The Study of Man

"The Study of Man." Commentary, November, 1945.

Excerpt: Social scientists can no longer be reproached for busying themselves with theoretical issues while ignoring the major problems confronting mankind. The ivory towers now stand abandoned; almost every scholar of note in the fields of sociology, psychology and anthropology concerns himself with how the studies devoted to the extension of man’s knowledge of man may advance solutions to the problems of a free society. The theoretical equipment developed in the study of the social life of Melanesians or the learning habits of rats is now turned on Western man.

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