“How to Spot An Idiot” Watch JB Pritzker’s Commencement Speech

‘The kindest person in the room is often the smartest’

At Northwestern University’s 2023 commencement, JB Pritzker delivered a brilliant speech on the significance—and advantages—of our democratic values of kindness and compassion:

“Empathy and compassion are evolved states of being. They require the mental capacity to step past our most primal urges. This may be a surprising assessment because somewhere along the way in the last few years, our society has come to believe that weaponized cruelty is part of some well-thought out Master plan.

Cruelty is seen by some as an adroit cudgel to gain power. Empathy and kindness are considered weak. Many important people look at the vulnerable only as rungs on a ladder to the top.

I’m here to tell you that when someone’s path through this world is marked with acts of cruelty, they have failed the first test of an advanced society.”