Highness mirrors our diversity of valuing, implicitly, because so many kinds of valuing of something, T, can employ ‘high’ (or ‘highly‘, ‘higher‘) for expressing preference of that T relative to a given or implicit alternative.
We are the deliberately preferring species, beyond impulsively needing. We desire, therefore we prefer.
Higher T is better than… Regarding T highly is preferable relative to… Highness of T is explicable in terms of…
Being higher (being highly) mirrors being preferred by a preferring actor. Questioning the highness of T (allegedly that T is better than…) involves examining the valuing (actional backing) and implied relevant value(s).
Of course, ‘high’ has spatial sense: a spatial indexical. A child’s first understanding of ‘high’ is naturally spatial.
But what’s interesting about that is a lived legacy of preferring what’s spatially up. The child literally looks up to a parent or “grown up” as a valuing stance.
Generally, high standing presents itself because what’s up “there” is often regarded as superior: awesome heights, incomprehensible heavens. From the heights, powers of nature emerge, sacredly respected because “they” are not controllable. There, gods reside.
But normally, the highness of highly being is very lifeworldly: vital
to indicating preference which is truly important, but thereby con-
cealing questionability by way of obvious context or/and prevailing convention.
For example, what makes a school a high school? That’s obvious, relative to there being actrual high schools in town, but that’s readily complicated: What makes a high school higher than elementary school? Curriculum gradations correlate (allegedly) to normal teen developmental capacities. But there’s nothing obvious about given gradations: They may be better articulated. There’s nothing obvious about given understanding of normal teen development, at best (beyond folk tradition) relative to a professional educational psychology which is evolving (and which is commonly contested by folk tradition afraid of change via expertise or higher appreciation of individual differences, cultural diversity, social equality, class inclusion, and access to resources).
High school is not yet “higher education,” relative to “the” secondary level beyond elementary school. What is better post-secondary education which allegedly distinguishes the “elite” college from others?
The highness of being higher implicitly invites higher sensibility into possibly difficult questioning.
I would further understand highly being relative to explorations of value conceptuality, standardly pursued as “value theory.” But there, theory tends toward a legacy desiring scientific character. The better way into thinking about value doesn’t favor quantifiability, I will argue later, except relative to preferred criteria.
Criterially, ‘high’ has been rigorously assayed by lexicographers such that we have a standard array of senses. A researcher can assess, for a given context, which standard sense is preferred; or which among several standard senses tend to prevail (“trend,” in a statistical sense). The modifier for preference has many options to prefer.
For my purposes, all in all, I prefer a constellation of standard senses which compose a protean conception of highness (derived from the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary). T is preferable because it:
- has relatively great or overriding importance
- rates or ranks as best, first, or most eligible
- has a complex organization
- is of relatively great degree (being gradiant-relative)
- is advanced toward its acme or fullest extent
- is sublime, intensely moving: exciting
- conforms to some standard of correctness or excellence
- relaes to matters of exalted importance
- is noble, edifying
- is intellectually or artistically first order: excellent
- is difficult to comprehend or master: recondite, abstruse
The T is good, i.e., preferred, thus advisable (preferable) because
T is better than (preferable over) comparable options, maybe
because T…
- shows / implies the better view
- shows better-oriented thinking
- shows better understanding
- implies the better appreciability
- implies better living
- implies better humanity
The better view of better thinnking which better understands appreciably betters living humanity better.
As footnote to this (2018 posting), be valuing (giving time to enlighrening) social life thoughtfully.
