Hospicing Modernity | Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti

Modernity is dying within and around us, and we need to face that death with courage and compassion. Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti, author of Hospicing Modernity, joins us. Highlights include: How her mixed Indigenous and German heritage in Brazil exposed her to a complex mix of love and violence, deepening her understanding of how socialization and education can perpetuate harmful relationships; Why the ‘house of modernity’, which is built on a foundation of humanity’s separation from the rest of nature, is structured to ultimately fail; Why we need to ‘hospice modernity’ both within and around us, without feeling overwhelmed or rushing for quick fixes, while making space for something much larger to emerge; Why we need to compost the ‘pedestal’ sense of agency from modernity and its elevated sense of certainty and subject-object relationships and embrace a more intersubjective mycelial sense of agency; Why ‘outgrowing modernity’ will require us to prepare for a ‘well-died death’ and a greater sense of emotional sobriety, relational maturity, intellectual discernment, and interspecies and intergenerational responsibility. See episode website for show notes, links, and transcript: https://www.populationbalance.org/pod... 0:00 Introduction 4:31 Personal journey 11:28 House of modernity and its collapse process 27:29 Hospicing and composting modernity 33:36 Failure of language and control 42:05 Outgrowing modernity OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance OVERSHOOT tackles today’s interlocked social and ecological crises driven by humanity’s excessive population and consumption. The podcast explores needed narrative, behavioral, and system shifts for recreating human life in balance with all life on Earth. With expert guests from wide-ranging disciplines, we examine the forces underlying overshoot: from patriarchal pronatalism that is fueling overpopulation, to growth-biased economic systems that lead to consumerism and social injustice, to the dominant worldview of human supremacy that subjugates animals and nature. Our vision of shrinking toward abundance inspires us to seek pathways of transformation that go beyond technological fixes toward a new humanity that honors our interconnectedness with all beings. Hosted by Nandita Bajaj and Alan Ware. Brought to you by Population Balance. Subscribe to our newsletter here: https://www.populationbalance.org/sub... Learn more at populationbalance.org Copyright 2025 Population Balance