IQ Discrimination

 

 

People are born unequal, with some qualities difficult to change more than others, which requires knowing, accepting and dealing with individuals' differences as early as possible, for everyone to find their niche in society. Yet, improperly measuring or employing such differences leads to hasty judgment and unjust labeling and treatment of individuals. Discrimination based on the potential someone has is ethically justified only temporarily, for basic introduction until giving them a chance to be judged by their achievement.

Among the "discriminators" are some advocates of IQ testing who claim the age of meritocracy has come, that is, "giving power to superior intellects." In their utopia, meritocrats should control the world. All people in leading positions in a country, in politics, education, etc. who guide the "average" public should be mentally worthy. One must have an IQ high enough to apply for certain jobs, else forget it.

This may turn into a utopian heaven, or a dystopian hell where war, crime, and poverty still prevail; justice might be served or new forms of discrimination arise. Meritocrats can equally use their genius for good or evil purposes, unless "merit" is re-defined. When science allows us to genetically "design" genius, genius may not even be called genius, where also language, education, politics, ethics, traditions, and every aspect of life change.

On the other "end," some individuals, groups, classes, and even countries have seriously low "average" IQs, because of chronic ages-old isolation, illiteracy, etc. making them collectively mentally-challenged. This alone can create worldwide discrimination, if not political conflicts, if we don't face the problem many ignore out of political correctness, if not illicit manipulatory/colonial motives. IQ differences, even approximate ones, affect the entire world's education, economy, security, and progress of the human race.

 

Causes

IQ discrimination is the least obvious and most serious type of discrimination, compared to that based on gender, class, race, religion, looks, etc. It's expected to take longest to be cured, becoming the main cause of discrimination in the near future, for different reasons:

The brain is not an external organ, to easily see and compare the different brain structure each individual has. Moreover, we cannot change brain parts to increase someone's IQ, at present, surgically or otherwise. We can only increase IQ by some points (10-40), by education, environment and other external tools before adulthood, after which it's nearly impossible to increase IQ. Changing one's class, belief, appearance, or even gender, is easier then, than changing one's IQ.

More people are becoming aware that intelligence is power, essential for changing their life and the entire human civilization, more than other physical or social characters, as statistics show a strong connection between IQ and education level, income, creativity, etc. that many societies give extra benefits to the gifted. Accordingly, some grow envious of those who are intelligent, and contemptuous of those who are not, ending with discrimination against both.

• Schadenfreude can make those who fail to use their IQ properly happy to see others fail too, as misery loves company. Low or high, many take their frustration with their unaccepted/unused IQ out on others, wishing them dissatisfaction with and failure to use theirs too.

This happens indirectly sometimes, as when we innocently, instinctively pity someone with a disability requiring them hours to do a simple job that we do in few seconds. We forget, consciously or not, how "similar" we are, thus feeling comfortably superior by comparison. Statistically, most people's IQ is around 100, with the mentally-gifted much higher and the mentally-challenged much lower. This makes geniuses—e.g. Gates, 160, Kasparov, 190, Netanyahu, 180 (?), etc.—just smarter than all of "us" the average people who are in turn smarter than all the mentally-challenged. This can teach us not to discriminate against the latter, as by doing so we give the same right to superior intellects to discriminate against us.

The development in psychometrics, though primitive and not measuring IQ accurately, is making many grow over-enthusiastic about discovering their and others' potential, whether to use it or not. They rush to attach this newly discovered "IQ tag" to everyone.

The insufficient research on measuring IQ and understanding the human brain, along with the technological, financial and ethical challenges for doing certain experiments, helps keep the status quo of ignorance about individuals' real differences.

• Social conventions prohibit some from describing someone as unintelligent, considering it rude/politically incorrect; meanwhile, they discourage others from telling someone they are intelligent either, let alone a genius, lest he/she be spoiled. Avoiding the subject of IQ differences leads to even more discrimination in disguise.

Until this day, there are some who ignorantly believe that all humans' IQs are equal, and it's just people's choices and environment that make some look smarter than others! This indirectly causes discrimination, as many people are wrongly blamed/praised for actions their IQ had mainly led to. Also some naively connect certain individual characters and looks to smartness or dumbness, in their zeal to discover others' IQ from mere physiognomy and outer behavior.

We have a problem with rewards: we reward individuals for the good results, not the efforts/attempts they made to reach those results.

  • We reward great discoveries, even those discovered by luck.
  • We give an award to someone who only gathered/advertised unknown works by unknown others under his/her own name.
  • We reward visible wholes because it's easier to see and deal with than untraceable parts.

The average Nobel Prize winner has an IQ of 165, which definitely made winning the prize easier for them, than for someone for example whose IQ is 65 only. Meanwhile, many low-IQ people who work hard, day and night, pushing their boundaries to achieve something even beyond their capacity, are rarely rewarded or even thanked. Although they do their "best," to us it's just "good," passable, or even wrong, that we rush to criticize or punish them.

 

Effects

Mindless categorization of people puts them in all the wrong places, wasting time, money, resources, etc. Undervaluing/overvaluing someone can harm society's hierarchy, that should be a reflection of nature's hierarchy, that we should respect for the present until we change nature itself. (It's unfair of Mother Nature to make us born unequal—in IQ, health, finance, circumstances, etc.—yet we have to accept the reality and move forward.)

When people find someone with a VERY high IQ, they may objectify/dehumanize them, treating geniuses/prodigies as freaks, which indirectly isolates them from society. They may expect more from the genius to do, even without offering them the environment and tools they need. Thus they harshly criticize, ridicule, or even mistreat them as long as they don't see genius "works." As for the genius themselves, out of self-solace, they may grow a superiority complex with no superior achievements to match their genius.

Although praising someone for being intelligent, without using such intelligence, may spoil them, ignoring the intelligence of a hardworking intelligent person altogether can make them worse:

  • Frustrated by the lack of appreciation and not seeing their talent benefited from.
  • Selfish: careless and apathetic toward others, benefiting himself/herself only since society refused to benefit from them.
  • Eccentric: As they grow obsessed with their ego, that hasn't been loved properly by others, they develop extreme views of themselves and other aspects of life in general.

Some employers discriminate against intelligent employees/applicants of jobs requiring less intelligence lest they grow unmotivated/over-knowing/overambitious/over-trusting their intelligence at the expense of focus, diligence & experience. However, other factors matter too alongside intelligence, as when the intelligent "really" need a job, however easy/unrewarding, for temporary reasons or just preferring a simple lifestyle allowing them to do/enjoy other things simultaneously.

As for unintelligent people, telling them they are unintelligent can hurt them and make them depressed & diffident. Meanwhile, not telling the unintelligent "they are unintelligent" can make them wrongly accept jobs they CANNOT & SHOULD NOT do. Although they use many survival strategies to "make up" for their lack of intelligence, they wrongly apply them when they do it merely out of guilt/inferiority, or to avoid discrimination and rid themselves of the low-IQ stigma:

  • Memorizing more, mindlessly "imitating" the intelligent: memorizing clichés and behavioral sequences and roles to play, awkwardly or excessively (the effect of "IQ envy" on people is similar to that of "class envy"). They become desperate to speak and look like the intelligent, rather than have a real worth to themselves and society.
  • Specializing in jobs the intelligent wouldn't do, to impress the latter, while mocking/belittling any intelligence-requiring job they cannot do.
  • Socializing more, because they can't survive on their own with their limited IQ, in many aspects the intelligent find quite easy. Some go to extremes becoming socially insincere or shallow, in their eagerness to please/impress others. Others enjoy controlling, even bullying, those below their IQ (the even more unintelligent).

 

Solutions

Scientific

  • Increasing research on IQ to measure the different intelligence types more accurately.
  • Increasing research on understanding and "changing" brain structure.

Social

Increasing awareness of IQ differences, while offering suitable avenues by society for individuals to use such differences.

This accordingly requires understanding elitism. The elite is the critical few, that has the quality but lacks the quantity. Its members are more important than others, but useless without others. They could be richer, healthier, and, more importantly, smarter, as superiority in physical characters is easier to achieve than intellectual ones. They may refuse to do easy menial jobs, but the world is full of such jobs that need to be done anyway.

Machine has replaced the body, as it will replace the brain. Eventually, both naturally intelligent and unintelligent humans will be inferior, to the artificially intelligent machine. Future laws will forbid elitism, as it is based on inequality (unfair distribution of intellectual resources) causing discrimination, envy, and crime. It's inhumane. Diversity will replace disparity. People will be all intelligent, but differently intelligent.   

Psychological

Accepting One's IQ

Whatever one's IQ is, they have to accept it, use it, and get along with life and enjoy it to the full. After knowing your IQ, there are different possibilities:

  • Lower/higher than you/others expected.
  • You/others don't believe much in IQ testing.
  • Others don't know your IQ yet.

Knowing your IQ is a double-edged weapon. If high, you feel satisfied, confident, and superior, that you may grow enthusiastic to fully benefit from it, or too lazy to use it at all, or just superficially anxious to show it others. If it's low, you feel frustrated, diffident, and inferior.

If other people know you have a high IQ, you feel more responsible toward them, as you can't hide your gift. If they know it's low, you feel less responsible, but also embarrassed, having to work harder to prove to them that you have other good qualities too.

Accepting Others' IQ

IF LOW

  • If you know that someone has a low IQ, put yourself in their shoes. How are you going to feel, live, and survive for the rest of your life with that IQ? So, be patient with them, empathetic, and supportive. Many people with low IQ don't know they have a low IQ nor even believe that humans have different IQs, which can get them and those around them into trouble. Their belief could be the result of ignorance or self-solace. You must be careful if you must tell/remind them of "the truth," else they will feel offended, depressed, or stubborn, insisting on acting/living like the intelligent.
  • Everyone has a role to play in society one should value. So respect physical & social work, that life needs as it needs intellectual one. Life would stop if low-IQ people stopped doing their simple jobs, which are usually more physical and social than intellectual.
  • Even in intellectual work, quantity is needed alongside quality: 10 average people, or 100 below-average people, may do the intellectual job of one genius. A genius is like many people with low IQ, or many brains in one brain, in one body.
  • However, with high, low, or average IQ, every human can equally suffer or enjoy, thus equally deserves life.

IF HIGH

You may feel jealous of the highly gifted, who can think less yet do things faster and store more data, to retain longer, than the rest of people. It's ironic to see some Mensa members with a very high IQ jealous of those with an even "higher" IQ (just as the rich feel jealous of the richer, even when neither use what they possess properly). However, everyone, esp. those suffering IQ envy, needs to remember some basic facts of life:

  • Intelligence is not wisdom. It can make some too confident to work or learn, ending up unsuccessful and ignorant, more than the unintelligent. All humans, intelligent or not, have a primitive brain that can act on its own, if one lives to satisfy their animal instincts only: anger, lust, food, addictions, etc. Intelligence is a power to direct toward useful/harmful avenues: a genius can be a gangster, war criminal, cult leader, etc. The knowledge he/she naturally absorbs fast can be good or evil, useful/harmful/useless to the genius themselves and to society.
  • Life is about happiness, not intelligence. It's not about how fast you learn, or about learning at all. All our knowledge is equally erased from our brains once we die, whether we were smart or dumb. Like money, intelligence can make you equally happy or miserable. We need intellectual/financial resources basically for security. Any extra pleasures smart/rich people can get are not essential for happiness, that psychologists define as a mostly mental process. "Happiness is satisfaction": a person with a high IQ has high expectations too, that, when not fulfilled, can make them depressed. When geniuses can't be understood they feel really, painfully "lonely." They are lonely dots at the far end of the Bell Curve, just as the mentally challenged are at the other end. Geniuses are just humans. They are not immune to death, accidents, losing loved ones, physical and mental illnesses, etc.
  • We will all be intelligent someday. Civilization means moving forward toward equality for all born humans, even in IQ level. In the future, we won't bring inferior humans to suffer in life, or bring them by accident. Birth will be well-calculated to have useful humans we only need. Eventually most, if not all, humans will be born with a high IQ. However, there will be differences in intelligence types according to society's needs, which types will be prenatally/postnatally designed.


 

IQ Testing

IQ Obsession

Home