Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity's Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism

Driven by expansion, colonialism, and resource extraction and propelled by neoliberalism and rabid consumption, the world we find ourselves in is profoundly out of balance. We take more than we give; we inoculate ourselves in positive self-regard while continuing to make harmful choices; we wreak irreparable havoc on the ecosystems, habitats, and beings with whom we share our planet. So. What do we do? How can we move from what's wrong to what's next? How do we become OK with dispatching our current systems and modern comforts?

This book is not easy: it contains no quick-fix plan for a better, brighter tomorrow, and gives no ready-made answers. Instead, Vanessa Machado de Oliveira presents us with a challenge: to grow up, step up, and show up for ourselves, our communities, and our Earth, and to interrupt the modern behavior patterns that are killing our planet.

Machado de Oliveira breaks down archetypes of cognitive dissonance--the do-gooder who does good enough, then retreats to business as usual; the incognito capitalist who, at first glance, may seem like a radical change-maker--and asks us to do more. She explains how our habits, behaviors, and belief systems hold us back...and why it's time to say goodbye to all of them for good. Including exercises used with teachers, NGO practitioners, and global changemakers, she offers us thought experiments that ask us to:
- Reimagine how we learn and respond to crisis
- Better assess our surroundings and interact with difference
- Understand the 5 modern-colonial e's: Entitlements, Exceptionalism, Exaltation, Emancipation, and Enmeshment in low-intensity struggle activism

For fans of adrienne maree brown, Sherri Mitchell, and Charles Eisenstein, Hospicing Modernity challenges our assumptions, cuts through our collective cognitive dissonance, and dares to ask more of us, for the sake of us all.