Mankind In The Psychotechnic And Technic Histories

The Psychotechnic History and the Technic History are Poul Anderson's first two future history series. Each contains a statement about mankind.

Psychotechnic
"The enemy was old and strong and crafty, it took a million forms and it could never quite be slain. For it was man himself - the madness and sorrow of the human soul, the revolt of a primitive against the unnatural state called civilization and freedom."
-Poul Anderson, "Un-Man" IN Anderson, The Complete Psychotechnic League, Volume 1 AT XIV, p. 97.

Technic
In "The Master Key," Per Stenvik says that human beings are not wild animals and Manuel Palomares replies that they are whereas Nicholas van Rijn argues that only some are. Van Rijn's criterion of wildness is:

"'We do what we do because we want to or because it is right.'" (p. 326)

But wild animals do only what they want to and never what is right because they have no conception of right or wrong. In fact, it is reason and morality that differentiate human beings from animals. However, van Rijn's point is that only a few human beings are not domesticated animals. He continues:

"'...how many people today is domestic animals at heart? Wanting somebody else should tell them what to do, and take care of their needfuls, and protect them not just against their fellow men but against themselves? Why has every free human society been so shortlived? Is this not because the wild-animal men are born so heartbreakingly seldom?'" (p. 327)

Comparing the two statements:

in the Psychotechnic History, primitives want neither to be civilized nor to be free;

according to van Rijn, domesticated human beings want to be civilized but not to be free.

If both statements are true, then society has two problems, the primitives and the domesticateds.