Between Theory & Experience

Allan, your picture and posting on snowshoeing, makes me think of how much I still fear to drive in the snow. A lot of people have told me that since my car is an all-wheel drive that has brand new snow tires, I need not fear to drive in the snow but, I still fear that experience. Each time I have to drive on snow especially ice I find myself having to be extra careful no matter how much I may tell myself that all is well and that my car is well suited for the conditions. For instance, on Saturday, January the 15 of 2011, when I was driving back from attending class at West Lebanon, I was caught in a snow storm along 1-91 interstate some 50 minutes from my house. I took the risk and kept on driving along with others. The trip was not pleasurable and I was only able to take a deep breath after getting home.

My experience of having to actually drive on snow is far from the comfort I usually find when some car experts try to give me some facts on why my car is safe to drive on snow. There is a huge gap between theory and practice, facts and experience when it comes to my fear of driving on snow. I do not know about others it seems when dealing with things such as driving on snow whereby I will have to be in that car and behind that wheel, and sometimes having to witness some accidents and so on, probabaly I need more time to translate and transform what I am told inorder to feel safe. I do not know how others might handle some such fears experinced in real life? Do not forget that my first experience of snow in real life was in 2009.

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Some thoughts on this posting....which immediately got me excited!

The gap between theory and practice.....is roughly parallel to one between a concept and the experiences that it can stand for.  Theory and concepts are abstractions from a palpably felt and understood "reality".   Granted, the imagination is part of this reality.  But be that as it may (it's inherent to an holistic perspective) theories and concepts are quite disconnected from experiences as we commonly know them.

I think this is a really great way to approach issues concerning how we "experience" fear.  

There is a famous passage in Wittgenstein where he wrote:  "When I came home I expected a surprise.  There was no surprised.  I was surprised."  

The first use of surprise is theoretical or abstract.   The second use of "surprise" moves the theory, in experience, to a kind of test.  And the third use of "surprise" (for me) expresses a use which is intended to convey the whole experience of "actual" surprise.   In this way Wittgenstein elegantly constructed an instructive example that shows us the pragmatic notion of an "experience" like surprise.

It is by comparing these usages that we can see how each has a different "flavor" if you will.

In this way i think we can see that someone can "talk to us about safety" and the composite aspect of it which might be "fear" of injury or accident.   But, these more abstract usages are put to the test when we get in the car.   A wide-variety of factors comes into play....you mention many of them.  And clearly the experienced reality of both safety and fear in this situation is much more complex than the talk about it might cause it to seem.

I think this is a highly productive way to get at "fear".   As a word....it has to be examined for how it is used in particular instances.   It has a "life" in the situation it is used and seeks to describe.  And that kind of life is what we want to better understand when we use the word:  "fear".

Thanks....very fine....and rooted (even better) in a narrative or story....

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