"It is this, let me tell you--that the strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone!"  So says Dr. Stockmann in Norwegian playwright Henri Ibsen's "Enemy of the People."  Although from one standpoint this statement may conjure up visions of Friedrich Nietzsche's "Ubermensch," the one who stands above "the herd," to the exclusion of the good of all others, it is, on the other hand, a powerful statement about individual conscience.  For several months Stockmann had striven to convince his city's administrators that the city's waters had been fatally compromised by various effluents of foreign material.  Based on the results of some highly reliable scientific findings, this information, Stockmann argued, should cause the city to refrain from opening up a "Baths" for the tourists who come to visit.  People who come to benefit from the Baths' healing waters, Stockmann said, should not be subjected to such health risk.

     

     Nonsense, said everyone in city government.  The economic benefits of the Baths outweigh public health concerns.  Our livelihoods are far more important than "alleged" threats to our health.  They proceeded to ostracize and shun Stockmann, who responded in turn about the dangers of majority rule, saying that it was a "lie" that the majority always has the truth. 

    Albert Camus makes the same point in his The Plague:  even if many citizens thought the plague sweeping through their city was a hoax, it still killed thousands of people.  Whether it is in terms of politics, culture, economics, or religion, the mere fact of general assent never makes anything true.  Conscience is much more than unquestioned loyalty to an idea, trend, or god.