For the past week or so I have seen several posts in my dash about intelligence, IQ, people qualified as “geniuses”, etc. I didn’t have the time to post anything about it, but I have to make a clear and concise statement: I loath the idea of “intelligence” being a measure of human worth.
Many people might not realize this but IQ tests are extremely Western Centric, not to mention ableist and promoting an elitist view of human value. They use Western notions of spatial and situational assessments that are not universal. If anything, IQ tests seem to measure qualia more than they measure innate capability. And qualia is as much subjective as it is cultural. That triangle that follows a circle that follows a square? That is not a universal thought pattern. That is a learned structure. And that’s how we measure “intelligence”. Since babies are given their first wooden toys to fill in forms and shapes and color, we are setting them up to succeed in their future IQ tests. But such structures and thought patterns are not universally replicated. From the way we count, to the way we place ourselves in the time continuum (future ahead, past behind us), all of the measures of IQ are deeply ingrained in our education and culture. The danger of this test is that it is also exported everywhere, in yet another form of colonization that usually ends up placing people from the South as “less than”.
Is it a surprise that many immigrants do not test well? The IQ test, paired with the constant measure of an immigrant’s language skills are the two most widespread tools used to marginalize minorities.
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