Humanity's Evolution, Impact, and Quest for Wisdom in the Arctic

Key Insight

Humanity, having developed technologies such as hunting weapons, protective clothing, fire-making tools, agriculture, and herding, has largely circumvented the evolutionary laws that govern other species. This allows humans to not only occupy specific niches of other animals but also to move into regions previously unavailable, often displacing or eliminating existing creatures. These technological advancements, coupled with an enormous increase in the human food base (now including oil, exotic minerals, fossil groundwater, and vast forests), have largely exempted mankind from natural population controls. Consequently, the continued increase in human population and resource expansion is only potentially stemmed by 'human wisdom', virulent disease, another ice age, or their own weapons technology.

The pattern of human exploitation in the Arctic, characterized by the increasing utilization of natural resources and a pervasive desire to 'put it to use', highlights a significant lack of 'restraint'. Evolutionary biologists contend that for humanity to survive and avoid outstripping its food base, it is imperative to develop a new 'law' of behavior rooted in wisdom and a deep attentiveness to the 'biological imperatives' of the sun-driven protoplasm upon which all life, including human, depends. This is not a call for a lack of inventiveness, but rather an appeal to achieve the wisdom that has been a centuries-long aspiration, critically deferring to the natural world.

Traditional Eskimos on Saint Lawrence Island, who often perceive themselves as not entirely separate from the animal world, view modern humans with a mixture of 'incredulity and apprehension', referring to them as 'the people who change nature'. This perception stems from the vast scale and ease with which modern humans can alter the land, even electronically from distant cities. The text suggests that true wisdom does not reside in precise, absolute answers, but rather grows 'out of the land' itself, revealing itself most profoundly in the presence of 'well-chosen companions' like the Tununiarusirmiut men, whose happiness and sense of wealth are intrinsically linked to 'an abundance of animals', embodying an ancient philosophy of accommodation with the earth that many have abandoned.