the motive force of our reforming zeal was fear of the self, a failure to face the self. . . Yet, if we hadn't been tipped off that Ibsen was petit bourgeois, we might have learned our lesson from him. For he saw that the altruism of a Gregers Werle [in The Wild Duck] was the outgrowth of a sick conscience; Gregers persecutes Hedwig because he is running away from himself (Bentley 13).
F.W. Kaufmann cites Ibsen to the effect that "What is important is the revolutionizing of the human mind," and for Ibsen this meant that he was railing against the distortion of truth that had been brought about by the use of outworn slogans and complacent thinking. Ibsen felt that truth had to be constantly revitalized in order to remain truth. Truth for him is not an absolute but has to be tested against changed conditions, and this is what made many view his ideas as radical and even dangerous. Kaufmann examines several passages that show a belief in the necessity of a relentless struggle for truth and thus the realization that truth can never be possessed, but must always be in the process of acquisition (Kaufmann 21).
This attitude naturally brought him into conflict with the conservative elements in his own society, elements that believed that truth was absolute and that neither truth nor authority should be
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