While the ecological crisis is usually presented as a confrontation between mankind and nature, there remains a third term that it is imperative to keep in mind: technology, whose decisive importance Leroi-Gourhan had shown for the species history. Technology appears as made up of two fronts, which must be considered jointly: mediation with nature (i. e. the external environment), and mediation with man himself (i. e. the zoological body), whose sensitive insertion is modified. Two questions arise, relative to each of these fronts: with regard to nature, can the species succeed in a global and techno-scientific mode what it had historically succeeded in a local and dialectical mode? And with regard to man, can the eviction of traditional cultures entailed by technical development maintain the species’ capacity of long term orientation?
