Scientists have found the gene for shyness. They would have found it years ago, but it was hiding behind a couple of other genes.
For an entire populace, change, growth, and spontaneity were dangerous. Acting upon a personal desire, whispering a hidden longing, revealing your true feelings - all the human actions we think of as essential to a character - had be censored by the self lest they be punished by the state.
Act strenuously, would appear to be our faith, and right thinking will take care of itself.