Vanessa Machado de Oliveira, author of 'Hospicing Modernity' and 'Outgrowing Modernity', discusses how modern narratives can hinder our relationship with nature and lead to societal collapse. She emphasizes the need for a new story that fosters community, empathy, and emotional connection. The conversation explores the profound impacts of colonialism on indigenous communities and advocates for deeper engagement with the land. Vanessa also highlights the importance of amplifying diverse voices to effectively navigate the intertwined social and environmental crises we face.
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insights INSIGHT
Modernity's Expired Story
The world is in crisis because the modern story of separation and exploitation has expired.
We must hospice this dying story and nurture something new without projections or idealization.
insights INSIGHT
Beyond Story: Embodied Relationship
Changing the story isn't enough; we need a different way of relating to reality beyond subject-object.
Meaning comes from embodied sensing and relationship, not just language or cognition.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Plan for Crisis Scenarios
Prepare for multiple crisis scenarios emotionally and strategically to avoid panic and scapegoating.
Feel and process arising emotions to coordinate effectively when destabilization hits.
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Navigating Complexity, Complicity, and Collapse with Accountability and Compassion
Vanessa Machado de Oliveira
Hospicing Modernity
Facing Humanity's Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism
Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti
This book critiques the modernity narrative as a single story of progress, development, and civilization that is expiring. It argues that modernity, driven by expansion, colonialism, and resource extraction, has created significant harm and imbalance. Andreotti calls for 'hospicing' modernity, offering palliative care to its decline while nurturing new, potentially wiser systems. The book includes thought experiments and exercises to help readers reimagine learning, unlearn harmful behaviors, and expand their capacity to handle difficult and painful issues. It emphasizes the need for humility, accountability, and a deep understanding of the interconnectedness of human and natural systems.
We need a new story.
We also need to do the hard work of re-engineering our societies, re-imagining our relationships, and remembering our bodies. Vanessa Machado de Oliveira, author of Hospicing Modernity, start our conversation right there, teasing apart the comforting notion that the hard work is just a language problem. Yes, we need a new story. And what else? And where do stories come from? And how are we wired to reject uncomfortable stories? And how do we make the uncomfortable possible? And which of our traditional strategies are getting in the way of the future?
Vanessa is celebrated for her work on modernity, and providing the tools to confront its collapse by reframing it as palliative care. Her new book, Outgrowing Modernity, develops more tools for how to nurse the possible futures emerging on our horizon. We harness these tools and metaphors to journey on a conversation of enquiry rather than conclusion, laughing with the notion that there is a single answer to any of this. This is a probing, thoughtful and curious conversation in which Vanessa and I think out loud together about what to do at the end of the world.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis. Choose a paid subscription to support independent, paywall-free journalism.
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