^ sure, it just tells you you're mensa-smart.
Mensa International said:
Membership of Mensa is open to persons who have attained a score within the upper two percent of the general population on an approved intelligence test that has been properly administered and supervised.
Mensa has three stated purposes: to identify and foster human intelligence for the benefit of humanity, to encourage research in the nature, characteristics and uses of intelligence, and to promote stimulating intellectual and social opportunities for its members.
Mensans have ranged in age from 2 [...]
(lol whut?)
i guess i just see it like i see most other bigotry. racism, sexism, bias against people of non-hetero orientation, etc. it's not just a group of like-minded individuals, it's an
exclusionary group. the skateboarders don't tell the kid who's better at rollerblading to gtfo because he likes to skateboard, too. the drama kids sometimes suck at theater, i've seen that often enough. those who are brilliant at socializing don't come up with the "people who are good with people" club and then make you take an arbitrary test to get in.
in summary, i think it's elitist because:
a. mensa presumes to be able to measure intelligence, the nature of which is widely debated within the field of psychology
b. mensa presumes that what it is measuring is not only intelligence, but it is a good, if not the best, kind of intelligence
c. mensa excludes those who do not meet their criteria for intelligence from their interactions
it's funny because if you read the website they pretend to be so egalitarian, talking about all races and ethnicities and political opinions, but that totally overlooks the fact that they're being extremely discriminatory, and they're perpetuating intellectual bigotry, which is what bothers me most of all. how does the person who scores poorly on the intelligence test feel? what if they are highly functional, creative, compassionate, insightful, logical, or possess any other host of attributes that makes them a worthwhile person, as
everybody does? mensa denies the worth of people, honestly. that's why it pisses me off. "mensa", despite its word origins, is no open table. it's completely hypocritical.
regardless, it still seems to me that the idea of intelligence as a single entity is outdated. the MBTI looks towards that, identifying 16 strengths. gardner's multiple intelligences look toward that. mensa might think it's helping people, but what good does it do the world to identify one sort of "intelligence" and define a superior class of people by it? "
to identify and foster human intelligence for the benefit of humanity", the mensa constitution says. what good is it doing? i read on the website that they offer scholarships to and information for gifted students, which is really great, promoting intellectual discrimination on a childhood level. they do research into intelligence. that's good. it's probably intelligence as defined by mensa, otherwise they'd be screwing over their own group, but at least it's still research i guess. still, if this intelligence is really that intelligent, why aren't they getting poor kids out of bad situations? why aren't they solving economic crises? why aren't they smoothing political relations? why aren't they easing world hunger? where is the actual benefit from this exclusive club of "smart" people? i want to see some results, for all the touted intelligence.
the whole thing reeks of racial supremacy to me.