When Lee invokes velocity of processing power, he converts IQ from a weapon in a race/class/gender blood sport into a toola value-neutral speedometer.
It's a tool with consequences, though. Where many high-IQ opiners provide straight memoir, Lee attends to the needs of the questioner, who's concerned with how to love someone with a low IQ score. He doesn't mince words when discussing the hard road of kids like himself.
Teachers and parents get impatient, Lee explains, and even use epithets; moreover, a tendentious intelligence hierarchy from the American eugenics movement still casts a long shadow. But there can be an upside for low- or average-IQ kids determined to prove themselves: They learn to work. Lee, who wrote his honors thesis on George Eliot's novel The Mill on the Floss, has very much not had his motivation torpedoed. He actively enjoys, as he says, challenging and repetitive work, but only if the challenge can be overcome by practice instead of a good brain.
Then comes Lee's forthrightness when he describes balking at learning new stuff. This should offer readers of any IQ score (or none) a feeling of profound liberation.
My peers learn wine-tasting while I get drunk from my favorite Long Island iced tea, Lee writes. My peers learn yoga while I lie in bed playing with my phone. Sing it, brother. To be honest, playing videogames all the time at home sounds pretty good to me, if I don't have to go to school or work. He also doesn't finish many of the novels he starts, doesn't like to draw, and seldom goes to museums or art galleries. Becauseoh yesI don't appreciate aesthetic stuff. Is Alex C. Lee the first honest witness to the human condition or what?
Like Elias Lazar, whose bio says he studied at the University of Vienna and who writes that he scored around 80 on an IQ test, Lee has trouble following directions, including the rules of games. (Lazar writes that he records people when they give him oral instructions, so he can privately play back their words over and over till he gets it.) It's impossible for me to pick up something, as Lee puts it. I'm not a fast learner. When I learn a language, I have to systematically study, writing it down and getting familiarized.
Hold up: When I learn a language.
I asked Lee about this. My first language is Mandarin, he explained. I know English well. (Clearly.) Then he added, I know a bit of French and German too, and that he's written in French on Quora. Could it be that Lee is learning far more at what he perceives as his tortoise pace than his peers with their Mensa speeds? Languages are an intriguing case, since unlike much of mathematics, vocabulary cannot except in rare cases be learned a priori. (Where you might derive the surface area of a triangle from a couple of measurements, you mostly don't know a word till you encounter it.) Any test that fails to register that talent and tenacity is itself a failure.
And of course it is. Lee is right that we're in the thick of eugenics almost the moment we acquiesce to the implausible conceit of fixed Intelligenzquotient, as the phantom human quality was originally dubbed in Germany in the early 1900s. A hundred years later, Adam Hampshire, Roger Highfield, Adrian Owen, and Beth Parkin wrote an article for the journal Neuron debunking the notion that a unitary, measurable intelligence even exists.
The idea that populations can be compared using a single measure of intelligence is dead, Highfield wrote in WIRED at the time. The IQ test, it seems, is about as scientifically rigorous and reliable as the zodiac.
But as with astrology, what's illuminating are people's emotional and ideological responses to the possibility of universal typologies of personhood. Where astrology offers visual psychedelia, dream states, and oneness with the firmament, other typologies like the IQ arouse the left brain. And it seems that zillions of people still cotton to the idea of ranking our intellects, from top to bottom, the ingenious to the comatose, the gods to the rocks.
More here:
Forget Mensa! All Hail the Low IQ - WIRED
- Anton Chaitkin: the British Monarchy & Euthanasia - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Rate the The Mental Hygiene Society - Yale University connection - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Len Horowitz files pandemic charges against Rockefeller - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Judge Napolitano on Forced Vaccinations in Massachusetts - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Joseph Moshe (MOSSAD Microbiologist): “Swine flu vaccine is bioweapon” - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Canadian study that suggests seasonal flu shots raise a person's risk of catching swine flu - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Doctor Admits Vaccine Is More Deadly Than Swine Flu Itself & Will Not Give It To His Kids - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Ineffectiveness And Dangers Of Flu Shots - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Maafa 21 - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Doctors Concerned FluMist Vaccine Could Spread Live H1N1 Virus - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Martial Law Soon - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Humanity's Greatest Challenge - Fear or Love - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Does the Vaccine Matter? - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Ten questions about flu vaccines that doctors and health authorities refuse to answer - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Swear NO Oaths (UNDERSTANDING JURISDICTION) - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- WARNING! Goodbye U.S Sovereignty... Hello One World Government ! - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Glenn Beck interviews Lord Monckton on the Soviet style takeover of America by the NWO & BHO - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- TAVISTOCK - THE BEST KEPT SECRET IN AMERICA - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Become a Free Man { SUI JURIS } - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- The Income Tax Trial of the Century - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Gary Null Speaking Out Against vaccines at the NYS Assembly Hearing | 10-13-2009 - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- WHO memos 1972 explains how to turn vaccines into a means of killing - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- The Swine Flu (aka 'H1N1) That's Not A Flu At All - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Lord Christopher Monchton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, answers critics of his claim that Obama intends to cede U.S. sovereignty - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Swine Flu Government Data Scam Government using fraud to generate flu hysteria - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- The Strecker Memorandum video - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- United States Patent 4,647,773 Gallo -Continuous production of retroviruses - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS FOR 1970 : The funding of the Bio-terrorism AIDS virus - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- The Merchants of AIDS - full article - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Another Tool of Eugenics: Fluoride - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- 1988: Dr. Jonathan Mann : Killed in Plane Crash - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Boyd Graves: Interview with Alex Jones - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Boyd Graves: Letter to Ninth Circuit Court - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Gallo and Litton Bionetics: Creators of Aids - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- This site is being developed - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- 2002: Eleven microbiologists mysteriously dead over the span of just five months - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Kissinger, Eugenics and Nazis - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- July 27, 1990: Aids is man-made - By William Cooper [Killed by Law enforcement in 2001] - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- The Merchants of aids - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Why we should not trust the health market. - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Dr. David James preview - conscious media network - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- AIDS HIV BAYER CORPORATION HEMOPHELIA TAINTED BLOOD SUPPLY - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Ugandians not dying fast enough. International Eugenists (Aids experts) want them to engage in casual sex - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Proof that AIDS was engineered to kill primarily blacks - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- In lies we Trust. The history of American Bioterrorism - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Dallas: A possible Aids Cure? - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Glutathione Accelerator - Any Good? - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Dr. Boyd Ed Graves International AIDS activist dies age 57 - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Genocide in Progress with novel flu virus. - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Genocide in Progress with new flu virus- CDC is suspect - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Vaccines: The Bargain Basement Technology of the 20th Century - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Anthrax - as American as Apple Pie. Eustace Mullins - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Swine flu: Some pregnant women shunning H1N1 vaccine - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- CFR lies to get You to take the Shot - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- US spraying Ukraine?? - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Eustace Mullins: Murder By Injection - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Microbiologist nabbed by FBI after warning us that vaccine is a bioweapon deployment - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Airplanes sprayed mysterious substance over Ukraine days before pneumonic plague outbreak - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- NIH Whistleblower Alexander S. Jones: Deadly Flu Spreads Across Ukraine - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- RBD Change D225G in Ukraine Lungs Raises Concerns - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Young Boy in Agony After AH1N1 Nasal Flu Mist - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Unconfirmed Reports of Large Numbers of Deaths from the Vaccine in the Ukraine - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Vaccinations are Causing Impaired Blood Flow (Ischemia), Chronic Illness, Disease and Death for us All - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- British scientists suspect that swine flu virus has mutated in Ukraine. - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Vaccination: Federal Health Agencies Continue to Deceive Americans - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Ukraine plagues and now heavy supply and personnel movement in and out of US Deep Underground Military Bases (DUMBs) - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- College Students Getting Smarter, Shunning H1N1 Vaccine - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Deeper down the rabbit hole - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Ukraine Pneumonic Plague Research Nov 2009 - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Keiser on 'Tsunami alert': Dubai debt crisis awakes storm? - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Christopher Story - EU Corruption - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- John Harris - Undermining Democracy - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- The first case of HIV/AIDS cure and no mention in the media. Why? - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- What is AIDS? - January 7th, 2010 [January 7th, 2010]
- Europe to Investigate the UN Over “Pandemic” Scam - February 13th, 2010 [February 13th, 2010]
- Nuke @ Olympics ????? - February 13th, 2010 [February 13th, 2010]
- Intelligent Anti-Fluoride Statement - Dr. J. William Hirzy - February 24th, 2010 [February 24th, 2010]
- Testimony [4-9] Fluoride's Definitive Medical Indictment - February 24th, 2010 [February 24th, 2010]
- History Lesson - March 10th, 2010 [March 10th, 2010]
- As the Bank System fails so will society - March 13th, 2010 [March 13th, 2010]