R.J. Snell on “Acedia and its Discontents”

September 20, 2015
Posted by Administrator

Labels: acedia, Acedia and its Discontents (book), boredom, ethics, featured books, metaphysics, rj snell, sloth, vice, virtue
Array

In 2015, Angelico Press published Acedia and its Discontents: Metaphysical Boredom in an Empire of Desire by R.J. Snell. Snell is professor of philosophy at Eastern University in St. Davids, PA, and executive director of the Agora Institute for Civic Virtue and the Common Good. His recent books include Authentic Cosmopolitanism (with Steve Cone) and The Perspective of Love: Natural Law in a New Mode.

From the publisher’s description for Metaphysical Boredom:

While the term acedia may be unfamiliar, the vice, usually translated as sloth, is all too common. Sloth is not mere laziness, however, but a disgust with reality, a loathing of our call to be friends with God, and a spiteful hatred of place and life itself. As described by Josef Pieper, the slothful person does not “want to be as God wants him to be, and that ultimately means he does not wish to be what he really, fundamentally is.” Sloth is a hellish despair. Our own culture is deeply infected, choosing a destructive freedom rather than the good work for which God created us. Acedia and its Discontents resists despair, calling us to reconfigure our imaginations and practices in deep love of the life and work given by God.