I know a bright person, 140 score on the WAIS IQ index, a SAT score of 2342, who passed the the test for MENSA with flying colors, but declined membership because she doesn't feel sufficiently elite for that organization. She will not be further identified here.
She's fond of posting to various internet "venues" where others also anonymously contribute all kinds of thoughts on the nature and/or condition of almost anything. She is by nature, and by most accounts, a gentle, tolerant, and of course thoughtful individual, and so her discourse is worthy of consideration. As it happens, her opinions are frequently at odds with those of others that I choose to identify (arguably) as her intellectual inferiors. I do not complain of this. But when invective like "idiot", "moron", "stupid", and such are hurled at her (a frequent phenomenon) by others who don't share her opinion, I am disgusted. Why? Not just because these appellations are inappropriate, but because in intellectual intercourse nothing is uglier to me than the arrogant and toxic pronouncements of the proud, intemperate, and demonstrably ignorant. And especially those of that ilk who hide behind a screen name.
