Mensa and Its Desire Today to Make More of a Difference in the World

The Real "Smart People": Misperceptions About the Usefulness of Mensa Still Exist

You don't hear a great deal about Mensa lately--probably because a major consensus and stigma has been built by many who don't have genius I.Q.'s who consider Mensa members to be (in all bluntness)...full of themselves. Well, that's arguable, but there has been a long-standing problem with Mensa that many are still trying to figure out: Just what is their usefulness other than just to boast about their members' intelligence level? That only gets driven into people's minds more after years of independent researchers who claim that a high I.Q. really doesn't matter in how you live a life. Add to that the claims that an Emotional Intelligence is more important to how successful of a life you lead than possessing a brain that's overfilled with useless information.

For those who think that the heads of Mensa just turn their nose up at all this--think again. Sure, you couldn't expect people that intelligent to just stick their heads in the sand, did you? During their 50^th anniversary in 1996, the founder of Mensa made a statement during celebrations that showed concern over their future role of existing. This was said by Dr. Lancelot Ware (yes, all brilliant families name their son after a member of King Arthur's court)--who founded Mensa in 1946. And let's not forget that Ware was British, which is where Mensa was first formed as well as just about everything else as I always say. To give more credence to Ware's statement--we have to remember, too, that "Mensa" in Latin means "table."

That little word gave a major clue to what Mensa was originally intended to be: Members meeting in one place to enjoy one another's company and take part in discussing the issues of the world. As it turned into factions around the globe through the decades, the goals of Mensa became mired in the stigmas applied to intelligence. That seemed to turn into fever pitch by at least the 1970's and 80's when it became more fashionable to be dumb than smart in America. It didn't help when a lot of Mensa members became adept at solving mathematical games rather than having meetings with their peers to discuss solving the world's problems.