st, patriotism, philanthropy,
and civic duty have been exploited as far as the present systems will
carry. It is possible to exhaust our floating capital of social-motive
forces. When that occurs we face a kind of moral bankruptcy.

A final stage of resistance is reached when propaganda develops a
negativistic defensive reaction. To develop such negativisms is always
the aim of counterpropaganda. It calls the opposed propaganda,
prejudiced, half-truth, or, as the Germans did, "Lies, All Lies." There
is evidence that the moral collapse of Germany under the fire of our
paper bullets came with the conviction that they had been systematically
deceived by their own propagandists.

There are two great social dangers in propaganda. Great power in
irresponsible hands is always a social menace. We have some legal
safeguards against careless use of high-powered physical explosives.
Against the greater danger of destructive propaganda there seems to be
little protection without imperiling the sacred principles of free
speech.

The second social danger is the tendency to overload and level down
every great human incentive in the pursuit of relatively trivial ends.
To become _blase_ is the inevitable penalty of emotional exploitation. I
believe there may well be grave penalties in store for the reckless
commercialized exploitation of human emotions in the cheap
sentimentalism of our moving pictures. But there are even graver
penalties in store for the generation that permits itself to grow
morally _blase_. One of our social desiderata, it seems to me, is the
protection of the great springs of human action from destructive
exploitation for selfish, commercial, or other trivial ends.

The slow constructive process of building moral credits by systematic
education lacks the picturesqueness of propaganda. It also lacks its
quick results. But just as the short cut of hypnotism proved a dangerous
substitute for moral training, so I believe we shall find that not only
is moral education a necessary precondition for effective propaganda,
but that in the end it is a safer and incomparably more reliable social
instrument.

C. INSTITUTIONS

1. Institutions and the Mores[273]

Institutions and laws are produced out of mores. An institution consists
of a concept (idea, notion, doctrine, interest) and a structure. The
structure is a framework, or apparatus, or perhaps only a number of
functionaries set to co-operate in prescribed way