46 MAN THE ANIMAL 



doctrine are merely dumb fools, who confuse abstractions, 

 myths, and symbols with reality, an^ are therefore incapable of 

 managing their own affairs, but really should, for purposes of 

 government and the common welfare, be regarded as inmates 

 of a great insane asylum and treated accordingly by "wise" and 

 "humane" persons who know what is best for them. Oddly 

 enough this kind of doctrine is separately rationalized by dif- 

 ferent groups of folk by the application of one or another of 

 utterly and fundamentally opposite political theories, such as 

 communism, fascism, and New Deal humanitarianism, so-called. 

 Each protagonist argues that only by sternly reducing the range 

 of human variation in behavior and thought can the ultimate 

 blessings of his curative eye-wash be achieved. 



In a later lecture in this series we shall try to see whether a 

 better way of life cannot be found than any such scheme of 

 turning man, the unique mammal, into man, the contented cow! 



