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tamaranthFollowing my Ten Things post, a couple of people have asked why I, or people in general, join MENSA.
When I first did the test I was 16, and living in the back of beyond: there was no Internet (certainly no LiveJournal) and I couldn't have accessed it if there had been, as we didn't have a phone line. I had nobody that I could talk to about what I was reading and thinking, and I hoped, through MENSA, to find people who read, and thought, the way I did. In retrospect I was confusing (or at least conflating) intelligence and, hmm, aesthetics, or culture. Of course I wasn't actually allowed to go to any of the meet-ups, and I doubt they'd have been appropriate for a sheltered 16 year old. But I realised fairly quickly from the society's magazines that these were not the people I was looking for, though they were probably capable of talking about books and music and history. Most of the discussion at that point seemed to be about politics and science, and about getting together and doing Normal things like cricket games and parties. (I may have a rather biased recollection.)
I'd also grown up being told, over and over, that being clever was a Good Thing, but finding that on a day-to-day basis (at a fairly rough comprehensive) it was a Bad Thing. The whole raison d'etre of MENSA seemed to be that it really was a Good Thing, and that it mattered more than anything else. And, I confess, I was young enough to feel very smug about scoring high on the IQ test (a lot of which was guessing which answer they wanted) and 'proving' myself. (And my parents were dead impressed: they paid my membership, which was at a pretty cheap rate anyway since I was under 18.)
I didn't have a lot of contact with the whole MENSA thing for years after, and once I got to sixth-form college and then to university I found plenty of people to talk to about the things that mattered to me. Quite a while later I ended up working with a girl who was involved with the organisation on a voluntary basis: I renewed my membership so I could go to events with her. They turned out to be unlike anything I'd anticipated, and I didn't enjoy them. The people I met -- and I'm not saying this is true of all MENSA members, but it was certainly true of this bunch -- were dull, and snobbish -- couldn't believe I hadn't gone to Oxford or Cambridge -- and had some opinions I found offensive. (In brief: right-wing, sexist, racist.)
I think most of the people I met were there for the social life, and for the networking opportunities. They seemed to cluster in jobs, so there'd be a few people from a particular company, and a cell of people from a government department, and so on: don't know whether that was cause or effect of the networking. My friend regarded it as a great way to meet men. (O, but what men.) I can't remember any especially Intellectual (</ironics>) conversations, but it was a long time ago.
I cancelled my membership because of an article in the magazine which proposed (I don't know, with hindsight, how seriously) that MENSA members had a duty to the human race to marry other MENSA members and produce Smart Kids.
Some of my best friends (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pugwash, for instance) have turned out to be MENSA members, and are much more interesting than anyone I met via MENSA. I'm sure quite a few of my Friends-list would qualify for membership, even if utterly uninterested in it.
I think my intelligence was a more important part of me at 16 than it is now. The person I am now has been built by experience and education. Back then I was a blank slate and I didn't want to be blank. MENSA might have done me a lot of good at 16 if I'd been able to join in a little more. University was a better thing for me in the long run. And I think I was probably unlucky with my later experiences of MENSA members: they can't all be like that.
For what it's worth, I now think that:
- intelligence is only part of the story. You need other skills to succeed (whether economically or socially or creatively).
- what the standard IQ tests measure isn't exactly intelligence. As I said above, I scored high by giving the answers that I thought they were looking for -- not necessarily the ones that seemed right to me. I 'improved my IQ' by nearly 20 points between one test and another. In addition, part of the test was vocabulary-based: intelligence and vocabulary are not the same thing.
- one can be very intelligent and not use it at all.
- intelligence (or mental acuity, if you like) is not a fixed quantity: it varies. You can nurture it or suppress it.
When I first did the test I was 16, and living in the back of beyond: there was no Internet (certainly no LiveJournal) and I couldn't have accessed it if there had been, as we didn't have a phone line. I had nobody that I could talk to about what I was reading and thinking, and I hoped, through MENSA, to find people who read, and thought, the way I did. In retrospect I was confusing (or at least conflating) intelligence and, hmm, aesthetics, or culture. Of course I wasn't actually allowed to go to any of the meet-ups, and I doubt they'd have been appropriate for a sheltered 16 year old. But I realised fairly quickly from the society's magazines that these were not the people I was looking for, though they were probably capable of talking about books and music and history. Most of the discussion at that point seemed to be about politics and science, and about getting together and doing Normal things like cricket games and parties. (I may have a rather biased recollection.)
I'd also grown up being told, over and over, that being clever was a Good Thing, but finding that on a day-to-day basis (at a fairly rough comprehensive) it was a Bad Thing. The whole raison d'etre of MENSA seemed to be that it really was a Good Thing, and that it mattered more than anything else. And, I confess, I was young enough to feel very smug about scoring high on the IQ test (a lot of which was guessing which answer they wanted) and 'proving' myself. (And my parents were dead impressed: they paid my membership, which was at a pretty cheap rate anyway since I was under 18.)
I didn't have a lot of contact with the whole MENSA thing for years after, and once I got to sixth-form college and then to university I found plenty of people to talk to about the things that mattered to me. Quite a while later I ended up working with a girl who was involved with the organisation on a voluntary basis: I renewed my membership so I could go to events with her. They turned out to be unlike anything I'd anticipated, and I didn't enjoy them. The people I met -- and I'm not saying this is true of all MENSA members, but it was certainly true of this bunch -- were dull, and snobbish -- couldn't believe I hadn't gone to Oxford or Cambridge -- and had some opinions I found offensive. (In brief: right-wing, sexist, racist.)
I think most of the people I met were there for the social life, and for the networking opportunities. They seemed to cluster in jobs, so there'd be a few people from a particular company, and a cell of people from a government department, and so on: don't know whether that was cause or effect of the networking. My friend regarded it as a great way to meet men. (O, but what men.) I can't remember any especially Intellectual (</ironics>) conversations, but it was a long time ago.
I cancelled my membership because of an article in the magazine which proposed (I don't know, with hindsight, how seriously) that MENSA members had a duty to the human race to marry other MENSA members and produce Smart Kids.
Some of my best friends (
pugwash, for instance) have turned out to be MENSA members, and are much more interesting than anyone I met via MENSA. I'm sure quite a few of my Friends-list would qualify for membership, even if utterly uninterested in it.I think my intelligence was a more important part of me at 16 than it is now. The person I am now has been built by experience and education. Back then I was a blank slate and I didn't want to be blank. MENSA might have done me a lot of good at 16 if I'd been able to join in a little more. University was a better thing for me in the long run. And I think I was probably unlucky with my later experiences of MENSA members: they can't all be like that.
For what it's worth, I now think that:
- intelligence is only part of the story. You need other skills to succeed (whether economically or socially or creatively).
- what the standard IQ tests measure isn't exactly intelligence. As I said above, I scored high by giving the answers that I thought they were looking for -- not necessarily the ones that seemed right to me. I 'improved my IQ' by nearly 20 points between one test and another. In addition, part of the test was vocabulary-based: intelligence and vocabulary are not the same thing.
- one can be very intelligent and not use it at all.
- intelligence (or mental acuity, if you like) is not a fixed quantity: it varies. You can nurture it or suppress it.
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smart people
Date: Saturday, February 26th, 2005 12:31 pm (UTC)iq test is a janitor in New York ?
no subject
Date: Saturday, February 26th, 2005 12:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Saturday, February 26th, 2005 12:46 pm (UTC)Thanks for answering.
When I take "aptitude tests" (there seem to be three based on word, number, shape), I tend to be among the few who finish the word and number tests in the time available (and generally make a perfect score on the word tests and a near-perfect score on the number tests). I do pretty well on the shape tests, but because my high reading-speed doesn't give me the advantage I get on the word/number tests, I don't think I've ever finished one. If that measures "intelligence", I am highly intelligent. (Aside from that by-post MENSA test, I've never taken a formal IQ test.).
But (IMO) that's a very, very narrow measurement of what a person is like. I want to hang out with interesting people, and "interesting" does not correlate strongly with "can pass aptitude tests of a certain kind". This is something I thought back when I was 19, and I'm even more convinced of it now.
no subject
Date: Sunday, February 27th, 2005 01:27 pm (UTC)Anyway, the whole reason I bring this up is that I took at IQ test in high school - I got a fairly low score in the shape section, specifically in a timed test where I was given a bunch of wooden shapes and asked to replicate different patterns shown on cards. I'd slap the blocks down very quickly because my brain would say "close enough". This was fine with simple patterns, but I spent almost 3 minutes on the most complex one (should have been 45 seconds) because one part of a triangle was off or the final piece wouldn't fit in the right way. It was hard to start over and work slowly step by step to build the pattern accurately, not close-enough-ly.
Your comment about high speed reading not giving you an advantage on the shape tests made me remember my experience sharply. I wonder if the two things - how one reads and how one puts together shapes - are more closely related than I thought?
no subject
Date: Sunday, February 27th, 2005 02:35 pm (UTC)P.S
Date: Saturday, February 26th, 2005 12:55 pm (UTC)there was never any doubt who i found to be the more educated and worthy of any respect.
no subject
Date: Saturday, February 26th, 2005 01:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Saturday, February 26th, 2005 08:53 pm (UTC)I've sometimes been asked if I'm a member of MENSA, and I've always replied that I've never felt the need. I think I was fortunate in that I went to a school where academic ability was highly thought of (although it was nice if you could play rugby as well, so I didn't score to well there) and where I soon found a clique of proto-geeks to fall in with. And then I arrived at university and met the SF society (courtesy of
MC
no subject
Date: Sunday, February 27th, 2005 02:39 pm (UTC)Man does not live by intelligence alone - and life would be incredibly dull if that were all that mattered. Professionally speaking, one can only coast on raw intelligence and native wit up to a point.
I have no idea what my IQ is - when I've done similar tests I've always got bored after about 2 minutes, thinking "but SO WHAT?". My "intelligence" is based on linking things together, and grasping things quickly - I may well come out of an IQ test very badly. I can think about things and concepts, I can think about existence, and emotion, and the nature of things. But examining little patterns of squares and things gets on my nerves.
A friend of mine used to belong to MENSA, and said that he got bored with all these people standing around talking about how intelligent and superior they are. AND Jo's father used to belong to MENSA, and most of the correspondence he got from them seemed to be "and send us some more money".
no subject
Date: Monday, February 28th, 2005 10:36 am (UTC)