsen’s Works, III, p. 232. 7 Ibid, p. 230. 8 Ibid, Vol. I, p. 430. 9 Ibid, Vol. 1, p. 431.

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28 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW

Before Falk can hope to succeed in the task he must first

educate himself; he must work out his own salvation, before he

can be of service to the community. It appears that from aim- less attack upon the existing order, Ibsen changed to the exalta-

tion of the individual, following him and guiding him in his proc- ess of self-education and, to anticipate, in a further progress thence to the successful socialization of the developed individual.

Consul Bernick of The Pillars of Society is subjected to such an

ethical education, with the aim of making him the outpost of a

truthful community. The play is a serious accusation against

society, against the moral foundation of modern society. Consul Bernick owes his success, his reputation and even his family

happiness to a lie and to his moral cowardice. His fear of public

opinion, his struggle to keep up appearances, make him a despi- cable coward.

Ibsen discloses unsparingly the very depth of moral depravity existing in society, and particularly in the circles which should look out for its welfare and guide it. He questions what society

gives to the individual. Is society willing at any cost to improve, is society willing to follow a leader? Not unless this leader caters to the populace and assures it of immediate gain.’0 But a man who has no sense of subordinating his individuality to mere local community interests can seek no understanding with

society; the voice of society condemns such a truth-loving indi- vidual and far from considering him a friend of the people, pronounces him an enemy.

In the Wild Duck Ibsen questions whether he had any right to demolish the ancient moral to save the individual.” Is it not better for the individual to remain in the illusions in which he has

been brought up, in the belief of his own importance and of his relation to society? Rob the average man of his life-illusions and you rob him of his happiness at the same time.12

In the Little Eyolf Ibsen changes from egoism to altruism. Here the individual places the interests of society above his own,

10 Litzmann, B., Ibsen’s Dramen, p. 63. 11 Boettcher, F., La Femme dans le Thedtre d’Ibsen, p. 133. 12 The Wild Duck, Act v, p. 372.

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IBSEN’S POLITICAL AND SOCIAL IDEAS 29

subjugating his own self by striving to provide others with a loftier and better life. The individual does not liberate himself

from his selfish purposes and intentions, because he does not live

and work for the sake of others,’3 His only aim is to lord it over others and he strives to attain the social height from where he can best do so. Extreme individualism, according to Ibsen,

which disregards the surrounding conditions and limits set for it by social requirements, cannot succeed. A broader conception of the world is necessary to make the work of the individual

really effective for society. The individual to be influential must always be above the society in which he lives.

Ibsen never considered himself a child of a people, a leader of a group, a member of society, or a part of a whole; he felt him-

self exclusively a gifted individual, and the sole object in which he believed and for which he cherished respect was personality.

It is through personality that supreme truth can be achieved and the rebirth of humanity accomplished, against whose progress

society and its chief agent, the state, at present stand, The future will solve the problem of this transformation and bring

about the third kingdom. Ibsen lends his personality to illumine the road and to lead those who walk in the dark.

IBSEN’S ATTITUDE TOWARD DEMOCRACY

As early as 1849, Ibsen became engrossed in political matters; he was as revolutionary, as a young man with strong convictions

of liberty and freedom frequently is. Though it is claimed that he never was at heart a red-hot revolutionist,14 it cannot be

denied that during the years 1850-51 he was intensely interested in the socialistic ideas stirred up by events in France, and openly

joined the opposition to the existing regime by working for a

political journal. Ibsen’s politics deal with the individual, the advocate or repre-

sentative of an outspoken tendency. His political ideas never became theoretic or dogmatic,’5 except where they touched upon

13 Litzmann, B., Ibsen’s Dramen, p. 161. 14Heller, O., Henrik Ibsen, p. 66. 16 Lothar, R., Henrik Ibsen, p. 24.

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the organization of the state, which he regarded as the curse of the individual, and which he was willing to fight. The state, he held, at its best can provide the individual with civic privileges only, can treat him as a citizen, and can take care of his material welfare, paying little or no attention to his spiritual interests. The political situation in Norway at that time, when the major- ity of the members of Parliament were rural representatives, considerably influenced Ibsen’s conclusions-1 In a letter to Brandes he says: “As to liberty, I take it that our dispute is a mere dispute about words. I shall never agree to making liberty synonymous with political liberty. What you call liberty, I call liberties; and what I call the struggle for liberty is nothing but the constant living assimilation of the idea of freedom.””7 Liberty, as ordinarily understood, is only for the citizen, and the individual does not necessarily have to be a citizen. “On the contrary-the state is the curse of the individual.

The state must be abolished! In that revolution I will take part. Undermine the idea of the state; make willingness and spiritual kinship the only essentials in the case of a union and you have the beginning of a liberty that is of some value.”18

Ibsen’s assertion that free choice and spiritual kinship are the only binding qualities for a union might lead the uninformed to think that the defender of the rights of the individual was advocating an anarchistic state of society. Nothing was further from Ibsen’s mind in his later years, in the period of his greatest productivity, than to hold and express in his works socialistic and even democratic ideas in connection with organized society. In devoting himself to the cause of the individual he had con- ceived of a state of society that might be termed a loftier form of aristocracy. He looked forward to a time when human minds and emotions shall be beyond the necessity of external supervision and control, to a development of the individual, so wonderful in its efficacy that under enlightened anarchy mankind would attain an almost ideal state. But such an ideal state must remain

16 Reich, Emil, Henrik Ibsen’s Dramen, p. 95. 17 Letters of Henrik Ibsen, p. 208. 68Ibd.

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visionary, the hope of the poet and the philosopher,-while the

common people continue synonymous with the mob: ignorant,

foolish, reckless and easily led astray by their passions.

Ibsen expressed himself publicly to that effect in a brief address

at a workingmen’s meeting at Trondjeim (1855) when he said: “There remains much to be done before we can be said to have

attained real liberty. But I fear that our present democracy will not be equal to the task. An element of nobility must be intro-

duced into our national life, into our parliament, and into our press. Of course it is not nobility of birth that I am thinking of,

nor of money, nor yet of knowledge, not even of ability and tal-

ent. I am thinking of nobility of character, of will, of soul.””9 Before this transformation within mankind shall take place, the

ideal state cannot come to pass.

Again and again, Ibsen emphasizes the necessity of a revolution of humanity from within, and scorns the political attempts to

establish democratic forms of government. Commenting upon the events taking place in France in 1870 he says: “Liberty, equality, and fraternity are no longer the things they were in the

days of the late-lamented guillotine. This is what the politi- cians will not understand, and therefore I hate them. They want only their own special revolutions, revolutions in externals, in politics, etc. But all this is mere trifling. What is all-impor- tant is the revolution of the spirit of man.”20 Yet, democracy

itself stands in the way of such revolution for democracy, says

Ibsen, gives the individual no opportunity to develop, to rise above his surroundings, to push his head above the common level.

Democracy insists on having the individual conform to its levels.

It tends to a dead level and opens a way for the commonplace; it equalizes, generalizes and standardizes men, making them alike in ideal, thought and emotion.

All this was contrary to Ibsen’s principles and beliefs, for he never doubted that it is given to the individual, alone, to attain

the acme of culture and civilization; the mob can only hinder. In Brand we witness the struggle of the individual with the majority.

19 Speeches and New Letters of Ibsen, p. 53. 20 Letters of Henrik Ibsen, p. 205.

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Brand, the idealist, is expelled and stoned when the majority that

follows him for only a brief while realizes that the ideals he had held out to them cannot readily be materialized. The society in which Brand lives is based on concessions and compromises,

on selfish aims and material advantage. It is not yet educated to the altruistic and lofty point of view where it can understand

and follow a spiritual leader. In the Enemy of the People we have the struggle of the indi-

vidual with the “compact” majority, intensified by his personal

experience obtained through the stupidity and harmfulness of the populace. Who is right? The individual or society? Does

not democracy stamp itself as a fallacy and a time-worn super-

stition, for whoever believes that the fools outnumber the sages, cannot think otherwise than that in a democracy justice and wisdom are most likely to be overruled. The individual alone is right, and the “compact” majority can only represent the low and

wicked in society. The majority can, therefore, never be the herald of progress, and it is left to the individual alone to hold

aloft “the banner of the ideal.” Such an individual must stand

on a height by himself and cannot have a majority around him.2′ “I maintain,” says Ibsen, “that a fighter in the intellectual

vanguard can never collect a majority around him. In ten years the majority will, possibly, occupy the standpoint Dr. Stockman held at the public meeting. But during these ten years the Doc-

tor will not have been standing still; he will be at least ten years ahead of the majority. He can never have the majority with

him.”22 Ibsen views his hero’s attempt to deliver his message to the mob, which has but little regard for him as an individual, as a

sacrifice of self for the public good. He leads him to the conclu- sion that he can only achieve his aim by remaining alone, he leads him to realize that the strongest man is the one who stands by himself, he permits him to turn to the future for a solution of the problem and face the coming dawn as schoolmaster to the genera- tion that is to help on its own progress.

At heart, though, Ibsen sided with political freedom as he did

2” Archer’s transl. of Ibsen, I. Intro. xiv. 22 Letters of Henrik Ibsen, p. 370.

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IBSEN’S POLITICAL AND SOCIAL IDEAS 33

with freedom of conscience in any form and, therefore, joined in many demands of the Liberals. He was no advocate of any political party or tendency, and in his League of Youth did not mean either to criticize liberalism or to defend conservatism. His

object was to fight pretension, in this case the idle Liberal phrase,

so often found in the mouths of those who use it for selfish pur- poses. When Ibsen relieves himself in an outburst like “The Liberals are the worst enemies of freedom,” or “the Liberals are most treacherous enemies of free men,” he refers to the tyranny

of “liberals” in intellectual things. The arraignment was meant for the sham reformers whose short-ranged vision is

a greater obstacle to progress than a reasonable and principled conservatism.2Z

In a letter to Brandes he says: “It will never, in any case, be possible for me to join a party that has the majority on its

side.” And further on: “I must of necessity say ‘The majority is right.’ Naturally I am not thinking of that minorityof stag- nationists who are left behind by the great middle party which

with us is called Liberal; but I mean that minority which leads the van and pushes on to points which the majority has not yet reached. I mean that man is right who allied himself most closely

with the future.”24 In his own opinion, then, Ibsen was right; in our opinion, well, suppose we too follow the lead of the philoso- pher, and leave the decision to the future.

IBSEN ON THE EMANCIPATION OF WOMAN

The choice of Ibsen’s material and its presentation show that the author expected some definite contribution from woman toward the solution of the cultural and social problems. Ibsen

explores women’s soul with unusual skill, broadening the dramat- ic world, and adding woman to what had seemed until then “a world of bachelor-souls.”25 He furthermore chooses the mar- ried women for his heroine, presenting her in her relation to her

home, family, and society.

23 Heller, 0., Henrik Ibsen, p. 89. 24 Letters of Henrik Ibsen, p. 349. 2 Pillars of Society, Act iv, p. 408.

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Shall woman be an individual? Then she must not be restrained from exercising her individuality, for the foundation of the social structure rests on the intelligent relations of the sexes. Brandes says: “As far as I can judge, the idea of woman’s emancipation, in the modern acceptation of the phrase, was far from being familiar and dear to Ibsen at the outset of his career.”” There is a gradual increase in the complexity of the problems which confront his feminine characters and in the nature of the characters themselves. In regard to the latter his early works deal with two separate types of character: one depicting the virtues of the angelic woman, the other her diabolic prototype. He divides women into two distinct classes, those controlled by their wills and those led by their hearts. He keeps the two classes well apart, blending them only in Lady of Oestrot, to show the tragedy that arises when heart and will conflict. His sympathies are decidedly with the strong-minded and self-asserting type of woman, the sort that is meant by Margit (The Feast at Solhaug): “Aye, those women . . . they are not weak as we are, they do not fear to pass from thought to deed;”27 or by Hjordis (The Vikings): “The strong women that did not drag out their lives tamely like thee and me.”28 In spite of his sympathies, however, Ibsen allows the altruistic women to carry off the victory in the struggle between altruism and egoism. From Love’s Comedy to Emperor and Galilean, woman does not go through that struggle, but fights to draw the soul of man toward virtue, sacrificing her- self together with him for society. In both groups woman plays but a subordinate part, and only in his social plays does Ibsen assume his permanent stand, that of considering woman as an individual and claiming individual freedom for her.

After Svanhild in Love’s Comedy, the chain of strong female characters is for a time broken. In the Pretenders none of the women exist for themselves, but live for those whose aim they

help to accomplish. In the Pretenders as well as in Brand, the woman’s problem as a loving wife consists of unconditional

26 Brandes, Georg, Eminent Authors of the 19th Century, p. 452. 27 Act. i, p. 231. 28 Act. ii, p. 157.

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IBSEN’S POLITICAL AND SOCIAL IDEAS 35

loyalty and unlimited self-sacrifice, no matter what the demands of the husband may be. Agnes in Brand goes so far in that respect as to become a martyr in the end. Solveig in Peer Gynt,

too, is an ideal figure of Ibsen’s womanhood, whose greatness and strength of heart consist in her belief and trust and in her readi- ness to sacrifice herself. But Solveig is a little more than a victim of Peer Gynt’s demands. She serves to indicate Ibsen’s belief that woman is fundamentally society’s support. In this case it is the pure woman, the basis of social morality, that proves to be society’s redemption.

With the League of Youth Ibsen introduces the woman who begins a long and persistent fight for recognition. Selma is only one of the links connecting Nora with Margit. She, too, craves to be more than a mere toy for her husband: she wants to share the fortunes and misfortunes of the house. True marriage should

be distinguished from mere choosing of a mate, in that the husband looks upon the wife as his peer and partner, entitled to share his anxieties and troubles, as well as his successes. Then is the woman an end in herself, or is she a means toward realizing the ideal of collectivity?

Ibsen’s sympathies are evidently not with the general belief that woman should be naught but wife and mother. In Lona Hessel, for example, he shows the self-supporting, self-protecting, active woman, who knows how to take care of herself and her interests. She becomes the only real pillar of society by living her own life, unbound by conventionalities and unrestrained by tradition. The woman who sang in American vaudeville and wrote eccentric books to support herself and her half-brother, dependent on her, is the one of all the pillars of society to hold up “the banner of the ideal,” the banner of truth and freedom- not political freedom only, but freedom from the shackles imposed by false notions of respectability and fear of public opinion, from chains forged by wrong aims of life such as the love of worldly distinction. In the spirit of such truth and freedom she-and through her Ibsen-sees the pillars of society which originate in the relations of men and women, especially as represented in marriage and in family life. Dina Dorf, for example, in the New

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World begins life not as a thing which John Tonnesen had simply taken unto himself, but as her husband’s equal, co-worker, and comrade-thus representing the younger generation which initiates their emancipation.

In the Doll’s House Ibsen champions the right of woman, defends her claim to a life of her own aside from that of wife and mother. Is she to be regarded as an individual, or should her liberty be limited by the interest of the community? This and the similar situation in Ghosts, “Just because she is a woman, she will, when once started go to the utmost extreme,”29 shows how

far Ibsen’s respect for women exceeds his respect for men. In his later works30 Ibsen, though with continued faith in the

powers and glory of woman, modifies and restricts her sphere of action. With Hedda Gabler he had reached the conclusion that it was not the woman of masculine intellect and ability who propped the beam of society, but the ideal woman, the wife and mother with noble instincts, who reigns supreme over humanity

by power of her virtues. In his last two dramas, women have missed their vocation as women. His last two plays, John Gabriel Borkman and When We Dead Awaken are more sceptic of the high ideals of women. But in When We Dead Awaken Ibsen returns to his original contention that woman is to be regarded as a personality and not as a piece of property. He con- tinues to give his modified view by allowing Irene to say: “I

should have borne children into the world-many children-real children-not sudh children as are hidden away in grave vaults. That was my vocation,”” meaning that there Irene would have realized herself, would have lived her individuality.

These conclusions the philosopher finally reached, publicly subscribing to them when on May 26, 1898, at the festival of the Norwegian Women’s Rights League in Christiania, he said: “I must disclaim the honor of having consciously worked for the women’s rights movement. I am not even quite clear as to just

29 Letters of Henrik Ibsen, p. 351. 30 John Gabriel Borkman, When We Dead Awaken, The Master Builder and

Little Eyolf. 31 When We Dead Awaken, Act ii, p. 419.

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w hat this women’s rights movement really is. To me it seemed a problem of humanity in general.” Again: “The task always

be fore my mind has been to advance our country and give the pe ople a higher standard. To obtain these two factors are of im portance: it is for the mothers by strenuous and sustained

la bor to awaken a conscious feeling of culture and discipline. T his must be created in men, before it will be possible to lift the people to a higher plane. It is the women who are to solve the

so cial problem. As mothers they are to do it. And only as such can they do it. Here lies a great task for woman..”32

32 Speeches and New Letters of Henrik Ibsen.

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