Mike Michalowicz shares a Northwestern graduation speech arguing that cruelty reveals an idiot, while kindness signals intelligence. Humans have a primitive instinct to attack the unfamiliar, but the smartest people transcend it with empathy instead.
I'm watching a presentation here. Sorry about all the lights, but this is a graduation speech that was done at Northwestern. I don't know who the speaker is, but it's a profound thought. He says, and I'll paraphrase, "The simplest way to spot an idiot is the person who is cruel." And what he goes on to explain is that there's an animal instinct that when something is unfamiliar, that we're uncomfortable with, to be highly suspicious of it and to protect ourselves, to defend ourselves, to immediately go on the attack or avoid. And that's an animal instinct. He goes, the kindest people have overcome that base-level instinct and have moved to a sophisticated level where they're intellectual. And he concludes the presentation by, the kindest person in the room is in most cases, in his experience, inevitably the smartest. Are you kind? Are you cruel?
