crm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin) (12/16/84)
Bill -- sorry about the tone of my flame, my keyboard got away from me again... I (in fact) don't belong to Mensa, although a number of my best friends do, and for some reason I tend to be sort of protective of them. I've heard a lot of stuff about Mensa in the vein of "... don't trust those people why don't they go out and join a softball team or something...." But I am still -- well, offended is probably too strong a word; discomfited? -- by the part of your message about "elitist organization". Mensa is not all that much an elitist organization, since in fact their literature makes the point directly that no-one is sure what the tests that test IQ are really testing... My suspicieon is in fact that a lot of the feelings that people with high IQ's often get of being alone in a crowd, and of being left out come from some interaction of a sort of clever hans effect with the teachers (they train the class unconsiously to regard a student with high IQ as someone odd) and the usual difficulty getting these people to obey the rules ( a student who already reads well in 1st grade will have a high IQ score; a student who reads markedly better than the rest of the class may spend a lot of time standing in a corner for losing his/her place by reading ahead.) But I feel that the point I was trying to suggest by the "egalitarian bigot" question was a real one, in two senses: first of all, the actually pedantic question of whether or not the phrase "egalitarian bigot" has a logical meaning in english (I could argue that both ways), but also a more important second meaning -- I feel pretty strongly that we in the USofA have taken the original "all men are created equal" and extended it to include the subtext "and anyone who believes that people should make choices in terms of noticable differences between people is immoral or unethical." I believe strongly that everyone should be equal in the eyes of the law and in their rights; I feel equally strongly that for someone to make a choice based on differences between people is within my understanding of their rights. As the phrase "such an elitist organization" sounds to me (that may be a paraphrase), it suggests that Mensans are somehow less than completely ethical if they choose to associate in a group with others who meet some specific criterion, especially in this case score on a class of tests which are supposed to measure intelligence. It is in this sense that I see the phrase "egalitarian bigot" as having some useful meaning. "Egalitarian" because the original argument involved is an egalitarian argument -- no-one should be excluded because of some ability or disability -- and "bigot" because by implying that people are immoral because they choose to associate with others who they feel may be congenial because of the scores received in an IQ test, you implicitly deny that they have similar rights to those that choose to associate because they once graduated from some particular university. In other words, it seems to me that the implication I read was one that people of high intelligence (in terms of IQ scores) are unethical if they make a choice of association based on the hope that others with similar scores will be congenial associates, and therefore make a rule for their completely voluntary club limiting membership to those with similar scores. Unless you would agree to extend this to ANY voluntary organization -- that is, unless you would for example suggest that the Alumni/Alumnae Association of a universtiy is immoral if they refuse to admit people who never attended the university involved -- I feel that this is truly limiting the rights of a certain group simply because of some characteristic they share. Whether the shared characteristic is skin color, height, or IQ-test score seems immaterial -- it still seems unfair. By the way, as far as the usefulness of IQ test scores go -- I have a measured IQ high enough that inaccuracy makes the numerical value meaningless, at least so far as I can learn. (The difference between someone with a numerical score of 130 and a score of 170 is much less pronounced and much more test-dependant that the difference between a score of 90 and 120.) While this indicates a certain facility with mental tricks, it has still not been anything that prevented a really miserable academic career -- nor has it kept me from phrasing a moderately good-natured gripe in a way that pissed off a friend. I hope you will forgive the phrasing, even if you don't agree with my argument. Charlie Martin of skin color, height or IQ score, -- Opinions stated here are my own and are unrelated. Charlie Martin (...mcnc!duke!crm)
jans@mako.UUCP (12/18/84)
In article <5189@duke.UUCP> crm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin) writes: >... I am still -- well, offended is probably too strong a word; >discomfited? -- by the part of your message about "elitist >organization". Mensa is not all that much an elitist organization... There are people of high IQ who do not have access to the outlets of expression afforded those of us in netland. A large number of Mensans are housewives, prisoners, expatriots, etc. who do not have access to the social and intellectual situations found in the software profession... >... My suspicieon is in fact that a lot of the feelings that people with high >IQ's often get of being alone in a crowd, and of being left out come from >some interaction of a sort of clever hans effect... and the usual difficulty >getting these people to obey the rules... While a clever person in the computer industry is admired and respected, that same person in society is often ostracised as an "egghead", which leads to alienation, which leads to charges of snobbery. The poor soul then seeks out others with the same >affliction< and is then branded as "elitist". I might agree with many of the charges leveled at Mensans, if the organization were, perhaps, a campus chapter. Look at fraterneties! Talk about elitism! But Mensa is truly egalitarian. (Trying to figure out what is meant by "egalitarian bigot" makes my head hurt.) I joined at a time when I was spending eleven months a year overseas on military bases. As a civilian and an up-trhough-the-ranks engineer, I felt doubly isolated with little in common with either GI's or officers. Correspondance with Mensans in various special interest groups kept me from going bonkers or becoming an alchoholic like most of my peers. I now maintain my membership as resume fodder, and am not very active. My carreer provides me with ample stimulation and exposure to all kinds of brainy people. The point of this rambling and seemingly pointless response is that people have many reasons for doing something as simple as driving a car. To suggest that all Mensans share a common viewpoint, are elitists, wear socks, etc. is on par with Hitler's characterizations of Jews. One need only look to Cambodia to see what happens when this point of view gets out of hand... Charlie says he is not a Mensan. I would like to thank him for his tolerance, and hope that such tolerance will eventually remove one of the forces that drive many people to Mensa. (I flunked spelling. All flames about spelling and grammer should be sent to Jerry Pournelle on net.micro. All flames regarding content will be carefully read.) -- :::::: Jan Steinman Box 1000, MS 61-161 (w)503/685-2843 :::::: :::::: tektronix!tekecs!jans Wilsonville, OR 97070 (h)503/657-7703 ::::::