A Yanomami Shaman against the philosophical-sociological discourse of modernity

Abstract

In this paper, which intends to establish a dialogue between literature and philosophy-sociology, we develop a double argument. Based on  the discussion of Davi Kopenawa’s and Bruce Albert’s The falling sky: words of a Yanomami Shaman and Jürgen Habermas’ philosophical-sociological theory of modernity the essay discusses: i) the distinctive characteristic of Indigenous literature. We maintain that this distinction lies in the conjunction between its self-biographical style, and the fundamental correlation between personal history and collective destiny (at the social-cultural and ecological-spiritual levels), invigorated by and based on myth, so that such a correlation between personal history and collective destiny becomes the epistemological, political anthropological and ontological key to access the Indigenous text-praxis; ii) it allows us to deconstruct an idyllic vision of Europe about itself and its caricature of primitive cultures, epistemologies and peoples (as non-modern, pre-modern ”“ because after modernity there is nothing else, as it is the evolutionary, epistemological and ontological apogee of humankind), in which, firstly, modernity is rational and generates individualization, critical thinking, emancipation and universalism, because of the separation between personal history and collective destiny, while, secondly, traditional culture does not generate rationalization, or critical thinking, or emancipation or universalism, since it is marked by the strong imbrication between personal history and collective destiny and is permeated by myth. With that, we argue that shamanism, more than modernization, can be effectively understood as the victim’s voice, as the other’s voice, allowing for a universal critical-emancipatory perspective that allows for an interconnected existence based on the correlation between personal history and collective destiny mediated by myth.