AMC's Four Favorite Myths

Some Ms have been with American Mensa since it began, or nearly, and they love it dearly. So do I, even on much shorter acquaintance. We are pro-Mensa Mensans, and that's why many of us view the behavior trends of recent AMCs with alarm and disfavor. I've listened and looked about me, especially since I became an Editor and joined several unofficial e-lists, and what I'm seeing and hearing from many members are four ominous myths in which today's AMC is increasingly, visibly demonstrating its belief. 

1. If you make enough rules, nothing can go wrong. Former AMC Chairman Dick Amyx often wryly quotes this belief as a possible motivation for incomprehensible mandates. I forgive the AMCs of all time for falling for this myth; they looked only at governments as a guide. Looking at their own lives would have shown them the truth, as it's rapidly becoming self-evident here in America: If you make enough rules, everybody will be a rule-breaker — or be uncomfortable as hell. 

2. Teamwork means no dissension: Everybody goes along with what most of us say. Nope. Nowhere else, anyway, is teamwork interpreted as blind and silent obedience. We call forced silence and coerced obedience tyranny, especially when achieving it entails traducing elements of the Constitution you agreed to preserve and to follow. We call it bad management to stifle your critics, because often they're your best brainstormers and observers. We also call it nondemocratic; though, as you'll see, I don't especially favor what democracy becomes. Finally, we call it the opposite of individual genius and ingenuity, and isn't individual and ingenious what we are?

3. Mensans need hands-on discipline and extensive (and expensive) guidance and governance. I don't know for certain who first thought up this one, but I can see to whose benefit it best works, and it's not Mensans. This oddly self-critical myth's observance, which is becoming ever more obvious internally, directly contravenes both Mensa's purpose — of simple fellowship and exploration — and our founders' elitist philosophy: We are smart and self-actuated; we should be telling others (and ourselves!) what could or demonstrably needs to be done, not vice versa. That's how we started out, and it worked fine; why'd we change? As TeenSIG's Ryan Marvin says, trying to change Mensans' way of life is like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.

4. Mensa's "governance" should follow American democracy as closely as possible. I do our AMC members the justice to say that they may not realize they've fallen for this one, though we're a society, not a nation, for goodness' sake, and do not live our lives under the rule of AMC as citizens under a governor. Nothing else otherwise, however, explains the proliferation of underhanded proceedings, hidden agendas, vague business deals and secretively accomplished exploitation of our natural resources, reminiscent of recent U. S. administrations. Just like all the boring normals, recent Committees have flouted bylaws, created illegal rules, played favorites, assassinated enemies with Machiavellian indifference, and generally dropped like early peaches in the strong and heady winds of influence and expedience.

I ask you, why would "high-IQ" people use a model or style of government shown to be inefficient, unwieldy, impractical, or prone to bureaucratic overgrowth? Having surmounted all the hurdles on the way to Mensa membership, are we going to let our society fall victim to a flawed government model? Let's not and say we did, but got over it. Let's try something that, if it does us no obvious good, at least can't hurt us. Let's see if we high-IQ people can't prove Hegel wrong.

A Modest Suggestion

First, let's go through all the ASIEs and additional American Mensa rules (not the Constitution) and throw out the ones that can't be justified by three of the next AMC's members. Let's do the same thing with regulations affecting members that any and all AMC appointees have put into effect. (Just getting into one pile all the things that someone outside the local group wants members to do might be a revelation.) Then let's make each newly elected officer propose his or her pet problem and its remedy (or hypothesis and experiment) within one month of becoming elected, and have them all vote on those proposals then and there. 

Anything that passes on that reading stays in effect for one term; each incoming officer has to read each of the past slate's new rules and say why it should be retained. If at least three of the new Committee members do not justify keeping each new rule, out it goes. Old business concluded, the members would move to the business of voting on new proposals. And except for truly emergency situations, that would be Committee members' only rulemaking for the year. Any new rules, regs or responsibilities dreamed up by appointees would be subject to similar review against demonstrated utility.

Further, Committee members could not serve consecutive terms, in any positions, unless their names were written onto the ballot by admiring majorities — no campaigning, public or private. 

Hired staff and new departments would be reviewed by volunteer members at the end of each fiscal year; any that couldn't point to positive advances, superior performance or continuing need would be discontinued. (The PR Department would be evaluated by professional Ms against peers in the industry, and it couldn't help to prepare individual employees' or departments' reports.) 

The politicians among us would be able to politick freely and intensively in the months just before (for election) and just after the election (for their ideas' enactment). Then, free of the pressures of campaigning for reelection, these born networkers could get on with doing what their positions were instituted to do — helping members accomplish our organization's main goal of taking pleasure in one another's society. 

The rules, regulations and endless meetings whose multiplying and flourishing stifle normals' creativity would wither; we could present to the world an example of how beautifully and simply a well-governed government runs itself. And we could prove, if only to our own satisfaction, that we do bring something to the table that could help the world: The ability to tell when to drop an unworkable system and create one that works.

— Angela Hunter Richardson
     elan@cowtown.net