Peter Stockmann (The mayor): The mayor who preferred to poison the bathers rather than close the spa

Act Two of An Enemy of the People (Henrik Ibsen, 1882). Peter Stockmann, mayor of a small Norwegian coastal town and chairman of the board of its new spa, calls at his brother’s house with the report his brother has sent him. He has already spoken to the town engineer, as if only half seriously, and he brings the figures: relaying the pipes would cost a fortune and the work would take at least two years, with the spa closed and the bathers heading for the neighboring towns. He does not dispute the analyses; he says he has not been able to convince himself that the danger is imminent. And he proposes his way out: the report must not reach the board, later on something will be done privately, and not a single word must come to the ears of the public. The spa’s medical officer, Doctor Thomas Stockmann, had suspected something was wrong because several bathers fell ill; he sent water samples to the university, and the result confirmed it: the waters are contaminated by waste from the tanneries up the valley, among them that of the doctor’s own father-in-law. Thomas had expected the town to thank him. Now Peter demands that he withdraw the report and declare publicly that the waters are safe. When Thomas refuses, Peter persuades the liberal newspaper, which was going to publish the report, not to, and the householders’ association that the doctor will ruin the town. At the public meeting, Thomas is declared an “enemy of the people” almost unanimously. He loses his post, his windows are stoned and his daughter is dismissed from the school.

// The theoryThe harms that are not in the code

Green criminology, a term proposed by Michael J. Lynch in 1990 and developed by Nigel South and Rob White, studies harms against the environment, animals and human health. Its starting point is that many of the greatest environmental harms are legal or not prosecuted, because those who cause them, large companies and administrations, have the power to influence the rules and their enforcement. Green criminology also deals with the techniques for concealing those harms: denying the evidence, sowing doubt, presenting protective measures as an economic threat and discrediting those who raise the alarm.

// The subjectA man of order

Ibsen does not make Peter a cynical villain. He is a prudent official, convinced that he is defending the general interest, the town’s economy, jobs, reputation, against an idealistic and reckless brother. It irritates him that Thomas acts without consulting, that he thinks himself above authority and that he endangers what has cost so much to build. His crime is that of administrative reason: weighing the health of unknown bathers against the municipal budget and deciding that the budget weighs more. And he does so without believing he is doing anything wrong.

The same conversation reveals his idea of power. When Thomas reminds him that every citizen has a duty to share his ideas with the public, Peter replies that the public does not require any new ideas. And when Thomas persists, Peter reminds him of his place: as an officer under the board, he has no right to any individual opinion that runs contrary to that of his superiors. In the third act he moves from arguments to alliances. He goes to the printing office of the liberal newspaper, which was about to publish the report, and does the sums for its editor and for the printer Aslaksen, spokesman of the small householders: a fortune, a municipal loan and two years with the spa shut. The proprietors of the spa cannot bear any further expense; the town will pay. Aslaksen changes sides in a single line. When Thomas arrives, the mayor hides in the next room and leaves his official hat and staff on the table; his brother puts them on to mock him. The scene is comic, but it shows the whole technique: environmental harm becomes a tax problem, and the man who exposes it becomes the man who wants to ruin his neighbors.

// The crackA play against the majority

An Enemy of the People can be read as a denunciation of environmental cover-up, but Ibsen’s thesis is thornier. In his speech at the meeting, Thomas does not attack power alone: he attacks the “compact majority”, which he accuses of always being wrong. That defense of the lucid individual against the mass has elitist traits that have made the play controversial.

Moreover, green criminology insists that environmental harm is structural, not the work of a villain. Peter does not act alone: he is backed by the press, the property owners, the taxpayers and the whole town. Focusing on him loses the essential point: the pollution continues because it suits everyone that it should.