Julia
Hospicing Modernity (https://decolonialfutures.net/hospicingmodernity/) changed my life a few years ago. I honestly can't think of another book that's been so impactful. Outgrowing Modernity took me FOREVER to read (over 6 months!), but I think that's because of how much wrestling with ideas, feelings, and ways of being it demands, even more so than HM for me personally. I especially loved and was stunned by Machado de Oliveira's approach to AI, or Emergent Intelligence, as she calls it, but how could it have been otherwise, given her overarching ways of being - if we are inseparable from all things, that includes the new forms of intelligence we are now using at our peril or to our benefit, typically both at once. This philosophy rejects simplicity, embraces our complicity, and provides a compass, not a roadmap, for how to live in the time of metacrises. There are times the book gets a little bogged down in intellectual parts, but Machado de Oliveira acknowledges that herself near the end. And her goalposts for us should we choose them are crystal clear and lacking obfuscation: sobriety, maturity, discernment, and responsibility. I feel like Krista Tippett always has nice things to say, but her front cover blurb is just spot on: "A moral, intellectual, and spiritual masterpiece."
Hospicing Modernity (https://decolonialfutures.net/hospicingmodernity/) changed my life a few years ago. I honestly can't think of another book that's been so impactful. Outgrowing Modernity took me FOREVER to read (over 6 months!), but I think that's because of how much wrestling with ideas, feelings, and ways of being it demands, even more so than HM for me personally. I especially loved and was stunned by Machado de Oliveira's approach to AI, or Emergent Intelligence, as she calls it, but how could it have been otherwise, given her overarching ways of being - if we are inseparable from all things, that includes the new forms of intelligence we are now using at our peril or to our benefit, typically both at once. This philosophy rejects simplicity, embraces our complicity, and provides a compass, not a roadmap, for how to live in the time of metacrises. There are times the book gets a little bogged down in intellectual parts, but Machado de Oliveira acknowledges that herself near the end. And her goalposts for us should we choose them are crystal clear and lacking obfuscation: sobriety, maturity, discernment, and responsibility. I feel like Krista Tippett always has nice things to say, but her front cover blurb is just spot on: "A moral, intellectual, and spiritual masterpiece."