We have become so accustomed to our illusions that we mistake them for reality. - Daniel J. Boorstin

"The acknowledged American leader of the new science of anthropology, Boas was a scrupulous master of detail drawn from his field experience. Boas's The Mind of Primitive Man (1911; revised and enlarged in 1938) demonstrated that "there is no fundamental difference in the ways of thinking of primitive and civilized man." He attacked simplistic racial stereotypes and insisted that "A close connection between race and personality has never been established." His conclusions were firmly based on facts gathered in the field. Boas argued that all surviving societies show equally the capacity to develop culture. They have evolved equally but differently. So he diverted the social scientists' focus from biology (the realism of evolution) to anthropology. And he received the accolade of the German Nazis when they burned his books and rescinded his German Ph.D."

"The state arises, Socrates explains, "out of the needs of mankind; no one is self-sufficing, but all of us have many wants." Division of labor then provides the needed services, while allowing each person to do what he is best fitted for. So the community has farmers, weavers, builders, merchants, shoemakers, and all the rest. And as the state expands to meet multiplying wants, it must have a standing army. Yet, until the refinements of culture have been added, this is no better than a "city of pigs.

The hero reveals the possibilities of human nature; the celebrity reveals the possibilities of the media.