After my misbegotten venture panning for gold last Friday, I went into the office to warm up and dry off a bit. The day was unseasonably snowy on the Turnagain Arm, much to the surprise of almost everyone, least of all myself. To pass the time, I engaged the shop keeper in conversation about the facility and its features, and she shared with me the story of a bear. He apparently comes down and checks the chickens for eggs; he’s smart enough to not cut off his food supply but not smart enough to know that one day these visits will necessitate that he be shot before he presents a danger to humans.
All over Alaska, you see signs warning you against feeding the wildlife. There are some sick and wounded animals who are kept in an enclosure by the Alaskan Wildlife Conservation Center who cannot fend for themselves, but in general when animals come to depend on humans for food they become unable to survive on their own. In the case of bears, a Fed Bear is a Dead Bear, because eventually bears that come looking at human shelters and human refuse containers for food present enough danger that the state licenses them to be shot to protect us and to prevent the bear population from becoming weaker.
Paradoxically, we do the exact opposite with our own species. As members of our own species become increasingly dependent on us, they like the bears become less able and inclined to survive on their own. Like the bears, they pass on this behavior to their young who inherit an attitude toward and expectation for social welfare that makes them increasingly weak. Unlike bears, we do not shoot them because we have a different set of morals for our own kind. However, a Fed Human is a Dead Human. Although they may be alive, they do not necessarily truly live.
Look at the faces of animals in captivity. They do not look happy. Look at the faces of humans who are dependent on someone else’s beneficence, voluntary or via compulsory taxes, and even with their iphones, plasma TVs and camaros, they are still NOT HAPPY. It’s not enough. They obtain it easily, and so they esteem it lightly. We keep them alive, but they do not truly live. Unfortunately for our species, these also reproduce, and the human race becomes ever weaker as we “feed the bears” among us.
Every semester, I comment on the paradox of the career choice most of my students pursue. I remind them that they are entering a profession where we prop up at great expense some of the weakest among us. I am not advocating that we let them die as did Ebenezer Scrooge. I am pointing out that as we continue to do this, we make the bears among us ever more dependent on the bulls among us, and eventually there may not be enough to feed everyone. I point out that it’s highly probable that we have more poor among us because modern medicine keeps alive today people who would otherwise be dead already. Even I with my nearsightedness might not have lived to adolescence had I been born but a century earlier, and even if I had, it’s very unlikely I would have become a professor.
In the end, feeding the humans does the humans as much of a favor as feeding the bears. When they do not have to do any of their own work, they become as loathsome to the body as any other kind of saprophyte. No matter how cleverly they know to take the eggs without killing the chickens, eventually those who own the chickens will want to eat of the fruits of their labor. The law of the harvest applies. If you reap what you did not sow, you must eventually pay the price. If you sow but do not reap, eventually you must have the benefits of your work. We believe that in every other aspect of life and pretend it doesn’t exist when it comes time to feed the humans. Feeding them for a day just prolonges their death. There are better options, which will work precisely because humans are not bears.
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