Lawless "Heroes"

Psychology Professor Knight Dunlap, of the University of California at Los Angeles, last week made a proposal* shocking to many a U. S. educator: that humanity should be told that it is sometimes a duty, for the sake of human progress, to commit crime. Children, said he also, should learn that it is sometimes necessary to defy their parents. His thesis: if nobody ever broke a bad law, mankind would eventually get into a rut, sink back into savagery.

Some laws, said the professor, are bad from the beginning, others worse, with time and change. Unless someone dares to violate such laws and leads others to disregard them, they are not repealed, block progress. Sample bad laws: Prohibition, antigambling, anti-birth control. Professor Dunlap's list of history's lawless heroes: Jesus Christ, Margaret Sanger, John Brown, Robert E. Lee, George Washington (crime: treason against Britain), several other unnamed U. S. Presidents.

Said Dr. Dunlap: "Women . . . seem less abject in their obedience to foolish laws than are men. ... It was once against rigid convention for women to expose their legs in public. . . ."

* In the September issue of The California Monthly, the University's alumni magazine.

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