Plasticity

Satan's World, XIX.

Thea Beldaniel rightly says that:

"'...human nature is plastic.'" (p. 529)

- which contradicts the frequent us of the phrase, "human nature," to mean something fixed and unchanging. 

Plasticity is two-sided. First, children accept and take for granted whatever is presented to them. A British child, told that Ted Heath was one of the Prime Ministers before Margaret Thatcher, asked, "Were men allowed to do it, then?" Secondly, an intelligent species changing its natural and social environments creates a vast range of conditions that subsequent generations accept but can also change further. Despite all this, change often seems impossible. Mass activities like wars and economic crises confront and overwhelm individual lives with an implacability indistinguishable from that of natural disasters like floods and earthquakes. However, collective and individual actions have changed societies.

Beldaniel also claims that she and the handful of other human beings who have been domesticated by the Shenna:

"'...are happy and healthy.'" (ibid.)

What counts as sane within and between different societies is an extremely broad spectrum. However, this group's psychological subordination and dependence makes them mentally unhealthy by almost anyone else's standards. Van Rijn calls their condition:

"'...nasty. Horrible.'" (p. 532)

Human beings have been made into not slaves but dogs.