From Particulars

In his preface to The Varieties of Religious Experience, James says that he believes "a large acquaintance with particulars often makes us wiser than the possession of abstract formulas, however deep." This struck me as concordant with my long-time skepticism of theory and preference for micro-historical accounts to large sweeping histories, but it carried a different valence for me now than it would have a few years ago.

I find my own anxieties tend towards the abstract. Worries about my own character, about the future, about what other people may think--these tend to be the content of my ruminations when I ruminate, and they're very rarely specific, more like vague, daunting notions--shadow creatures lurking in the background. In a way, anxiety is just the body's reaction to a sort of theorizing: generating abstract conceptions of who we are, what might happen to us, the contents of other people's minds. I've found that particulars to be an antidote to these abstractions, and especially particulars anchored in one's immediate environment.

For example, the practice of description has helped me soothe my mind quite a bit. When I'm walking down the street to and from work, or when I'm at work, or when I'm at home, if I find myself feeling anxious, I'll sometimes think or write verbal descriptions of the people and objects around me. This focus on the particulars around me has a soothing effect that has helped me to anchor myself quite a bit.

James is talking here about method for a study of religious experience, but I think that intellectual methods carry broader applications than formal inquiries. They are a mode of mind--a mental practice that shapes and reshapes the patterns of how we think in everyday circumstances. Education is a process of cultivating an entire mind, not merely acquiring a set of mind. Focus on particulars becomes a matter of fruitful habit the purpose of which is something more abstract than the particulars themselves: it's the wisdom James says this focus brings.