FT.COM/MAGAZINE OCTOBER19/202019ILLUSTRATIONBY HARRYHAYSOM 5

[email protected] @KuperSimon

biologyfromphysics,bringing with himafresh

pairofeyes.

•Theygather insights from manydifferent

realms.The bestnon-fictionbookIknowis

Hannah Arendt’sEichmann inJerusalem: A

Report on theBanalityofEvil(1963). It’sablend

of history,philosophy,her ownreportage (from

the Jerusalem courtroomatAdol fEichmann’s

trial)and–thoughthisisunstated–herpersonal

experienceasarefugeefromHitler’sGermany.

•Theydot heworktheywanttodo,notthe

worktheworldseekstoimposeonthem,even

ifther e’sacosttot heircareerorincome.In

WarrenBuffett ’s terms,theyusean“innerscore-

card”(aninternalgaugeofmerit)ratherthanan

“outer scorecard” (society’sestimate of merit).

Theyhavenoi nterestinb ecoming insiders,or

richorfamous.Theytendnottostayinlargehier-

archicalorganisations,eitherpublicorcorporate,

wheretheyhavetot oe aparty line and dowork

thatbossesassignthem.

Formuch of the past century,beautiful minds

have clustered in academia, but that’schanging:

increasingly, academics arerewarded for deep

knowledge of their discipline’s conventional

wisdom,asfieldsbecomemorehierarchical,tech-

nicalandspecialised.

•Theyhavetheimaginationtocomeupwith

idea s,butals othehumilityandtechniqueto

testthes eagainstdata.HortensePowdermaker,

in her classic anthropologist’smemoir,Stranger

and Friend(1966), describes spendingalong

weekendinNewHampshirein1 932att hesummer

house of the anthropologist Edward Sapir.“The

remarkable flowofconversation”betweenthe

host and another houseguest ,the ps ychoanalyst

Harry Stack Sullivan,awesher.She attributesit

inpart“totheirpersonalities–eachmanseemed

to combine within himself something of the

scientistandofthepoet”.Thepoethastheideas;

thescientistteststhem.

Thanks to this testing,people withbeautiful

minds in the modernworld learn that there’sno

big idea thatexplainseverything. Esther Duflo,

whothisweekbecametheyoungestwinnerofthe

Nobeline conomics,told me in 2015: “Big ideas

areveryseductive.Ibelieveinsmallideas.”

•People withbeautifulmindssaywhatthey

thinkistrue–not what’ssociallyappropriate,

or lucratively controversial, or conventional

wisdom, or optimistic, orbeneficial to their

politicalside.(Theydon’tsticktoorthodoxy).

We canallbeabitmor elikethem,ifwetry.

I

realisedearlyinl ife, even in the family

home, that thereweremuch cleverer

people than me. (Commenters,please fill

inyourownjokeshere.)ButIalsorealised

thatintelligencewasn’tstatic.

Whenpeople sa y“Xis brilliant”,based

on his university degree aged21, it’sa

meaningless statement–Xmay not have

developedsincethen.Youcanmakeyour-

self moreintelligent.One wa yistostudy

people withbeautiful minds.Hereare

someoftheirhabits:

•Theytreat every situation asalearning

opportunity.If youfallintoconversationwith

one of them,nomatterhow lowstatusors tupid

youare,theywill absorb whatyousay.They

won’ttry to “win”the encounterby hittingyou

with jargon, titles, name-dropping orrecitations

of stuff theythought upyears before. At awed-

dingonce,IgottalkingtoanolderguynamedBob

aboutUShealthcare.Later,thebride’ssisterasked

mewhatI’dthoughtofBob.“He’s notdumb,” Isaid

generously. “No,”she agr eed,“he wonthe Nobel

Prize foreconomics.” ‘What was his specialism?”

Iasked.“Healthcare,”she said. AndyetRobert

Fogel had probablylistenedmoreattentively to

methanIhadtohim.

•Theycan clear their mindto seethe other

person.Peoplewhoha veagiftforseeingtheworld

usuallykeeptheir cameraspointedoutwards.

Neurotics and narcissists can’t do that,though

theycan be great artists of theirowninterior

(thinkWoodyAllen).

•Theyoften suffer anguishedboredom in

ordinarysociallife.Theyfeelthereissomuchto

learn that there’snotime to waste onroute talk,

kitchenrenovations,real-estate prices, gossip

about the local schools,orc onversation-enders

(“Interesting!” “Funny!”). One friend of mine,

aftercorrectlydiagnosinghimselfashighlygifted,

was excusedbyh is wife from having to socialise

withhisbrother-in-lawanymore.

•Theyarespecialists,yetar ealwaystryingto

masterotherfields.IgottoknowWalterMischel,

the ps ychologist who helped change our under-

standing ofpersonality,inh is finalyears before

hedie dat8 8.He’d sittherewithcockedhead,lis-

tening intentlytoeverything thateveryone said.

Abovehim,onhisapartmentwalls,hungwonder-

ful paintings–his own, pr oducedinh is eighties.

Similarly, Edward Said, the scholar who helped

found the field ofpostcolonial studies, was an

importantmusiccritic.

Thesepeople respectexpertise,because

theyknowfromexperi ence that it ’s hard-won

and cannotbe generalisedfromone topic to all

others.Theyaren’tlikethe businessman who

goes into politics assuming that the same rules

will applyand that he’s smarter than the idiots

whostillhaven’tevensolvedunemployment.But

theydos eektoc ross-fertilise from one field of

expertisetoanother.FrancisCrickendedupc o-

discoveringDNApartlybecausehehadcometo

‘Thesepeoplearen ’tlikethe

businessmanwhogoesinto

politics assumingthatthe

sameruleswillapply’

SIMON

KUPER

OPENING SHOT

Whatwecan

learnfrom

peoplewith

beautifulminds