ABSTRACT
Our title has a fitting ambiguity in relation to our text, because The Enemy of the People is the title Henrik Ibsen gave to his dramatic presentation of the assault upon an apostle of enlightenment and rationality by the traditionalist and conservative folk. Ibsen had little sympathy for these rural Norwegians; in his drama they appear as selfish, yet congregately stupid, as contrasted to his scientific protagonist, who was strongest because he stood alone. In a curious way, Ibsen’s drama foreshadows the interactions which have been characteristic of the White reformer and the Indian tribal community: on the one hand, scientific rationality, Western medicine, the ethos of the individualistic hero, and the rationalistic conception of social welfare; on the other 102hand, the traditionalist folk, skeptical of the proposals justified by science, mistrustful of the individual who stands apart from their society, protective of their established interests, and unwilling to alter their conduct even in the face of what appears to be catastrophe. Yet, in contrast to the Norwegian drama, on the Indian reservations it has been the reformer who has had the political and financial power with which to manipulate the folk and institute his programs and, despite his ideological creed of devotion to the general welfare, the question of whether he is friend or enemy to the local Indian community perplexes the sociological observer. If the stark antagonism of reformer and folk community made exciting melodrama, the contemporary and actual conflict between the two parties now appears more akin to Kafka and the theatre of the absurd.
