# Institutional caricature outlives the conditions that produced it **Claim:** Organizations judge each other on images formed generations earlier, and those images are harder to dislodge than material obstacles because they are pictures rather than arguments. A picture cannot be refuted; it can only be replaced by contact. **Scope:** interdenominational relations, corporate reputation, open source community reputation, inter-team dynamics, vendor relationships. **Mechanism:** an argument can be met with evidence. An image can only be met with a different image, which requires sustained exposure rather than communication. **Why it matters:** reputational repair is a contact problem, not a messaging problem, so statements do not fix it. **Source:** Horton (1962), on denominations preparing for union — Congregationalists still judged by Salem 1692, Anglican bishops by Laud, Presbyterians by Servetus: "on the whole it is easier to exterminate flesh and blood than it is to exorcise a ghost." **Links:** [[Perm · Governance conflicts are semantic before they are substantive]] · [[MOC · Voluntary Federation Governance]]