Leon Feingold – An Xperience Interview

Leon Feingold – An Xperience Interview – by Liam Sweeny.

Leon Feingold is the former president of MENSA, a social organization whose members are in the 98% percentile of IQ.

RRX: Mensa is an international organization composed of people with IQs in the top 2% of the population – the smartest people in the world. But Mensa exists in a world of the other 98%. And they’re not always eager to engage with Mensa. A lot of people think that Mensa is a way for very smart people to feel superior. Can you tell me the truth of this, and the lie?

LF: It’s been my experience that Mensa members join for different reasons. Some to challenge themselves, some to find compatible minds and personalities, some to work towards the betterment of the world, some because they enjoy some niche aspect of the organization such as game playing or attending gatherings, and others took the test simply to see whether or not they could get in. Mensa offers many different avenues of experience, and most have nothing to do with comparing ourselves to non-Mensans.

I imagine most smart people recognize they are smarter than nearly everyone else in any non-Mensa grouping, but very few use that as an excuse to lord themselves over or look down upon others. Being exemplary in one category, after all, doesn’t translate into being exemplary in others – and I know plenty of people who are brilliant but absolutely suck at life in other ways. Besides, these days in particular, anything that helps people feel good about themselves can be useful for self-confidence purposes. People who treat other people poorly for any reason are assholes, and they’d likely do that regardless of relative intelligence level.

RRX: I first failed the admissions test when I took it, only to find out I qualified from a test I took in grade school. I was having a shitty day when I took the Mensa test. Which brings an interesting question: can a good day or a bad day affect your IQ? Is there any fluidity to IQ, or does the environment you’re in just affect your ability to take a test?

LF: It depends who you ask. (You asked me, so you get my response.) 🙂

I think tests that fluctuate with mood and exterior influence are perfectly valid. After all, we are effectively different people when we are cranky, hangry, self-confident, or insecure. It makes sense an accurate test of our abilities in each of those situations might vary somewhat. One obvious example is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test, which directly translates the test subject’s responses across four different axes to describe personality types – and as an ENTP I found my results extremely accurate. Many professionals discount MBTI, as they’ve noticed some people’s results can fluctuate – but that is exactly why I think it’s extremely accurate. Some days some people are more extroverted, while other days they may be more introverted. It makes sense an accurate test would reflect these results.

Testing IQ isn’t an exact science. A numerical value resulting from a test is highly correlated with intelligence, but somebody who scored a 168 isn’t necessarily “smarter” than somebody who scored a 158. It begs the question, what is intelligence? What types of questions can accurately determine and rank intelligence? Expecting to be able to reduce all the factors of all the types of intelligence down to a single number is a fool’s errand. At best you’ll have groupings which are generally useful, but it’s very likely that people within a standard deviation of each other might very well be equally intelligent regardless of what their numerical results say. Besides, it doesn’t matter how fast your computer’s processor works, if you don’t install good programs and know how to use them.

RRX: One thing I get as a common response when people find out that I’m in Mensa is that IQ is only one measure of intelligence. I believe this, but in a way, it weakens the role of IQ in intelligence. Why is IQ different than other measures of intelligence? And are the other measurements really about intelligence or is it personality?

LF: It’s a good follow-up conversation to have. There are some people who are extremely good with numerical equations, some are savants with physical manipulation (think Rubik’s Cube), some have amazing powers of recall, and others have a knack for wordplay. These are each held up as evidence of intelligence, and someone who masters them all would probably ace an IQ exam. But reducing brain power to a simple number doesn’t clearly indicate what specific skills or abilities a person might have or be able to develop. Most IQ testing happens at the age of 10 in the United States and is usually delivered along with verbal and math percentiles in order to give parents and teachers an idea as to where the kid stands in relation to their peers, allowing them to recognize whether different schooling, training, assistance, or activities would help maximize the child’s development. A number like IQ is only as useful as it provides useful information, and as I said earlier – while even a loose grouping is helpful in determining whether (and to what extent) somebody is likely highly intelligent, it doesn’t describe where their strengths lie and how that intelligence could best be tapped. That’s where some of these other tests are useful.

RRX: Mensa works with gifted children. But this can’t be easy. Classrooms are bulging out of the walls and teachers are so overburdened that a gifted child may not hit your radar. How do you deal with this? And what can the parents of gifted children do to reach out and get not only tested but guided?

LF: As a gifted child growing up in suburban Long Island, New York, I really appreciated the fact that my school had a program, called Project Extra, which allowed me to interact with other highly intelligent kids and solve puzzles and engage in creative activities that weren’t available in regular school. These programs helped refine my thinking processes and gave me skills that I was able to eventually translate into other areas of my life in which I hadn’t shown much aptitude, including sociability and self-confidence.

I would encourage any parents who believe their child is highly intelligent (and have some evidence to back it up) to enroll their kid in such a program if one exists. If one doesn’t exist, advocate for it. Intelligence doesn’t go away if it’s not appreciated and trained, but like any superpower, it’s a responsibility that could eventually be used for evil instead of good. If nothing else, it would be a missed opportunity and a shame for ability and talent to be wasted simply because nobody took an interest in the child.

RRX: I know that I’m smarter than some people. I say this even though, by the numbers, I’m one of the world’s smartest people. It’s bad to talk about being smart in our society. So you hide it, or you become the embodiment of a flaw so that people will see you as balanced enough that the “smart” isn’t a problem. How do other Mensans cope with that difficulty?

LF: There’s a difference between being proud of your intelligence, and rubbing it in people’s faces. Sure, people will naturally compare themselves to you, and if they’re the kind of people who would be intimidated by a person far more intelligent than they are, they may try to bring you down in other ways – especially if you’re the kind of person who is obnoxious about it. But that is more often a sign of their insecurity, rather than an indication you should hide your glow.

I’ve learned that I value my authenticity, including my intelligence. So rather than try to make everybody happy with me, I seek out and surround myself with people who appreciate me for who I am: strengths, flaws, and all, without having to protect them from my authentic self. This simple calculus has made my life immeasurably happier.

RRX: Mensa has the mental firepower to probably save the world. But with very smart people, it’s like herding cats, and Mensans are as diverse in belief and opinion as anyone else. How can Mensa swoop in and bust out some power move to save the world? Is this ever talked about?

LF: Officially, the mission of Mensa is three-fold. It brings together highly intelligent people for three purposes: exploring the nature of intelligence; using our powers to help the world; and socializing among peers.

More from Liam Sweeny…