Gossip, Speculation, and Goings-on

I am the LocSec of one of American Mensa's smallest local groups - Northern Michigan Mensa (NMM), with about 80 members spread over a large geographic area, sparsely populated except for Traverse City. I joined Mensa in 2021 and fell into the LocSec role soon thereafter. The outgoing nomination committee couldn't get candidates for a new ExComm slate, an urgent call went out. A non-ExComm NMM started working NMM contacts saying "Save our local group by stepping up" which I did, stipulating that I basically knew nothing. I was a placeholder; I accepted the Deputy LocSec position with the stipulation that I'd use the position to learn. Then the LocSec dropped out and "hey presto" I became LocSec.

I write all this to establish my bona fides as a not-at-all-experienced Mensan. I've chatted with a lot of Mensans, participated in Ken Lawrence's (excellent in my opinion) weekly remote meetings about reinvigorating Mensa, attended online presentations offered by American Mensa. I've been to exactly one RG. Therefore my perspective is not quite that of an outsider's (after all I did qualify for and join Mensa, and am actually the duly nominated and sort-of-elected, sort-of-appointed LocSec) but not quite an insider's either. Many people on these fora, and other Mensans I meet, have more decades experience than I have years. To complete that picture just a bit, my own prior experience comes largely from Rotary and consumer and housing co-ops. In those organizations, fighting, including infighting, just isn't on; it's not the thing, it's frowned upon, disparaged. "We can and should do better."

So, for anyone who's interested, here is my newbie's perspective. Perhaps it'll be of some value to someone. 

On a Mensa Connect forum, another LocSec posted a post titled "Leadership Responsibilities" in which she suggested that we all "Work to avoid gossip and speculation directing member questions back to the AMC." I praised and supported her positive attitude, and I (still) agree that positivity is pretty important given whatever's going on right now with that bunch at that level. (Though now that I think of it, her practical suggestion - direct member questions back to the AMC - creates the question "What AMC? 8/10ths of it was just ousted.") Other Mensans also responded, basically saying that the antidote to gossip and speculation is, stop hiding/sequestering/keeping secret the information. Point well taken, and I imagine that many Mensans know that in countries and organizations which more or less strictly control/restrict information, "conspiracy theories" abound to fill that information vacuum. If you're going to keep secrets then gossip and speculation are bound to occur, it's more or less a rule, unavoidable.

I'm posting this as a separate message because it's about gossip and speculation (and also what's going on currently) and therefore somewhat off the topic of what we should do as leaders.

Gossip as a necessary social mechanism

We all know that gossip is roundly and widely condemned, and I understand that, and agree with it to a large extent. One learns and reads of it everywhere - I think I first heard of it when reading How Green Was My Valley in which mean, harmful gossip hurts a family and community, driving wedges, ruining reputations and friendships, etc. And I guess that we all know that to call someone "a gossip" is pejorative. Also the now-decades-old phenomenon of online accusation and subsequent dogpiling and hounding, is kind of "gossip on steroids."

But I have read along the way, and seen this to be true, that gossip is actually 1) an intrinsic part of human nature, 2) part of every human culture, and 3) societally/communally vital. This of course is contrary to usual feeling but it does make sense. For one thing it explains why this purported evil - gossip - is so common; nearly universal. If it were really only terribly evil and corrosive, why would it still be common, basically near-universal?

Gossip when seen as a social information-sharing and rule-enforcing mechanism makes a lot of sense. I can think of both real-world and hypothetical examples. Say a guy goes to another guy and says "Hey, you need to keep an eye on your wife/girlfriend - she's getting too close to Jimmy, and he's a bad dude." Maybe the speaker, the person warning, hasn't personally witnessed Jimmy behaving badly, so this counts as gossip since it's a rumor, or second- (or third- or fourth-) hand information. Such a rumor, and/or such a warning, might pass through several transmitters (persons who repeat) before final delivery. We may not like this scenario since there's an element of the "telephone game" involved, meaning that Jimmy's reputation could be unfairly tarnished - maybe even an enemy of Jimmy's was part of the chain and made up a complete lie. Also this flies in the face of our American standards of due process such as the right to confront one's accuser, the right to challenge evidence, etc.

However such a message can save a marriage. I wonder how many of you reading this have experienced something like this. I have, multiple/numerous times. Times when a word or sentence delivered discreetly, prevented a person from making a potentially bad mistake. Times when "gossip" apparently - or at least plausibly - saved not just a marriage but a life.

In the above scenario it is actually possible for Jimmy to recover and/or rebuild his reputation. The simplest way is for Jimmy to behave well for a number of years. Word spreads that Jimmy wasn't really so bad, or has changed his ways; anyone who spread false accusations or characterizations might be discredited, or taken with a grain of salt from then on, or learn better.

Gossip as an alternative to "the official line" - or a news blackout, conspiracy of silence

There is another good, or potentially good, quality, aspect, or feature of gossip; it is an alternative to "the official line." I'm American, born and raised here, but I lived in a communist country for a year and traveled in many other communist countries. In that situation, anything broadcast (printed, disseminated) from on high, meaning everything from official channels, was suspect. If you wanted the truth you asked a (trusted) neighbor, friend, or family member. There were all sorts of informal and alternative information-transmission mechanisms; gossip was just one, but an important one.

Yet another valuable aspect of gossip is, holders of truths can be anyone - including (or even especially) outsiders. Information's very democratic - or even anarchic - that way. An information silo way off in the prairie, hidden or forgotten, or even excluded from consideration, can still be a source of truth. A factual nugget buried away somewhere or with someone - perhaps an outcast, pariah, defector, expellee or resignee - can be, or become, an important, relevant truth. This person, almost by definition, may not have access to official channels, so any information they communicate could be called gossip. Yet it could be both true and vital to the organization - in this case, Mensa.

About Speculation

Others have posted that to cut down on gossip, "just open up about what's going on", and that's true of speculation as well. If we knew the truth, the details, then there'd be no need for speculation. Of course once the "whole picture" is presented it's possible to speculate anyway; speculate that there is/was more to the story, that some things remain hidden, that people have ulterior motives etc. "Management", "insiders", or "powers-that-be" could (reasonably) say "It doesn't help to release more information because if we do, the outsiders/others just keep wanting more information anyway, they're never satisfied, we'd never get anything else done." But most folks do reach a point where we feel that we're satisfied with our understanding of what's going on and what went on. Or else we may calculate that it seems we'll never fully, really understand everything, but that the effort required to learn more, just isn't worth it. Once the big majority of folks start to feel this way - basically, satisfied - folks who continue "digging for dirt" are kind of treated as outliers, typically.

I mentioned above about the "reasonable man" test. Here's how it plays out to me, in this situation.

I understand and suppose that Mensa insiders (powers that be/were, persons who hold or have held positions of authority) have their own definition of "acts inimical." Certainly in at least one post I read, a Mensan asserted that such-and-so conduct amounted to "acts inimical." I wasn't convinced.

Coming from my own status as newbie/kind-of-outsider, I have my own idea of what "acts inimical to Mensa" might be. Just my own "reasonable man" definition, or set of them, off the cuff, incomplete, very much in need of editing/improvement:

Some of the things that don't pass the "reasonable man" test, to me, might include:

None of that last set of things, is pleasant or nice. I hope never to have to deal with those or anything like them. Also, every one of those actions could be called or interpreted as an "action inimical to Mensa." Especially if a decision-making body is prickly, insular, secretive, and/or has something to hide. In fact that would be the first reaction in many cases. If there were actual grounds for complaint, and/or something to hide, and/or if the powers-that-be are prickly, or jealous of their power, the power(s)-that-be would become an attacker and attack the complainer.

Those appear to be the very actions we now see, so of course we speculate. What else is a reasonable man or woman going to do?

Lori Norris herself termed the current situation "unprecedented in American Mensa’s history." And everyone involved is keeping mum. If anyone cares about what happens to Mensa on the national level, they must, I suppose, be concerned, maybe gravely concerned. Sacking 8 out of 10 duly elected representatives and stating as grounds "acts inimical" just doesn't pass the "reasonable man" test.

The term itself - "acts inimical" - sounds jargony to my ear. I'm a newbie, remember? When people use jargon I get suspicious. Jargon (think medical or legal) sometimes has a reason to exist but often the reason is to obscure. For example "idiopathic pigmented purpuric dermatosis" means "purple skin spots we don't understand and don't know much about. "Orthopnea" means "difficulty breathing while lying down." In the first case it sure looks like medical professionals are using a term to hide their own lack of knowledge or ability to help; in the second case you can make the argument that this is just quick shorthand - but it's still fancy insider-talk. Is the jargon indicative of trying to hide something? It all depends on what you find when you explore the term.

When I explore the term "acts inimical" I first wonder, "inimical to what/whom?" The obvious answer is "to Mensa" but then, thinking about it, that really isn't straightforwardly obvious, there's a lack of surety (and clarity) there. "Inimical" is etymologically related to "enemy", and clearly these 10 folks are being treated as enemies. Being stripped of all ability to hold office for 12 years, et cetera: that's the kind of thing you do to an enemy. What's being done here, is personal, not objectively act-focused. The jargon here obscures. Acts, including inimical acts, can - at least potentially - be reversed, compensated for, handled; damage control can be carried out. Wholesale ejection from office - that's personal: the focus is on people, not on acts.

Just exactly what are the inimical acts? I'm just supposed to take it all on trust? I don't. Especially since I'm being distrusted by the powers-that-be. I mean: suppose after careful consideration I decide, that the 8 RVCs are/were right? So as a message to the powers-that-be, I decide to go ahead and re-elect the RVC, who was ousted? Oh, no - "Sorry, that isn't possible; we powers-that-be, exercising levers of power available to us but not to you, have decreed that your duly elected RVC is no longer electable." (By the way my own RVC is not one of "the 8" so this is a hypothetical example in my case.)

There is a difference between a group of folks that is just a group of folks; versus that same group of folks when it's been transformed into an organization or institution. Any organization's first priority, which overrides and overrules all else, is, its own survival. If the organization feels threatened, it'll lash out using all the various kinds of tools, techniques, and mechanisms that we are all familiar with. This applies not just to the organization as a whole. If a person or a bloc feels threatened, they can respond in the same ways. As we apparently see in this case.

Some 8 RVCs and two non-voting members of the AMC are accused of what seems to me, to be the most serious charge one could level without actual criminality or malfeasance. The response seems to be as extreme as a response could be without actually hiring lawyers, "going legal", waging lawfare. I'm sorry - what just happened, and the apparently overblown response - it just doesn't pass the sniff test.

My own experience, as I continue to repeat, is minimal; I'm a near-newbie. But some months ago a very kind lady named Lily Noonan, who was at that time incoming but is now ousted Communications Officer, contacted me out of the blue. It turned out that there was a technical matter that I as a newbie did not know about - a requirement to updated/upload our local group's newsletters to somewhere NO or AMC related, I forget the details. We'd/I'd just been emailing our newsletters to our own members and posting them to our own local group's website. Lily took the time to explain to me, what needed to be done. She was, as I said, kind; also professional, competent, well-meaning, and clearly a woman of good faith and good will. The idea that this woman Lily could have committed any of the "acts inimical" that I listed above as passing my own sniff test - it's implausible. I just don't believe it, I doubt it. And therefore I doubt the good will of anyone leveling such an accusation at Lily.

I mentioned self-correction mechanisms regarding gossip. The obvious one is "the boy who cried wolf" phenomenon. If (hypothetical example) some woman repeatedly accuses men of sexual misbehavior, or acting like creeps, and she keeps that up long enough, and the men accused are seen as actually good men, not creeps - then the accuser herself is discredited. But that is only one mechanism - it doesn't take repeated false accusations. Just one could be enough, if you're confident enough that the accusee is actually a good person, not a creep, schemer, malefactor.

I really doubt that the one person involved with whom I've interacted, is a bad person, or acted with bad intent. And, this isn't a case of just one person.

I find it completely implausible - laughably, ridiculously so, farcical even - that 8 RVCs, duly elected by Mensans who presumably know them, and two other officers, are in fact guilty of any of those offenses that I personally would consider actual "actions inimical to Mensa." Sorry, I just don't buy it. I think that whatever charges there might have been, must have been trumped-up.

I read from other posts that "the 8" had a habit of voting as a bloc. I had also heard from a Mensan I trust that the new AMC was showing its spine in ways that prior AMCs had not. For example declining to just rubber-stamp a budget request. Does this fall into the category of "gossip?" Not for me - I heard it personally from a person who was in the room at the time. Of course as I now communicate this to others, it, being second-hand, could be considered or called "gossip", but note the above. Sometimes gossip's valuable, true, and vitally important; and in the long run healthy, for the organization.

Based on the close-to-complete lack of substantive information about what is actually going on, yes, I do speculate. I guess that "the 8" and/or the new AMC did actually show some spine as was reported to me personally by a reliable informant. And that the powers-that-be tried to shut 'em down, and that things escalated and "the 8"/the new AMC didn't back down. At which point a clever schemer, or more than one, figured "hey, here's this National Hearings Committee" (that was pretty clearly set up to handle really, seriously bad behaviors such as I listed above as truly inimical) "but we can leverage (take advantage of, repurpose) this tool to shut 'em down."

There is such a thing as lawfare - I think most of us might be familiar with it. This reeks of lawfare to me.

Now here's an item that could be termed "gossip" but which I personally feel is informative; even vital. When I emailed some random Mensans with whom I'd communicated on various topics - none of them having to do with governance - in the past, I got back a message from an ex-Mensan who has personal knowledge of and acquaintance with a main player in all of this. The word as I received it is, at least one of the participants has a history of engineering a coup at the state level, and was ousted as a result; then moved to another state and created more dissension/havoc there. My informant was not particularly objective, but was informative. Saying for example that the culprit "killed [a state] Mensa and seems bent on killing American Mensa. Maybe International Mensa will step in."

Is this rumor? Speculation? Maybe so, maybe not. I have tried here to make the claim that to characterize statements as rumors and speculation, may - inadvertently or not - be a way of saying "mind your own business", or "trust your betters/superiors", or to use the semi-famous "Wizard of Oz" saying "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!" Or in other words, to (attempt to) shut down information by characterizing statements as rumor and/or speculation, may be not the right thing to do (not to mention, it's fruitless - people gonna talk). Instead I think it makes more sense to attempt to glean, extract, discern the truth. As people naturally do.

We Mensans are a diverse group - though I'm a newbie I've certainly learned that much. We also tend to have some things in common. One complaint I hear a lot - Mensans who get irritated when being talked down to, and/or bossed around, by people in authority above them, who are objectively - as measured by valid, reliable I.Q. tests - less intelligent. Or to put it another way: "I've had it up to here, being told/required to kowtow to authority." Many Mensans are familiar with the phenomenon of the other kind of authority - the authority that naturally accrues, or is granted to, a person who understands situations well and is able to suggest good things, make good decisions, sketch out and follow (or lead execution of) good plans, etc. Persons in titular authority often are irritated by underlings who naturally accrue such "informal" authority based on competence, experience, superior insight, ability to filter and disregard B.S., etc. Such powers-that-be, having achieved titular authority, see this sort of naturally accrued authority as a threat. And rightly so - often, fellow employees will follow their co-worker simply out of respect; subtly or secretly defying those with titular authority. Bosses hate this!

As Mensans dealing with other Mensans, not one of us needs to bow down to roles-based authority. This is largely a social organization and there's no secret or special mission we don't know that the higher-ups do. Every member of this group has the intelligence to carefully and more-or-less correctly assess and evaluate whatever situation has gone on and is going on. Yes, in a large-membership organization, some superstructure must exist. But for that superstructure to claim what feels to me like "the divine right of kings", effectively saying "shut up, move on, nothing to see here, we have matters firmly in hand"; sorry, it's just not on.

The informant I mentioned is no longer a Mensa member, having left after decades of service. The person is "at peace" with their situation and decision, but has also specifically permitted me to share the story and/or any portion of it "with the others." There's more than I mentioned here and it isn't pretty; also names are named. If you would like the information just let me know.

Meanwhile I come away from this whole thing - for now and at this moment - with the conclusion that something's rotten in Denmark, and that a coup has most likely been attempted and has for now apparently been carried out. My own deputy/assistant LocSec has resigned Mensa completely; he says that after his long career in Corporate America and with life in general, he has an excellent BS detector, which tells him there's BS going on right now, which turns him off completely. He's no longer interested in Mensa at any level - though he has said, he's happy to continue to have good conversations and socialize with the Mensans he's met.

I personally take a less extreme view. On the ground, at the local level, I continue to meet (roughly at least two kinds of) Mensans: really wonderful folks that I enjoy getting to know and interacting with, also, cranks with personal agendas - sometimes combative, strident, even abusive - which, powered by Mensa-level intelligence, are overpowering and overwhelming to deal with. My own solution at the local level is to enjoy the good and minimize the bad.

At the national level I take the attitude of peasants throughout the ages. Let those folks "up there" have at their shenanigans. Whatever they do it doesn't make much difference.

At least I hope that's so. I fear it isn't - there are challenges that Mensa should step up to, and to do that, we need competent, coordinated, effective work at the national level. Right now it appears that that's being stymied by infighting. Alas.

Pot calling the kettle black?

One last point in closing. I mentioned that "inimical" is etymologically related to "enemy" and that "actions inimical" seems inapt, and a smokescreen or cover; that really, in this apparent putsch, power-grab, or what-you-may-call-it, individuals are being treated as enemies, as opposed to inimical actions being dealt with. You may or may not agree with me, but if I'm right, the powers-that-be have, in a way and by simple extension, made enemies of all of us - or at least all Mensans who voted for "the 8" RVCs. As I mentioned, suppose upon consideration we decide "No, you're wrong, we support our RVC" and decide we want to vote them back into office. In that case, the higher-ups have stripped us of our right to vote for the candidate of our choice. This sort of action - barring candidates from running for office - is common in dictatorships. To me personally, if someone denies me my right to vote for the candidate of my choice - that's treating me like an enemy. Or you could say, it's an action inimical to me; an act inimical to a Mensan.