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perennialessays · 3 years

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Crisis and Critique

What is critical theory, and whence the notion of critique as a practical stance towards the world? Using these questions as a point of departure, this course takes critical theory as its field of inquiry. Part of the course will be devoted to investigating what critique is, starting with the etymological and conceptual affinity it shares with crisis: since the Enlightenment, so one line of argument goes, all grounds for knowledge are subject to criticism, which is understood to generate a sense of escalating historical crisis culminating in a radical renewal of the intellectual and social order. We will explore the efficacy of modern critical thought, and the concept of critique’s efficacy, by examining a series of attempts to narrate and amplify states of crisis – and correspondingly transform key concepts such as self, will, time, and world – in order to provoke a transformation of society. The other part of the course will be oriented towards understanding current critical movements as part of the Enlightenment legacy of critique, and therefore as studies in the practical implications of critical readings. Key positions in critical discourse will be discussed with reference to the socio-political conditions of their formation and in the context of their provenance in the history of philosophy, literature, and cultural theory. Required readings will include works by Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Husserl, Benjamin and others, with suggested readings and references drawn from a variety of source materials ranging from literary and philosophical texts to visual images, film, and architecture. You are invited to work on your individual interests with respect to the readings.

Week 1

Critique, krinein, crisis (Koselleck, Adorno)

Required Reading

Reinhart Koselleck, “Crisis,” Journal of the History of Ideas 67.2 (2006), 357-400.

—, Chapters 7 and 8, Critique and Crisis: Enlightenment and the Pathogenesis of Modern Society. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1988 [German original, 1959].

Adorno and Horkheimer, "The Concept of Enlightenment," in Dialectic of Enlightenment, trans. John Cumming (New York: Continuum, 1989), pp. 3-42.

Recommended Reading

Michel Foucault, “What is Enlightenment?” in The Foucault Reader. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984: 32-50.

—, The Politics of Truth. New York: Semiotext(e), 1997.

Friedrich Hölderlin, “Nature and Art or Saturn and Jupiter,” in Hyperion and Selected Poems. Ed. by Eric Santner. Translated by Michael Hamburger. New York: Continuum, 1990: 150-151.

Week 2

Judgment and Imagination (Kant)

Required Reading

Immanuel Kant, “Preface [A and B],” in Critique of Pure Reason. Translated and edited by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998: 99-124.

—, “Preface” and “Introduction,” in Critique of Practical Reason, in Practical Philosophy, trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge UP, 1996), pp. 139-149.

—, §§1-5, 59-60 of Critique of the Power of Judgment, trans. Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews (Cambridge UP, 2000), pp. 89-96, 225-230.

—, “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose,” in Kant: Political Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991 (2nd ed.): 41-53, 273.

—, “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? [1784],” in Practical Philosophy. Translated by Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999: 11-22.

Recommended Reading

Immanuel Kant, "Analytic of the Sublime," in Critique of Judgment. Translated by James Creed Meredith; revised, edited, and introduced by Nicholas Walker. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007: 75-164.

Theodor Adorno, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (2001 [1959])

Henry Allison, Kant’s Transcendental Idealism (2004)

Hannah Arendt, Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy (1992)

Geoffrey Bennington, “Kant’s Open Secret”, Theory, Culture and Society 28.7-8(2011): 26-40.

J.M. Bernstein, The Fate of Art: Aesthetic Alienation from Kant to Derrida and Adorno (1992)

Graham Bird, The Revolutionary Kant (2006)

Andrew Bowie, Aesthetics and Subjectivity: from Kant to Nietzsche (1990, 2003)

Howard Caygill, The Kant Dictionary (2000)

Ernst Cassirer, Kant's Life and Thought (1981)

Gilles Deleuze, Kant's Critical Philosophy (1984)

Will Dudley and Kristina Engelhard (eds.) Immanuel Kant: Key Concepts (2010)

Paul Guyer, Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment: Critical Essays (2003)

Martin Heidegger, Phenomenological Interpretation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1997)

Laura Hengehold, The BODY Problematic: Political Imagination in Kant and Foucault (2007)

Otfried Höffe, Immanuel Kant (1994)

Jean-François Lyotard, L’Enthousiasme: La critique kantienne de l’histoire. Paris: L’Éditions Galilée, 1986.

Rudolf Makkreel, Imagination and Interpretation in Kant: The Hermaneutic Import of the Critique of Judgment (1990)

Jean-Luc Nancy, A Finite Thinking (2003)

Andrea Rehberg and Rachel Jones (eds.), The Matter of Critique: Readings in Kant’s Philosophy (2000)

Philip Rothfield (ed.), Kant after Derrida (2003)

Rei Terada, Looking Away: Phenomenality and Dissatisfaction, Kant to Adorno (2009)

Yirmiahu Yovel, Kant and the Philosophy of History (1989)

Week 3

Recognition and the Other (Hegel)

Required Reading

G.W.F. Hegel, “The Truth of Self-Certainty” and “Lordship and Bondage,” in The Phenomenology of Spirit. Translated by Terry Pinkard. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2018: 102-116.

—, “The Art-Religion,” in The Phenomenology of Spirit. Translated by Terry Pinkard. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2018: 403-430.

Recommended Reading

G.W.F. Hegel, Introduction [§§1, 2, 3, 5, 6 and 8], in Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art. Translated by T.M. Knox. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975: 1-14; 22-55; 69-90.

Stuart Barnett (ed.), Hegel after Derrida (2001)

Frederick Beiser (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hegel (1993)

Susan Buck-Morss, Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History (2009)

Rebecca Comay, Mourning Sickness: Hegel and the French Revolution (2011)

Rebecca Comay and John McCumber (eds.), Endings: Questions of Memory in Hegel and Heidegger (1999)

Eva Geulen, The End of Art: Readings in a Rumor after Hegel. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006.

Werner Hamacher, “(The End of Art with the Mask),” in Stuart Barnett (ed.), Hegel after Derrida. London and New York: Routledge, 1998: 105-130.

Werner Hamacher, “The Reader’s Supper: A Piece of Hegel,” trans. Timothy Bahti, diacritics 11.2 (1981): 52-67.

H.S. Harris, Hegel: Phenomenology and System (1995)

Stephen Houlgate, An Introduction to Hegel: Freedom, Truth and History (2005)

Stephen Houlgate, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (2013)

Fredric Jameson, The Hegel Variations (2010)

Alexandre Kojève, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel. Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980.

Terry Pinkard, Hegel: A Biography (2001)

Week 4

Revolution … (Marx)

Required Reading

Karl Marx, “I: Feuerbach,” The German Ideology, in Collected Works vol. 5. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1976: 27-93.

Karl Marx, "Theses on Feuerbach," available online (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm)

Week 5

... and Repetition (Marx)

Required Reading

Karl Marx, “Preface” to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy [1859], in Collected Works vol. 29. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1976: 261-165.

—, “Postface to the Second Edition” and “Chapter 1: The Commodity,” in Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Trans. by B. Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990: 95-103 and 125-177.

Recommended Reading

Louis Althusser, For Marx (1969)

Hannah Arendt, “Karl Marx and the Tradition of Western Political Thought”, Social Research 69.2 (2002): 273-319.

Étienne Balibar, The Philosophy of Marx (1995, 2007)

Ernst Bloch, On Karl Marx (1971)

Andrew Chitty and Martin McIvor (eds.), Karl Marx and Contemporary Philosophy (2009)

Simon Choat, Marx Through Post-Structuralism: Lyotard, Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze (2010)

Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New International. New York and London: Routledge, 1994.

Werner Hamacher, “Lingua Amissa: The Messianism of Commodity-Language and Derrida’s Specters of Marx” (1999)

Jean Hyppolite, Studies on Marx and Hegel (1969)

Sarah Kofman, Camera Obscura: Of Ideology (1998)

Peter Singer, Marx: A Very Short Introduction (1980)

Michael Sprinker (ed.), Ghostly Demarcations: A Symposium on Jacques Derrida’s Specters of Marx (1999, 2008)

Moishe Postone, History and Heteronomy: Critical Essays (2009)

Moishe Postone, Time, Labor, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx’s Critical Theory (1993)

Jacques Rancière, “The Concept of ‘Critique’ and the ‘Critique of Political Economy’ (from the 1844 Manuscript to Capital)”, Economy and Society 5.3 (1976): 352-376.

Tom Rockmore, Marx After Marxism: The Philosophy of Karl Marx (2002)

Gareth Stedman-Jones, Karl Marx: Greatness and Illusion (2016)

Week 6

Tutorial Week

Week 7

Will to Becoming Otherwise (Nietzsche)

Required Reading

Friedrich Nietzsche, "Preface" and "First Treatise," in On the Genealogy of Morality. Trans. by Maudemarie Clark and Alan J. Swensen. Indianopolis/Cambridge: Hackett, 1998: 1-33.

Week 8

Ascetic Ideal and Eternal Return (Nietzsche)

Required Reading

Friedrich Nietzsche, "Second Treatise" and "Third Treatise," in On the Genealogy of Morality. Trans. by Maudemarie Clark and Alan J. Swensen. Indianopolis/Cambridge: Hackett, 1998: 35-118.

Recommended Reading

Friedrich Nietzsche, §§341-342 of The Gay Science

Friedrich Nietzsche, “On Vision and Riddle” and “The Convalescent,” in Thus Spake Zarathustra III

Friedrich Nietzsche, “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense,” in: The Birth of Tragedy and other writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Friedrich Nietzsche, “On the Uses and Abuses of History for Life,” in: Untimely Meditations. Trans. by R.J. Hollingdale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.

Jacques Derrida, Spurs: Nietzsche’s Styles. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1979.

Michel Foucault, "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History," in Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews. Ed. by D. F. Bouchard. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977: 139-164.

R. Kevin Hill, Nietzsche’s Critiques: The Kantian Foundations of his Thought (2003)

Luce Irigaray, Marine Lover of Friedrich Nietzsche. Trans. by Gillian C. Gill. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.

Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. by Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984.

Gianni Vattimo, The End of Modernity: Nihilism and Hermeneutics in Postmodern Culture. Trans. by Jon R. Snyder. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988.

Alenka Zupančič, The Shortest Shadow: Nietzsche’s Philosophy of the Two (2003)

Week 9

Repetition Compulsion (Freud)

Required Reading

Sigmund Freud, “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” [excerpts], in Peter Gay (ed.), The Freud Reader. London: Vintage, 1995: 594-625.

Recommended Reading

Theodor Adorno, “Revisionist Psychoanalysis,” Philosophy and Social Criticism 40.3 (2014): 326-338.

Louis Althusser, Writings on Psychoanalysis: Freud and Lacan (1996)

Lauren Berlant, Desire/Love (2012)

Leo Bersani, The Freudian Body: Psychoanalysis and Art (1986)

Rebecca Comay, “Resistance and Repetition: Freud and Hegel,” Research in Phenomenology 45 (2015): 237-266.

Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression (1995)

Jacques Derrida, The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond (1987)

Mladen Dolar, “Freud and the Political,” Unbound 4.15 (2008): 15-29.

Sarah Kofman, Freud and Fiction (1991)

Jacques Lacan, “The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious; or Reason after Freud”, in Écrits: A Selection. Trans. by A. Sheridan. New York: Norton, 1977: 146-175.

Catherine Malabou, “Plasticity and Elasticity in Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle.” Diacritics 37.4 (2007): 78-85.

Jean-Luc Nancy, "System of (Kantian) Pleasure (With a Freudian Postscript)," in Kant after Derrida. Ed. by Phil Rothfield. Manchester: Clinamen Press, 2003: 127-141.

Angus Nicholls and Martin Liebscher (eds.), Thinking the Unconscious: Nineteenth-Century German Thought (2010)

Charles Sheperdson, Vital Signs: Nature, Culture, Psychoanalysis (2000)

Samuel Weber, The Legend of Freud. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000.

Alenka Zupančič, Ethics of the Real: Kant and Lacan. London: Verso, 2012 [reprint].

Week 10

Crisis of European Humankind (Husserl)

Required Reading

Edmund Husserl, §§1-7 and §§10-21, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. Trans. by David Carr. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970: 2-18; 60-84.

Recommended Reading

Edmund Husserl, “Philosophy and the Crisis of European Humanity [Vienna Lecture],” in The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. Trans. by David Carr. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970: 269-299.

Jacques Derrida, The Other Heading: Reflections on Today’s Europe. Trans. by Pascale Anne Brault and Michael B. Naas. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992: 4-83.

Paul de Man, “Criticism and Crisis,” in Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971: 3-19.

James Dodd, Crisis and Reflection: An Essay on Husserl’s Crisis of the European Sciences (2004)

Burt C. Hopkins, The Philosophy of Husserl (2011)

David Hyder and Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Science and the Life-World: Essays on Husserl’s Crisis of European Sciences (2010)

Leonard Lawlor, Derrida and Husserl: The Basic Problem of Phenomenology (2002)

Dermot Moran, The Husserl Dictionary (2012)

Paul Valéry, "Notes on the Greatness and Decline of Europe” and “The European,” in History and Politics. Trans. Denise Folliot and Jackson Matthews. New York: Bollingen, 1962: 228; 311-12.

David Woodruff Smith, Husserl (2007)

Barry Smith and David Woodruff Smith (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Husserl (1995)

Week 11

Crisis-Proof Experience (Benjamin)

Required Reading

Walter Benjamin, “On Some Motifs in Baudelaire,” in Selected Writings vol. 4. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2003: 313-355.

Recommended Reading

Walter Benjamin, "Experience and Poverty"

—, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproducibility”

—, “Theses on the Concept of History”

—, “Epistemo-Critical Prologue,” in The Origin of German Tragic Drama. Trans. by John Osborne. London and New York: Verso, 2003: 27-56.

—, “Convolute J,” The Arcades Project

—, The Writer of Modern Life: Essays on Charles Baudelaire (2006)

Benjamin and Theodor Adorno, “Exchange with Theodor W. Adorno on ‘The Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire,” in Benjamin, Selected Writings vol. 4 (1999).

Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil; The Painter of Modern Life

Ian Balfour, “Reversal, Quotation (Benjamin’s History)”, Modern Language Notes 106.3 (1991): 622-647.

Eduardo Cadava, Words of Light: Theses on the Photography of History (1997)

Tom Gunning, “The Exterior as Intérieur: Benjamin’s Optical Detective,” boundary 2 30.1 (2003).

Werner Hamacher, “Now: Benjamin on Historical Time” (2001; 2005)

General Background

Julian Wolfreys (ed.), Modern European Criticism and Theory: A Critical Guide (2006) Simon Critchley, Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (2001) Terry Pinkard, German Philosophy 1760-1860: The Legacy of Idealism (2002)

Andrew Bowie, Introduction to German Philosophy: From Kant to Habermas (2003)

Kai Hammermeister, The German Aesthetic Tradition (2002) Gary Gutting, French Philosophy in the Twentieth Century (2001)

Eric Matthews, Twentieth-Century French Philosophy (1996)

Jonathan Simons (ed.), From Kant to Lévi-Strauss: The Background to Contemporary Critical Theory (2002)

Learning Outcomes

- You will have a grasp of the broad trends in the development of critical theory.

- You will have a good understanding of how different modern philosophical traditions from German Idealism to Phenomenology inform the different strains of critical theory.

- You will be able to expound and analyse the ways in which a range of different writers and tendencies in the history of modern thought conceive of the specificity of critique.

- You will have a sound grasp of the primary and secondary literatures in critical theory, both on general issues and specific thinkers or schools.

- You will be able to use the ideas and texts explored in the module to inform your readings in critical theoretical texts.

Assessment Criteria

- Students should show a clear command of how their chosen thinker(s) and texts relate to the broader trajectories of critical theory.

- Students should show a detailed critical knowledge of at least two of the module’s key thinkers or theoretical tendencies.

- Students should show a knowledge and capacity to use a good range of secondary literature on both general issues in the field and on the specific thinkers and texts they address.

- Students should be able to read the relevant texts from both critical and genealogical perspectives.

- Students should demonstrate their capacity to develop a distinctive and coherent interpretative and analytical perspective on their chosen subject.

#goldsmiths #crisis and critique

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kuramirocket · 2 years

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DR. RODRIGO A. MEDELLÍN

He was born in Mexico City and from very early on defined his vocation to study mammals. He has worked professionally on these issues since 1975. After completing his bachelor's degree at UNAM, he earned his doctorate from the University of Florida at Gainesville. Working in diverse systems from tropical rainforests to deserts to montane forests, Rodrigo uses a diverse approach including community ecology, plant-animal interactions, population biology, and many others.

His work on community ecology and bats as indicators and as providers of environmental services such as pest control, pollination and seed dispersal have been used to justify the creation of protected natural areas or to integrate management plans. His joint work with other colleagues on protocols for listing at-risk species is now a federal law.

He has produced more than 200 publications including 98 scientific articles in international journals and more than 50 books and book chapters on bat ecology, conservation and mammalian diversity. Rodrigo was General Director of Wildlife for the Mexican Federal Government in 1995–96 and President of the Mexican Association of Mastozoology from 1997 to 1999. Within the American Society of Mammologists, he has served as Chairman of various committees, and has been a Member of the Board of Directors from 2001 to 2007.

He has been a Member of the Scientific Advisory Council of Bat Conservation International and Lubee Bat Conservancy, and founder and director of the Program for the Conservation of Mexican Bats, which turned 15 in 2009.

Rodrigo is President of the Bat Specialist Group of the World Conservation Union (IUCN), and titular researcher "C" of the UNAM Institute of Ecology, He has taught conservation biology and community ecology for more than 15 years at the undergraduate and graduate level, and served as Head of the Department of Biodiversity Ecology from 2003 to 2006. He has directed 35 undergraduate, 17 master's and 5 doctoral theses.

He is an Associate Professor at Columbia University in New York and an Associate Researcher at the American Museum of Natural History and the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. Rodrigo has been Associate Editor of four of the most important scientific journals in the field of conservation and mammals in the world: Conservation Biology, Journal of Mammalogy, ORYX, and Acta Chiropterologica.

In 2000 he was appointed representative of Mexico to the CITES Animals Committee (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), in 2002 he was elected Representative of North America and also Vice-Chairman of the CITES Animals Committee, in 2004 and 2007, At the request of the governments of Canada, Mexico and the United States, he was re-elected to the same posts. He is part of the United Nations Millennium Project as a member of Task Force 6: Stop the Loss of Natural Resources, and continues to be an adviser to the Mexican Government on wildlife issues. He was also a member of CONACYT's Biological Sciences Project Evaluation Committee from 2005 to 2009.

In April 2004, he received the Whitley Nature Conservation Award from Princess Anna of England. In October of that year, the American Society for the Study of Bats awarded him its highest honor, the Gerrit S. Miller Award, which is conferred on people "in recognition of an extraordinary service and contribution in the field of bat biology". In November, President Vicente Fox granted Rodrigo the 2004 Nature Conservation Award. In June 2007, the American Society of Mammologists awarded him the highest conservation recognition, the Aldo Leopold Award, which is given to individuals who have made extraordinary and lasting contributions to the conservation of mammals and their habitats. In September, the University of Florida Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation recognized him as Distinguished Alumni, and in October the Wildlife Trust Alliance recognized him as the Conservation Scientist of the Year. In 2009 he received the Rolex Associate Award for Enterprise and the Volkswagen Award “For Love to the Planet” in 2011 his NGO BIOCONCIENCIA was the winner of the BBVA Foundation Award for Biodiversity Conservation Activities in Latin America. The following year, he received the Whitley Gold Award for having made the most impact with the resources received earlier. He also received the Pollinator Advocate of the Year Award and was selected as one of the "50 Individuals Moving Mexico" by Expansión and Who Magazine.

Between 2013 and 2015 he was president of the Society for Conservation Biology. During this period he also produced with the BBC the documentary The Bat Man of Mexico, which was awarded at the Bristol Festival and the New York Wild Film Festival. In 2015 he was appointed a member of the Multidisciplinary Experts Panel of the Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

Becoming the 'Bat Man' of Mexico

National Geographic Explorer at Large and ecologist Rodrigo Medellín uses a multidisciplinary approach to protect and conserve bat species.

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Bats don’t often get the credit they deserve for the important role they play in their native ecosystems, where they serve as pest exterminators and crop pollinators. The lesser long-nosed bat, found in northern Mexico and the southwestern United States, is one of just three bat species in North America that are responsible for pollinating cacti and agave plants across the continent.

And it's not just the plants that benefit: Bat pollination is critical to the blue agave plants from which tequila is made — a fact that just may save this particular species, thanks in part to the work of conservationist and National Geographic Explorer-at-Large Rodrigo Medellín.

Medellín, known as the “Bat Man of Mexico,” is a professor of ecology and conservation at the Institute of Ecology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. He says he was already determined to be a bat biologist when he held a bat for the first time at just 13 years old.

“My sense of awe and admiration and curiosity was then fully sealed for life,” he says. “I felt I was facing the most amazingly interesting and misunderstood organisms on Earth, and bats really had been beckoning me.” Medellín began studying the lesser long-nosed bat over three decades ago, before the animal was listed as a threatened species in 1994.

Official Instagram

Since then, he’s been instrumental in educating farmers about the importance of bats and role in agave pollination, convincing many to set aside part of their land to allow the plants there to flower and be pollinated. Previously, farmers seeking to boost the agave’s sugar content would cut off the flowers before they could be pollinated. In fields where farmers have allowed plants to flower, however, “they’re full of food and bats are visiting—it’s nothing short of historic,’’ says Medellín. “This is the way things were done six generations ago.”

It’s more than good news for the farmers and their fields: the lesser long-nosed bat was removed from the endangered species list in Mexico. “Today many millions of people protect and defend bats” says Medellín.

“Every day of our lives is touched by one or more ecosystem service that bats provide. From your cotton shirt to your coffee to your tacos to your rice to your tequila, and much, much more, your life has been touched by bats,” says Medellín.

“Inside I continue to be that 13 year old child every time I see a bat!”

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Now, as the COVID-19 pandemic causes even more harmful bat myths, the world must once again realize that bats may not be the hero everyone wants—but they’re the hero we need.

A Skeptic's Guide to Loving Bats - Overheard at National Geographic

Sources: (x) (x)

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fureliselost · 2 years

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I posted 797 times in 2021

355 posts created (45%)

442 posts reblogged (55%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 1.2 posts.

I added 1.169 tags in 2021

#danny phantom - 280 posts

#danny fenton - 236 posts

#dp - 139 posts

#art - 96 posts

#eli art - 86 posts

#eli fics - 76 posts

#sam manson - 68 posts

#vlad masters - 64 posts

#eli rants - 63 posts

#fanart - 61 posts

Longest Tag: 125 characters

#danny: *remembering that dash shoved him inside lockers three times today and pushed him down tbe stairs on the way to class*

My Top Posts in 2021

The biggest irony in Danny Phantom is that it's a show about death but never once is death actually spoken about closely nor is the main character ever indicated to have dealt with death/loss (not even his own).

572 notes • Posted 2021-07-23 23:25:59 GMT

Yo, I've been thinking about Danny's grades. Because, like, most of the DP fandom writes ff with Danny being one bad grade from flunking out 'cause he can't fight ghosts and keep up with the school work.

But, like, is that really accurate tho? (And let me make it clear that I've only watched DP once and that was in Feb, so I could have some information missing here)

Cuz on the very first ep Lancer tells Danny he has basically nothing bad on his record (whereas Tucker had some transgressions).

And I can only remember Danny's grades being mentioned 5 times in the entire show (on One Of A Kind, Teacher Of The Year, What You Want (?), TUE, and, obviously, Mystery Meat — there is Vlad's mentions of Danny's grades and Danny's dream in Frightmare, but I'm not considering those).

On One of a Kind, he gets a D in his biology — which, from the way he said it, it sounded like he never got a grade that low — but he managed to raise his grade.

On Teacher of the Year, he fails his English (?) exam — not because he was occupied with a ghost, but because he was obsessed with playing Doom (let's also remember that, on One of a Kind, Tucker literally says Danny's problem was time management) — but then he was able to retake the test and got a 91%.

On What You Want, he mentions he's a C student.

And, well, everyone knows what happened in TUE: Danny says he isn't prepared for the CAT 'cuz he didn't get to study throughout the year because of ghost fighting (which IG is where the whole fanfic thing comes from).

But, like, was Danny actually not able to study because of ghosts? Because I can't actually think of a time where he was actually stopped from getting his homework done by a ghost fight.

But you know what does come up in my mind when I think of all of that? "Poor time management skills"... Oh, wait, that's already Canon!

Before I get into the time management skills, lemme bring up again Vlad's comments, Danny's A grade on his dream on Frightmare, and Danny's comment on What You Want (as well as what he said in TUE).

Guys, the educational system sucks. In 2004 it was worse. Teachers also suck in that respect (do I need to explain that I don't hate all teachers, only the sucky ones?).

There are teachers who humiliate you in front of the class for having a question they believe you shouldn't have, I'm pretty sure everyone has been in that situation or knows someone who has. Some teachers shame you every time you get a bad grade instead of offering solutions — that affects people, it doesn't even have to be that explicit.

I spent 'till my senior year of highschool thinking I was a terrible student (because teachers told me I was every time I got a bad grade). That only changed when I was calculating my GPA to see which colleges I had a shot at: my GPA was 3.6/4

Now, take Mr Daniel Fenton. Youngest son of a family of geniuses. His older sister got the highest ever CAT grade and writes Theses for funsies. His parents not only where accepted to appear on genius magazine (Jazz may have done the application for Maddie, but she wouldn't lie on it knowing that they would do at least some fact chacking — meaning that she probably picked accomplishments of Maddie's and used only the ones she approved of, meaning that they had accomplishments other than the ghost related ones) but they also built a freaking portal to another dimension.

Not to mention that Tucker is a top notch hacker and doesn't get good grades because he doesn't want to (which doesn't matter because he changes them anyway) and that Sam never shows any concern towards her grades and, being from a rich family, she probably has to get good grades.

Take Danny, who wants to be an astronaut — the literal hardest job to get on the face of the Earth, which also requires a degree in the STEM area (which Danny is admittedly not the best at). Now put him in a place where his grades dropped a little — Maddie, his mother, literally told him he had to get good grades because "Fentons get As" or whatever.

Is it that hard to think that a lot of Danny saying his grades are so terrible and he's not prepared for the tests is because that's just how low he thinks of himself academically?

Lemme get back to the time management skills.

So I've already established that the educational system sucks and it wasn't any better in 2004.

It was even worse at recognizing and dealing with neurodivergent kids.

And I'm pretty sure that, like, 70% of the fandom sees Danny as Neurodivergent-coded — autism, ADHD, anxiety, depression, etc.

The thing with being neurodivergent is that sometimes ND people suck at some executive functions/have executive dysfunctions.

Do you know what is an executive function? Time management skills.

When it comes to studying, I personally have a lot of trouble with distractions and getting myself to start the assignment. That problem is usually solved if I have someone to do it with me — and by that I mean that the person usually just sits nearby and sometimes helps me with processing an information, which tends to consist in just me talking.

Which is basically what Lancer did with Danny in Teacher of the Year. Which,,, Lancer, my beloved, yes! When he found the problem, he tried to find a solution and his frickin solution worked!

Anyway, this is all I wanted to say: the educational system sucks, Danny has a warped view of himself, Danny is neurodivergent, and Lancer should've been portrayed as an awesome teacher since the start because he was awesome.

700 notes • Posted 2021-06-11 09:10:12 GMT

Mr Lancer: Where is your homework?

Danny, absolutely exhausted out of his mind after an all-nighter chasing a ghost and had no time to do said homework: A ghost ate it.

Lancer, realizing that's a plausible excuse: *sighs*

The rest of Casper High's student body, also realizing it's a plausible excuse: It's free real estate.

837 notes • Posted 2021-11-23 02:47:00 GMT

Someone explain to me why Wes' immediate reaction to finding out the truth about Danny is "imma expose that mf".

Like, 1) not only is that a jerk move (and none of Wes' fucking business), but it's also basically outing him; 2) is he stupid? 'cause Danny can literally lift a bus and he could, like, kill Wes v easy; 3) if he's really so adamant about posting it online because he's an amateur reporter or "the truth must be heard" or whatever other shit, why does he never think about talking to Danny to get the whole truth? Like, is he that incompetent?

1067 notes • Posted 2021-04-28 07:06:39 GMT

Valerie: Where is Danny?

Sam: Not that it's any of your business, Valerie, but he's busy.

*Danny crashes on their table as Phantom*

1068 notes • Posted 2021-06-23 03:02:09 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#my 2021 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #q1 #dp consumed me this year

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digitaladvertiser · 3 years

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old boys network

100 anti-theses cyberfeminism is not ... 1. cyberfeminism is not a fragrance 2. cyberfeminism is not a fashion statement 3. sajbrfeminizm nije usamljen 4. cyberfeminism is not ideology 5. cyberfeminism nije aseksualan 6. cyberfeminism is not boring 7. cyberfeminism ist kein gruenes haekeldeckchen 8. cyberfeminism ist kein leerer kuehlschrank 9. cyberfeminism ist keine theorie 10. cyberfeminism ist keine praxis 11. cyberfeminism ist keine traditio 12. cyberfeminism is not an institution 13. cyberfeminism is notusing words without any knowledge of numbers 14. cyberfeminism is not complete 15. cyberfeminism is not error 101 16. cyberfeminism ist kein fehler 17. cyberfeminism ist keine kunst 18. cyberfeminism is not an ism 19. cyberfeminism is not anti-male 20. sajbrfeminizm nige nesto sto znam da je 21. cyberfeminism is not a structure 22. cyberfeminismo no es uns frontera 23. cyberfeminism nije poslusan 24. cyberfeminism nije apolitican 25. cyberfeminisme is niet concreet 26. cyberfeminism is not separatism 27. cyberfeminism is not a tradition 28. cyberfeminism is not maternalistic 29. cyberfeminisme id niet iets buitenlands 30. cyberfeminism is not without connectivity 31. cyberfeminismus ist nicht mehr wegzudenken 32. cyberfeminismus ist kein oxymoron 33. cyberfeminism is not on sale 34. cyberfeminism is nor for sale 35. cyberfeminismus ist nicht gut 36. cyberfeminismus ist nicht schlecht 37. cyberfeminismus ist nicht modern 38. cyberfeminismus ist nicht post-modern 39. cyberfeminism is not natural 40. cyberfeminism is not essentialist 41. cyberfeminism is not abject 42. cyberfeminism is not an avatar 43. cyberfeminism is not an alter ego 44. cyberfeminismus ist nicht truegerisch 45. cyberfeminismus ist nicht billig 46. cyberfeminismus ist nicht willig 47. cyberfeminisme n'est pas jaloux 48. cyberfeminism is not exclusive 49. cyberfeminism is not solid 50. cyberfeminism is not genetic 51. cyberfeminismus ist keine entschuldigung 52. cyberfeminism is not prosthetic 53. cyberfeminismo no tiene cojones 54. cyberfeminisme n'est pas triste 55. cyberfeminisme n'est pas une pipe 56. cyberfeminism is not a motherboard 57. cyberfeminism is not a fake 58. cyberfeminism nije ogranicen 59. cyberfeminism nije nekonfliktan 60. cyberfeminism nije make up 61. cyberfeminism nije zatvoren prozor 62. cyberfeminism is not a lack 63. cyberfeminism is not a wound 64. cyberfeminism is not a trauma 65. cyberfeminismo no es una banana 66. cyberfeminism is not a sure shot 67. cyberfeminism is not an easy mark 68. cyberfeminism is not a single woman 69. cyberfeminism is not romantic 70. cyberfeminism is not post-modern 71. cyberfeminism is not a media-hoax 72. cyberfeminism is not neutral 73. cyberfeminism is not lacanian 74. cyberfeminism is not nettime 75. cyberfeminism is not a picnic 76. cyberfeminism is not a coldfish 77. cyberfeminism is not a cyberepilation 78. cyberfeminism is not a horror movie 79. cyberfeminism is not science fiction 80. cyberfeminism is not artificial intelligence 81. cyberfeminism is not an empty space 82. cyberfeminism is not immobile 83. cyberfeminism is not about boring toys for boring boys 84. cyberfeminismus ist keine verlegenheitsloesung 85. cyberfeminism is not a one-way street 86. cyberfeminism is not supporting quantum mechanics 87. cyberfeminism is not caffeine-free 88. cyberfeminism is not a non-smoking area 89. cyberfeminism is not daltonistic 90. cyberfeminism is not nice 91. cyberfeminismo no es callado 92. cyberfeminism is not lady.like 93. cyberfeminismus ist nicht arrogant 94. cyberfeminismus ist keine nudelsauce 95. cyberfeminism is not mythical 96. cyberfeminism is not from outer space 97. cyberfeminismo no es rock 'n roll 98. cyberfeminism is not dogmatic 99. cyberfeminism is not stable 100. cyberfeminism has not only one language

https://www.obn.org/reading_room/manifestos/html/anti.html

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khalilhumam · 3 years

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Stephan Klasen Postdoctoral Fellowships for the Global South

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/stephan-klasen-postdoctoral-fellowships-for-the-global-south/

Stephan Klasen Postdoctoral Fellowships for the Global South

Last week, the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Göttingen posted a call for two postdoctoral fellowships in honor of Stephan Klasen, a development economist who has written extensively about gender inequality in the Global South. The fellowships were established by the Faculty of Business and Economics, together with the Presidential Board of the University of Göttingen and the Faculty's Development Economics professorships. “With this award, the Faculty honors the development economist's great commitment to young researchers and to development economics in Göttingen as a whole.” The fellowships celebrate a truly distinguished economist and a wonderful human being whose career has been cut short by illness but whose contributions to economics are enduring. Stephan’s moving farewell lecture—delivered by his college roommates and his sons Lukas and Nicolas—described his experiences as a scholar, policy adviser, and teacher and in so doing, showed his dedication to his research, his students, and his family. I have the great privilege of knowing Stephan for thirty years. We met when we were both assigned to be teaching assistants for Amartya Sen’s course “Hunger in the Modern World.” I knew right away that Stephan was a brilliant researcher—even as a first-year graduate student he had begun to extend Sen’s work on missing women. I learned that he was someone who cared a great deal about his students, his friends, and the world around him. For many years, Stephan ran a homeless shelter for which he was recognized by the Cambridge City Council, the CommonWork Award of the City of Boston, and the Stride Rite Public Service Prize. Stephan has published extensively (135 articles, 30 book chapters, and 8 books) and in particular, has explored various aspects of the complex problem of gender inequality. Many of his papers are seminal contributions. Early on in his career, he provided us with better estimates of the number of missing women in the world. Recently, he and coauthors examined the determinants of labor force participation of urban married women in low- and middle-income economies, and found that rising education levels and declining fertility increased labor force participation rates, while rising household incomes had a negative effect in poorer countries. As a nonresident fellow at CGD, Stephan wrote about the fairness of international goals to reduce child mortality and about the rules for what counts as aid. His work has influenced the work of countless researchers on topics from gender, inequality, and aid to climate development goals, including that of numerous colleagues at CGD. Stephan’s record as a teacher at Göttingen is astounding—he taught 96 courses and supervised 96 bachelors theses, 150 masters theses, and 76 doctoral theses as a first reviewer. The University of Göttingen is now one of the premier universities for research and study on developing countries. The field of development economics is revitalized in Germany, thanks to Stephan’s efforts. At least one of the two fellowships in Stephan’s name will be awarded to a female candidate. Disabled persons with equivalent aptitude will be favored. Details can be found here.

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narcisbolgor-blog · 7 years

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59 Percent of Millennials Raised in a Church Have Dropped OutAnd They’re Trying to Tell Us Why

Only 4 percent of the Millennial Generation are Bible-Based Believers. This means that 96 percent of Millennials likely don’t live out the teachings of the Bible, value the morals of Christianity and probably won’t be found in a church. This author goes deep to explain why.

By Sam Eaton

From the depths of my heart, I want to love church.

I want to be head-over-heals for church like the unshakable Ned Flanders.

I want to send global, sky-writing airplanes telling the life-change that happens beneath a steeple. I want to install a police microphone on top of my car and cruise the streets screaming to the masses about the magical Utopian community of believers waiting for them just down the street.

I desperately want to feel this way about church, but I dont. Not even a little bit. In fact, like much of my generation, I feel the complete opposite.

Turns out I identify more with Maria from The Sound of Music staring out the abbey window, longing to be free.

It seems all-too-often our churches are actually causing more damage than good, and the statistics are showing a staggering number of millennials have taken note.

According to this study (and many others like it) church attendance and impressions of the church are the lowest in recent history, and most drastic among millennials described as 22- to 35-year-olds.

Only 2 in 10 Americans under 30 believe attending a church is important or worthwhile (an all-time low).

59 percent of millennials raised in a church have dropped out.

35 percent of millennials have an anti-church stance, believing the church does more harm than good.

Millennials are the least likely age group of anyone to attend church (by far).

As I sat in our large churchs annual meeting last month, I looked around for anyone in my age bracket. It was a little like a Titanic search party

IS ANYONE ALIVE OUT THERE? CAN ANYBODY HEAR ME?

Tuning in and out of the 90-minute state-of-the-church address, I kept wondering to myself, where are my people? And then the scarier question, why I am still here?

A deep-seated dissatisfaction has been growing in me and, despite my greatest attempts to whack-a-mole it back down, no matter what I do it continues to rise out of my wirey frame.

[To follow my publicly-chronicled church struggles, check out my other posts The How Can I Help Project and 50 Ways to Serve the Least of These.]

Despite the steep drop-off in millennials, most churches seem to be continuing on with business as usual. Sure, maybe they add a food truck here or a bowling night there, but no one seems to be reacting with any level of concern that matches these STAGGERING statistics.

Where is the task-force searching for the lost generation? Where is the introspective reflection necessary when 1/3 of a generation is ANTI-CHURCH?

The truth is no one has asked me why millennials dont like church. Luckily, as a public school teacher, I am highly skilled at answering questions before theyre asked. Its a gift really.

So, at the risk of being excommunicated, here is the metaphorical nailing of my own 12 theses to the wooden door of the American, Millennial-less Church.

1. Nobodys Listening to Us

Millennials value voice and receptivity above all else. When a church forges ahead without ever asking for our input we get the message loud and clear:Nobody cares what we think. Why then, should we blindly serve an institution that we cannot change or shape?

Solution:

Create regular outlets (forums, surveys, meetings) to discover the needs of young adults both inside AND outside the church.

Invite millennials to serve on leadership teams or advisory boards where they can make a difference.

Hire a young adults pastor who has the desire and skill-set to connect with millennials.

2. Were Sick of Hearing About Values & Mission Statements

Sweet Moses people, give it a rest.

Of course as an organization its important to be moving in the same direction, but that should easier for Christians than anyone because we already have a leader to follow. Jesus was insanely clear about our purpose on earth:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these. (Mark 12:30-31)

Love God. Love Others. Task completed.

Why does every church need its own mission statement anyway? Arent we all one body of Christ, serving one God? What would happen if the entire American Church came together in our commonalities and used the same, concise mission statement?

Solution:

Stop wasting time on the religious mambo jambo and get back to the heart of the gospel. If you have to explain your mission and values to the church, its overly-religious and much too complicated.

Were not impressed with the hours you brag about spending behind closed doors wrestling with Christianese words on a paper. Were impressed with actions and service.

3. Helping the Poor Isnt a Priority

My heart is broken for how radically self-centered and utterly American our institution has become.

Lets clock the number of hours the average church attender spends in church-type activities. Bible studies, meetings, groups, social functions, book clubs, planning meetings, talking about building community, discussing a new mission statement

Now let’s clock the number of hours spent serving the least of these. Oooooo, awkward.

If the numbers are not equal please check your Bible for better comprehension (or revisit the universal church mission statement stated above).

If our lives do not reflect radical compassion for the poor, there is reason to wonder if Christ is in us at all. Radical, David Platt

Solutions:

Stop creating more Bible studies and Christian activity. Community happens best in service with a shared purpose.

Survey your members asking them what injustice or cause God has placed on their hearts. Then connect people who share similar passions. Create space for them to meet and brainstorm and then sit back and watch what God brings to life.

Create group serve dates once a month where anyone can show up and make a difference (and, oh yeah, theyll also meet new people).

4. Were Tired of You Blaming the Culture

From Elvis hips to rap music, from Footloose to twerking, every older generation comes to the same conclusion: The world is going to pot faster than the state of Colorado. Were aware of the down-falls of the culturebelieve it or not we are actually living in it too.

Perhaps its easier to focus on how terrible the world is out there than actually address the mess within.

Solution:

Put the end times rhetoric to rest and focus on real solutions and real impact in our immediate community.

Explicitly teach us how our lives should differ from the culture. (If this teaching isnt happening in your life, check out the book Weird: Because Normal Isnt Working by Craig Groeschel)

5. The You Cant Sit With Us Affect

There is this life-changing movie all humans must see, regardless of gender. The film is of course the 2004 classic Mean Girls.

In the film, the most popular girl in school forgets to wear pink on a Wednesday (a cardinal sin), to which Gretchen Weiners screams, YOU CANT SIT WITH US!

Today, my mom said to me, Church has always felt exclusive and cliquey, like high school. With sadness in her voice she continued, and Ive never been good at that game so I stopped playing.

The truth is, I share her experience. As do thousands of others.

Until the church finds a way to be radically kinder and more compassionate than the world at large, we tell outsiders theyre better off on their own. And the truth is, many times they are.

Solutions:

Create authentic communities with a shared purpose centered around service.

Create and train a team of CONNECT people whose purpose is to seek out the outliers on Sunday mornings or during other events. Explicitly teach people these skills as they do not come naturally to most of the population.

Stop placing blame on individuals who struggle to get connected. For some people, especially those that are shy or struggle with anxiety, putting yourself out there even just once might be an overwhelming task. We have to find ways to bridge that gap.

6. Distrust & Misallocation of Resources

Over and over weve been told to tithe and give 10 percent of our incomes to the church, but where does that money actually go? Millennials, more than any other generation, dont trust institutions, for we have witnessed over and over how corrupt and self-serving they can be.

We want pain-staking transparency. We want to see on the church homepage a document where we can track every dollar.

Why should thousands of our hard-earned dollars go toward a mortgage on a multi-million dollar building that isnt being utilized to serve the community, or to pay for another celebratory bouncy castle when that same cash-money could provide food, clean water and shelter for someone in need?

Solution:

Go out of your way to make all financial records readily accessible. Earn our trust so we can give with confidence.

Create an environment of frugality.

Move to zero-based budgeting where departments arent allocated certain dollar amounts but are asked to justify each purchase.

Challenge church staff to think about the opportunity cost. Could these dollars be used to better serve the kingdom?

7. We Want to Be Mentored, Not Preached At

Preaching just doesnt reach our generation like our parents and grandparents. See: millennial church attendance. We have millions of podcasts and Youtube videos of pastors the world over at our fingertips.

For that reason, the currency of good preaching is at its lowest value in history.

Millennials crave relationship, to have someone walking beside them through the muck. We are the generation with the highest ever percentage of fatherless homes.

Were looking for mentors who are authentically invested in our lives and our future. If we dont have real people who actually care about us, why not just listen to a sermon from the couch (with the ecstasy of donuts and sweatpants)?

Solutions:

Create a database of adult mentors and young adults looking for someone to walk with them.

Ask the older generation to be intentional with the millennials in your church.

8. We Want to Feel Valued

Churches tend to rely heavily on their young adults to serve. Youre single, what else do you have to do? In fact, were tapped incessantly to help out. And, at its worst extreme, spiritually manipulated with the cringe-worthy words youre letting your church down.

Millennials are told by this world from the second we wake up to the second we take a sleeping pill that we arent good enough.

We desperately need the church to tell us we are enough, exactly the way we are. No conditions or expectations.

We need a church that sees us and believes in us, that cheers us on and encourages us to chase our big crazy dreams.

Solutions:

Return to point #1: listening.

Go out of your way to thank the people who are giving so much of their life to the church.

9. We Want You to Talk to Us About Controversial Issues (Because No One Is)

People in their 20s and 30s are making the biggest decisions of their entire lives: career, education, relationships, marriage, sex, finances, children, purpose, chemicals, body image.

We need someone consistently speaking truth into every single one of those areas.

No, I dont think a sermon-series on sex is appropriate for a sanctuary full of families, but we have to create a place where someone older is showing us a better way because these topics are the teaching millennials are starving for. We dont like how the world is telling us to live, but we never hear from our church either.

Solutions:

Create real and relevant space for young adults to learn, grow and be vulnerable.

Create an opportunity for young adults to find and connect with mentors.

Create a young adults program that transitions high school youth through late adulthood rather than abandoning them in their time of greatest need.

Intentionally train young adults in how to live a godly life instead of leaving them to fend for themselves.

10. The Public Perception

Its time to focus on changing the public perception of the church within the community. The neighbors, the city and the people around our church buildings should be audibly thankful the congregation is part of their neighborhood. We should be serving the crap out of them.

We desperately need to be calling the schools and the city, knocking on doors, asking everyone around us how we can make their world better. When the public opinion shows 1/3 millennials are ANTI-CHURCH, we are outright failing at being the aroma of Christ.

Solutions:

Call the local government and schools to ask what their needs are. (See: Service Day from #3)

Find ways to connect with neighbors within the community.

Make your presence known and felt at city events.

11. Stop Talking About Us (Unless Youre Actually Going to Do Something)

Words without follow-up are far worse than ignoring us completely. Despite the stereotypes about us, we are listening to phrases being spoken in our general direction. Lip service, however, doesnt cut it. We are scrutinizing every action that follows what you say (because were sick of being ignored and listening to broken promises).

Solutions:

Stop speaking in abstract sound bites and make a tangible plan for how to reach millennials.

If you want the respect of our generation, under-promise and over-deliver.

12. Youre Failing to Adapt

Heres the bottom line, churchyou arent reaching millennials. Enough with the excuses and the blame; we need to accept reality and intentionally move toward this generation that is terrifyingly anti-church.

The price of doing the same old thing is far higher than the price of change. Bill Clinton The art of life is a constant readjustment to our surroundings. Kakuzo Okakaura Adapt or perish, now as ever, is natures inexorable imperative. H.G. Wells

Solution:

Look at the data and take a risk for goodness sake. We cant keep trying the same things and just wish that millennials magically wander through the door.

Admit that youre out of your element with this generation and talk to the millennials you already have before they ask themselves, what I am still doing here.

You see, church leaders, our generation just isnt interested in playing church anymore, and there are real, possible solutions to filling our congregations with young adults. Its obvious youre not understanding the gravity of the problem at hand and arent nearly as alarmed as you should be about the crossroads were at.

Youre complacent, irrelevant and approaching extinction. A smattering of mostly older people, doing mostly the same things theyve always done, isnt going to turn to the tide.

Feel free to write to me off as just another angry, selfy-addicted millennial. Believe me, at this point Im beyond used to being abandoned and ignored.

The truth is, church, its your move.

Decide if millennials actually matter to you and let us know. In the meantime, well be over here in our sweatpants listening to podcasts, serving the poor and agreeing with public opinion that perhaps church isnt as important or worthwhile as our parents have lead us to believe.

About the Author: Sam Eaton is a writer, speaker, and in-progress author whos in love with all things Jesus, laughter, adventure, hilarious dance parties and vulnerability. Sam is also the founder of Recklessly Alive Ministries, a mental health and suicide-prevention ministry sprinting towards a world with zero deaths from suicide. Come hang out with him at RecklesslyAlive.com.