Blueshenb wrote:I think/feel a problem with the phrase "a higher order" of conversation or communication. Definition - which I believe started with Plato - is a tricky thing. To unpack this expression could take pages/hours. Having been involved in such papers and dialogues many years ago when I look at them now I just shake my head and cry. I fee/think I am getting nowhere the more I read. Is this a private club?
Also I have been given positive feedback from students simply because I make some of ther texts they read understandable. I am not trying to be funny, but would one call this kind of teaching "lower order."
Welcome Blueshenb! I understand your
problem with the phrase "a higher order,"
based on the fact most people forget they started their learning process on the lowest level, and in advancing higher in their understanding, they have forgotten every level of their advancement was a higher order of understanding for them.
Conversation of a "Higher Order", to myself, is not defined by what one knows, but how one is able to communicate beyond self-righteousness and pride of believing they are better than. Or ones refusal to take a step backward to that level of understanding they have surpassed and remember the compassion they need from those above them when they were not so high-minded. People of all intelligence make the world go round. To get stuck on a level of believing one is better than, confines one to the prison of that which is better than what?
Reading must have a purpose, a vision, a goal for enrichment of the mind first, imagination second, conscious awareness third, soul gratification forth, and the peace of ones Spirit to be found in all moments, circumstances, situations, environ, and conditions of ones activity of living.
None can be reached and held onto, so the bliss to be had is in the knowledge the of the myth of the 'winged fish'.
IMHO