The Philosopher
Ashley Montagu
The face
The background
- Nationality:
- British-American
- Branchs:
- Anthropology
- Period:
- 20th century
The synopsis
Ashley Montagu (born Israel Ehrenberg on June 28, 1905, in London, England) was a British-American anthropologist and social commentator. He gained prominence for his work on race, gender, and their social implications. Montagu served as the rapporteur for the UNESCO "statement on race" in 1950, which aimed to assert the scientific consensus that humankind constitutes a single species and that race is not a valid biological concept. He held academic positions at numerous institutions, including Harvard University, Princeton University, Rutgers University, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and New York University. After being dismissed from Rutgers due to anti-communist pressures, Montagu transitioned to a career as a public intellectual, frequently appearing on television and writing for popular media. Throughout his life, he authored over 60 books, including influential works like *Man's Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race* and *The Natural Superiority of Women*. He was a vocal critic of racism, genital modification, and creationism. In 1995, he was honored as the Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association. Montagu died in Princeton, New Jersey, on November 26, 1999, at the age of 94.
The works
Statement on Race
Man's Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race
The Natural Superiority of Women
The Elephant Man: A Study in Human Dignity
Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin
The quotes
The idea is to die young as late as possible.
Science has proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without any proof.
Hell has been described as a pocket edition of Chicago.
By virtue of being born to humanity, every human being has a right to the development and fulfillment of his potentialities as a human being.
It is work, work that one delights in, that is the surest guarantor of happiness. But even here it is a work that has to be earned by labor in one's earlier years. One should labor so hard in youth that everything one does subsequently is easy by comparison.
The cultured man is an artist, an artist in humanity.
The deepest personal defeat suffered by human beings is constituted by the difference between what one was capable of becoming and what one has in fact become.
The natural superiority of women is a biological fact, and a socially acknowledged reality.
The doctor has been taught to be interested not in health but in disease. What the public is taught is that health is the cure for disease.
The principal contributor to loneliness in this country is television. What happens is that the family 'gets together' alone.
Girls marry for love. Boys marry because of a chronic irritation that causes them to gravitate in the direction of objects with certain curvilinear properties.
The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us.
Human beings are the only creatures who are able to behave irrationally in the name of reason.
One goes through school, college, medical school and one's internship learning little or nothing about goodness but a good deal about success.