Isn’t an organization that won’t allow people in, based
on a measure of their intelligence, elitist?
I think what’s always bugged me is that it doesn’t seem to
have a good reason to be elitist. I know you addressed that
in your post, but I just wasn’t impressed.
If you’re having a speaker, what harm would it do to allow
a person of average intelligence in, who was interested (and
might learn something!). If you’re having a Jell-o diving
party, I don’t see a reason to exclude based on IQ.
A football team is elitist, or, more accurately, exclusive-
but they’re trying to win football games. That’s a good
reason.
Well, I might see if there is any way I can go to a meeting before I decide to join. It is rather expensive for membership, and I don’t know if school standardized test scores count as IQ measurement, so I might have to pay even more for Mensa’s test.
I suppose you don’t like churches either, bup. Or schools. You can’t play bingo at the local Catholic church 'coz you ain’t Catholic. And you can’t go to the top local high school because you don’t live in the district. Oh, and you can’t go to Washington, DC as your state’s senator. Because you weren’t elected.
Well, here’s the problem I have:
IQ tests are not a very good indicator of intelligence.
What about people like me, who have learning disabilities, whose scores bounce all over the charts like one of those heart monitors hooked up to Richard Cheney?
IQ tests only really are good for two things: possible testing for learning disabilities and finding out how good someone is at taking a test.
About three years ago, I took the test because my Dad said “go for it.” and well, I wasn’t doing anything else at 8 o’clock on a Saturday morning. So I took it. I passed. Yippee.
Since then I’ve had co-workers continually say “oh, he MUST be smart, he’s in Mensa.” I’ve had an HR director state that Mensa is one of two things she looks for on a resume because those people tend to not have “an ounce of fucking common sense.” (she hired me anyway. Go figure). And I’ve dealt with people who think the entire organization is elitist.
I’ve also gone to programs for Mensa. I learned how to play D&D and participated in it every other week for several months. I went to monthly poker nights. I participated once in a book club that discussed books dealing with alternate universes and histories. And there were good things to eat at all of them.
Not once did we make fun of those that weren’t in the organization. Not once did anyone mention their IQ or others. Not once did anyone act like a stuck up snob.
I enjoyed my time in it. I might rejoin at some later point. I just felt that paying the dues of $45 (I believe, though DebiJ is saying $49 so I’ll accept her number) plus paying money for every event I went to wasn’t cost-efficient for what I was getting out of the organization. YMMV.
I don’t know of a church that won’t let heathens play
bingo; maybe they exist.
But I can become Catholic.
I get to go to the high school in the district I live in,
which has resources as good as the taxes I pay.
Yes, the senate is somewhat elitist, but the point of
the senate is to choose and best the best set of laws for
our country. The method for choosing the senate was debated
and decided upon to try to achieve that goal.
Again, I don’t see the point of the Mensan exclusion,
except to be able to say you’re smarter than everyone else.
The other reasons for the organization’s existence that
have been posted could be accomplished by a ‘geek club’
which any self-proclaimed geek could join, or a ‘curious
minds’ club, for anybody who has an interest in hearing
academic speakers, etc.
I should have stated this more clearly in my first post,
but “(Mensa) is no more elitist than any other organization in the world,” is just wrong.
I couldn’t believe it was posted.
Pointing to other elitist organizations doesn’t support
that statement, either.
How is AAA as elitist as Mensa? How is AA as elitist?
How is my kid’s soccer league?
The “No Homers Club” is elistist. Damn them and their one Homer by-laws!
Cripes, if you want to go to the end boundaries here, the KKK and Black Panthers are quite selective in which people they select as members.
Look, if you want to get down to it, then yes, Mensa is elite. If by elite, you mean selective in who they pick as a member. Boy Scouts don’t allow girls, do they? Sam’s Club doesn’t let just anyone shop in their warehouse. What right do frats and sororities have in excluding people? Those people they deny are perfectly capable of paying dues, right?
And what if that fraternity held a talent show night, inviting all the other fraternities, but no one else? You, as a non-greek, might have reason to complain, but to what end? You can’t suddenly protest the system, claiming discrimination. It’s their right to invite whomever they wish and disregard the rest. You’ll find, in complaining, two things:
Not many people care about your complaint because they never wanted to join the fraternity in the first place.
There’s a whole wide world of other opportunities and organizations available to you.
The same is true of Mensa. They’re selective in their membership because that’s what the club is designed for. If they allowed everyone to join, it wouldn’t be Mensa anymore. You wouldn’t go into a bird watching club and say “I’m not interested in this bird watching thing. I think it’s elitist to only allow birdwatchers into this club. I wanna breakdance!”
Bup: What about FOP which will exclude you if you aren’t in law enforcement? Or Boy Scouts which excludes women? Or just about any other organization that has membership rules? I don’t believe Mensa is elitist at all. You also asked what the harm is of a non-Mensan going to a meeting. In my local group, and almost every local group as well as international Mensa group that I know of do not exclude someone from attending any function except maybe an executive committee meeting or other business function. The exception might be a function where there is limited space and a lot of people want to go. At most of our functions, non-Mensans outnumber Mensans. In our local group, one of the most accepted people is the mentally retarded stepdaughter of a member. She sometimes comes to meetings alone and is always warmly accepted.
I see more comments of elitism from people who don’t belong to Mensa than I do people who do join, even if they left. Too many people have misconceptions - including the ones I have addressed here. I refuse to put Mensa on my resume because people who see it tend to think that because I belong I am “elite” or above making mistakes. People get threatened when they think someone is more intelligent than they are - because I know what my IQ is and you perhaps don’t doesn’t mean I think I’m better than you.
Since a lot of people do not talk much about their affiliation with Mensa, it’s possible that you already know a few who belong and just don’t tell anyone.
In a recent newsletter of one of the local groups, Mensa membership was compared to being a homosexual. A lot of people are homophobic and a lot of people are Mensa-phobic. You don’t know some people are homosexual until they come out of the closet - so too with Mensa members. Sometimes people are polite, reasonable, friendly, and kind - until they find out you’re homosexual - on Mensan.
I’m not a member of Mensa, but apparently “Chicken George” (of the Reality TV abomination also known as Big Brother) was. Heheh…
Personally I had a friend bugging me to do some puzzles in a Mensa book he had and telling me how difficult they were (he’s a big math/science guy, whereas I am way on the other end of the scale living in the artsy fartsy department), and I did one (one of those “if X is bigger than Y and Y is bigger than blah blah” long ones with 5 or so questions to answer) in my head in a minute or two and got it right. He was shocked and said he had to draw up diagrams on paper and spent a half an hour on it. I just shrugged and went back to playing Final Fantasy 9, heh…
I don’t know, I guess it’s cool if people want to hang out with people who like the same type of technical subjects and all…I mean really, isn’t the SDMB like that? There’s no written out requirement for posting, but I assume the majority of the people here post here because they can’t find many people in real life that they can talk about a lot of these things with (like controversial issues about religion, abortion, Batman VS Superman, that kind of thing…heh). There’s nothing really wrong with it, I’d say, but if you run around saying “I’m smarter than you are, nyah nyah!” then it’s annoying…but if the greatest bird watcher in the world kept rattling off about the spotted red-beaked toucan they saw last weekend, that would get annoying too, heh.
Tsugumo (play Final Fantasy 9, it’ll change your life…well, it’ll suck away a good 30 hours of it anyway)
Hmmm, I tried to join about 4 or 5 years ago… but when I submitted my information to them through their website, I never got the info packet sent to me, a courtest e-mail, or anything. So, eventually, I figured if these people can’t even get a damn website to work right over the year or so I tried contacting them (3-4 times over that year), do I really want to hang out with them?
Something’s amiss when hotpornofreakchicks.com can get a working website but Mensa can’t… (and no, I don’t know if that’s a real website… someone check it out, though, and let me know if it is worth visiting).
Sure they’re elitist. Lots of organizations are.
But:
-Not every organization is elitist.
-Most elitist organizations have a good reason for being
so. If Mensa were a think-tank, or a bunch of mad
scientists plotting to take over the world, that’d be a
reason. The only reason I’ve seen here that Mensa exists
is so “measured-intelligent” people can be among their own.
-Other elitist organizations that don’t have good reasons
for being elitist catch crap for it too - Boy Scouts not
allowing gays, country clubs only allowing whites. Mensa
can be elitist, it’s a free country - but they shouldn’t
be surprised to catch crap for it.
Perhaps DebiJ means she’s heard more comments of elitism from people who’ve had no contact with Mensa than from people who have. It’s a statement certainly borne out by the conversation here.
Cogitoergosum - my experience with Mensa was primarily with adults - I don’t know if the DC area had youth groups or not; I’m assuming they do, however. The group I hung out with most often (simply because they were close by and I had no reliable means of transportation at the time) was a mix, some people were just dandy and others needed the benefit of an intensive social skills course. I will mention, however (and I don’t think I have before in discussions like this) that being a Mensan did get me laid once. YMMV on that one.
My suggestion would be go ahead, join for a year if you’ve qualified, and check out everything the region’s doing. There are probably newsletters for all sorts of events in the area, which should be a good resource for youth-related activities.
And if you don’t dig the scene, do like I did and drop out, man. There’s other stuff out there.
Guinastasia - While I don’t think there are gangs of bigots armed with baseball bats roaming the streets and checking wallets for Mensa membership cards, my experience has been that some people become definitely hostile when they found out I was either applying for membership or actually a member. The words “elitist” and “pretentious” got bandied about pretty much in those conversations.
Why? Just 'cause some of my mental skills meet their qualifications? It’s nothing I could help; it’s just the way I am. It’s no more worthy of a negative reaction than being gay.
This is how I got involved in Mensa. At age 41 I had never thought about it, but I took the GRE to get into a graduate program, and by pure chance, found that Mensa would accept it. When I learned there was a local chapter in Alabama, my first thought was - if these folks are so smart, what are they doing in North Alabama? I joined just for the heck of it.
After about a year, my take on the group is that they’re (we’re) a cross between a Rotary club and a frat party.
My impression of the average Mensa member is that he/she is someone who needs the membership to validate his/her intelligence because he/she has never accomplished anything in life which would indicate any brains.
I think there needs to be a little clarification of terminology here. I think most of you are describing exclusionary organizations, not elitist organizations. By saying the Boy Scouts are elitist because they won’t admit girls, you imply that the boys are in fact elite (or at least think they are elite, which I doubt is the official position of the Scouts). Likewise for many others mentioned (e.g. All White Clubs)
I know very little about Mensa, but if you are in fact correct and they only let in the top 2% of IQs then they are by definition elitist. Just as the Olympics are elitist, only the best athletes are allowed to compete.
This talk about elitism - lighten up. The word connotates a sense of superiority, like “you should listen to us because were better people”. Mensa is a social club. People getting together with people that share a similar personality trait. The aspirations of Mensa in “changing the world” or impressing other people are far less than that of many groups I can think of. Heck, even a well-orgainzed fraternity tries harder to make the community think they’re better than the next.
When I go to meetings, people argue about politics, religion, and their favorite sports teams just like everywhere else. The biggest difference I’ve noticed from any other group is that people use a larger vocabulary.
I used to worry about being part of an “elitist” club. Then I noticed at the gym where I work out, there’s a club for people who can bench press such-and-such weight. I can’t get in their club. Big deal.
This all intrigues me. I didn’t think I’d qualify (mommy brain, plus I’m not all so sure I meet “genuis” status on the best of days). However, according to those test guidelines, I’m qualified. And there seems to be an active chapter around here.
I suppose if I checked it out, liked it, and joined, I’d probably just not tell anyone. It sure as hell wouldn’t go on my resume. I belong to Junior League, too, but I keep that one a secret at work (for completely opposite reasons, though). Some organizations may be much better than their reputations suggest.
As for the OP… when I went to gifted camp in junior high, it changed my life. It was very healing to be around people who valued my mind and who didn’t find me weird. It’s not that I didn’t have peers in school, but we were stereotyped. It was nice, for a change, to be in an environment where certain things were understood. Being smart was valued, but we didn’t talk about it all the time. We never talked about it! We just were. If you get that out of Mensa, great.
When I go to a Mensa meeting, I’m pretty sure that I’ll be able to find someone interesting there to talk to*. Just about everyone there will have read a fascinating book lately, and will want to discuss it. If I’ve read the same book, we can talk it over. If I haven’t read that particular book, then I can put it on my list. Either way, I win. And the book won’t be yet another Grisham or King novel, either.
I’ve been in four different Mensa groups in three states. Each group is different. But I’ve enjoyed each group. I’ve never been asked about my IQ after I was tested and admitted. I’ve never even been asked to show my membership card at meetings.
If you don’t like the idea of Mensa, then fine, don’t join. But I see a LOT of people getting very hostile about what is basically just another social club. We ain’t trying to take over the world, folks. We’re just trying to find someone else to talk to.
There’s nothing really wrong with it, I’d say, but if you run around saying “I’m smarter than you are, nyah nyah!” then it’s annoying…but if the greatest bird watcher in the world kept rattling off about the spotted red-beaked toucan they saw last weekend, that would get annoying too, heh.