David V. Hicks Quotes

When our forebears asked - What is a man? - they did not expect a detailed examination of some Saturday morning shopper, Mr. John Q. Public, snatched at random from the crowded agora and forced under a microscope or onto a psychiatrist's couch. Nor did they want a statistical analysis of some cross-section of the demos for an answer. Of what good to sound learning is a man who looks like every man but in whom no man sees himself? The only use for such analyses, as our modern era shows, is in various forms of exploitation. Statistical man makes a useful abstraction for advertisers and propagandists.