I also tell them the best students in the university—as a cohort—are the nursing majors. Now, is this because nursing majors are the smartest people on campus? There is no reason to conclude that.
It’s because nursing majors—again, as a cohort—work the hardest. They come to class prepared, the PDF is printed out and highlighted in three colors, they take reams of notes, they ask questions, they’re engaged.
I have had students with stratospheric IQs who couldn’t think their way out of a cardboard box—if it was open. Sure, they can do marvelous things in the physics department, but give some of them an excerpt from Plato’s Republic, and they have nothing to say.
What matters is hard work and a sense of curiosity.
IQ is a thin segment on the intelligence spectrum. It means you’re good at math, probably chess, and you do well on standardized tests. And that’s about it. It does not mean you’ll master the violin quickly and well; it does not mean you’ll become a good painter or artist. Maybe it will help with language acquisition.
However, I know a retired professor who can barely do simple math. If you asked him to add a small list of single-digit numbers in his head, he would likely begin sweating. But he taught himself Greek so he could read Plato in the original; and he also taught himself Russian so he could read Dostoevsky in the original. He also knows French and Italian. So, he’s not smart because he can’t do math? You try learning Russian to the point that you can read The Brothers Karamazov in the original, and then send me an email telling me how long it took you.
Intelligence is a spectrum that allows for myriad abilities. I know a gent who, in a thirty-minute conversation on the phone will five times get me to think, “Holy shit,” because he just combined Aristotle with a potato chip commercial and created a novel insight into the human condition. He’s lousy at chess, by the way.
For that matter, so am I. My strengths do not lie in math, or chess, or standardized tests. I know my strengths, and I play to them. I don’t much care about what I suck at—which is a very long list of things. My IQ is probably not very interesting.
And this used to bother me. Why did it bother me? Because in this culture, IQ = smart. If you crush the ACT or SAT, congratulations, you’re smart. It’s official. And as a young man, this really ate me up. It wasn’t until much later that I realized the difference and how my strengths lie elsewhere on the spectrum. Now I’m relaxed and do not care about intelligence at all.
It doesn’t enter into my thinking. Sure, what geniuses can do is really interesting—and again, this includes an array of abilities. Michael Jordan was a genius. Simone Biles? Genius. Are they geniuses the same way Isaac Newton was? No. Or Noam Chomsky? Or Bobby Fisher, for that matter?
In my sweet, short 53 years, I have met one—one—genius. I had the privilege to sit with Noam Chomsky in his office at MIT. He is not normal. Intellectually, he could bury me a hundred feet deep. He can read faster than I do. He’s got a better memory than I do. He’s analytically sharper than I am. He’s analytically faster than I am. All down the line. He has both intellectual intelligence and a high IQ. He’s got both and lots of each. Like I said, he’s not normal.
But what makes him fascinating is his work ethic and his moral precision. His sense of justice is nothing short of inspiring. One could say his moral intelligence is as high as his other ones.
This is not to say “Everybody’s smart!” There’s a spectrum, so just pick where you are on it, and hurray, you’re smart! Nope. This is next door to the book smart/street smart distinction. This is also another case of “Everybody gets a trophy!” You just pick your flavor of smart, and Bob’s your uncle. No, sadly some folks are just intellectually unremarkable. Some folks are strong, some are not. Some are really good looking, some are not. God doesn’t deal with both hands. So, if you are intellectually less than vibrant, maybe you’re really handy at something else. You are. Everyone’s good at something. And I believe that to my bones.
But what I do not buy is that IQ is the measure of a human being. This is utter nonsense. “Mensa takes no stand on politics, religion or social issues,” they proudly trumpet on their website. Wow. Curious that an organization built on self-congratulation announces to the world their cowardice and low moral intelligence.
If we attend to the writings of antiquity—Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Confucius, et al.—we learn again and again that what matters is what kind of person you are and how you live you life. One might also consult the teachings of Jesus, the early Jewish scholars, the Muslim hadith, and the founding gurus of Sikhism. They all say the same thing: live an upright life, show compassion, and care for your fellow human beings.
As to how smart you are? I categorically don’t care.
