Ibsen as the father of modern assault on values

Via Roger Simon, I liked this essay by Theodore Dalrymple (the pen name of a British doctor who has written a lot of great stuff). Simon's headline sums it up, we can find the roots of the radical assault on convention by Abbie Hoffman and his ilk in the plays of Henrick Ibsen. Dalrymple writes:

The modernity of Ibsen’s thought hardly needs further emphasis. The elevation of emotion over principle, of inclination over duty, of rights over responsibilities, of ego over the claims of others; the impatience with boundaries and the promotion of the self as the measure of all things: what could be more modern or gratifying to our current sensibility? Not surprisingly, Ibsen regarded youth rather than age as the fount of wisdom. “Youth,” he assures us, “has an instinctive genius which unconsciously hits upon the right answer.”

Remember that when your kids are assigned A Doll's House to read.