R.J. Snell

“Moderns are tempted to consider the world as what Heidegger termed “standing reserve,” an undifferentiated set of resources awaiting our use. Rather than having the status of creatures full of God’s weight, things are just there, standing at attention before our desires, waiting to be led around on a leash. Things of the world become objects distanced and alienated from us, problems to overcome with some sort of method or technique. For the medievals, a thing known—a tree or cat, say—was a subject of being, it held its own act of existence, whereas we view things as objects. As subjects, creatures had interiority, a form or nature or essence that we did not create but were nevertheless bound to recognize. Now things are objects under our judgment, waiting to be captured in a sketch and cast aside. If we are not bound by the things, but they by us, what limits our use other than our own will? In what way can our desires be ordered so as to respect the integrity of things when their meaning is determined by the awful lightness of our whims?”
― R.J. Snell, Acedia and Its Discontents: Metaphysical Boredom in an Empire of Desire

“Dependency does not reduce value but rather grants dignity, a notion fundamentally counter to those for whom the freedom of birds is insulting. God’s glory does not diminish ours, and our dignity is not a threat to God, for God’s own glory, in part, is us. The glory of God is present to things as the graciousness of their being; things are never just themselves, they carry the weight of God along with them.”
― R.J. Snell, Acedia and Its Discontents: Metaphysical Boredom in an Empire of Desire