246 TABOO AND GENETICS 



less. When we recollect that for ages the 

 traditional ideals of masculinity and femininity 

 have been conditioning the emotional life of 

 men and women to respond to their requirements 

 with a remarkable degree of success, there is 

 ground for the belief that the same forces of 

 suggestion and imitation may be turned to more 

 rational ends and utiHzed as an effective means 

 of social therapy. 



If we are to have a more rationalized form 

 of social control, thea, it will undoubtedly take 

 into consideration the necessity of forming the 

 socially desirable conditionings of the emotional 

 life. The importance of the emotional reactions 

 for social progress has been very well sum- 

 marized by Burgess, who says that emotion 

 can be utilized for breaking down old customs 

 and establishing new ones, as well as for the 

 conservation of the mores. Society can largely 

 determine around what stimuli the emotions 

 can be organized, this author continues, and 

 the group has indeed always sought to control 

 the stimuli impinging upon its members. One 

 policy has been to eliminate objectionable 

 stimuli, as in the outlawing of the saloon. The 

 other is to change the nature of the affective 

 response of the individual to certain stimuli in 

 the environment where the natural or organic 

 responses would be at variance with conduct 

 considered socially desirable. (3). 



