Krenak teaching us: Ideas to postpone the end of the world and a critique of modernity

Abstract

This essay reflects on Ideas to Postpone the End of the World, by Ailton Krenak, understanding it as an Indigenous philosophical elaboration that critically interrogates the foundations of Western modernity. From an essayistic, interpretive, and critical-reflective approach, grounded in Indigenous thought as a locus of enunciation and knowledge production, the text examines how Krenak problematizes central notions of the modern project, such as humanity, progress, and the separation between nature and culture. It argues that his critique exposes the ontological and epistemological limits of modern rationality, which sustains forms of exploitation, exhaustion, and denial of life. More than a denunciation of the ongoing civilizational collapse, Krenak work is understood as a political pedagogy that generates possible learnings to rethink modes of existence, coexistence, and care for the world, opening space to imagine other ways of inhabiting the Earth in a context of profound crisis.