Skip to content
Guest Thinkers —

Charm Is More Virtuous Than Intelligence

Garrison Keillor on the myth of merit: “I was brought up imagining that cream rises to the top, merit wins out, the race is to the swift and riches to men of understanding, but it ain’t necessarily so.”
Sign up for Big Think on Substack
The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.

Garrison Keillor on the myth of merit: “I was brought up imagining that cream rises to the top, merit wins out, the race is to the swift and riches to men of understanding, but it ain’t necessarily so.” “This is how the world works. The lonely striver with bad hair and serious overbite who is scratching out her thoughts in the Omaha Public Library is facing a wall of sheer granite a thousand feet high and luckily for her she doesn’t know it now but someday she will and my heart goes out to her,” says the Midwesterner who now prefers to hire friendly people for radio show rather than the troubled genius.

Sign up for Big Think on Substack
The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.
Related
A bearded man wearing glasses and a plaid shirt speaks with a microphone clipped to his collar in front of a purple background with white dots.
The Well
How Rainn Wilson discovered sacredness
The hospital where Rainn Wilson’s wife and son nearly died became his own personal holy site. There, he discovered that the sacred can exist in places we least expect it. During his talk at A Night of Awe and Wonder, he explained how the awe we feel in moments of courage and love is moral beauty — and following it might be the start of our spiritual revolution.
▸
13 min
—
with
Rainn Wilson
Up Next