My guest today is Dr. Gad Saad. Gad is an evolutionary behavioral scientist, professor, bestselling author, and one of the world’s most provocative public intellectuals. Born to a Jewish family in Lebanon and raised amid the chaos of civil war before fleeing his home country for Canada, he brings a unique perspective to questions about immigration, culture, integration, and why societies flourish—or decline.
In his new book, Suicidal Empathy: Dying to Be Kind—a New York Times #1 bestseller—Gad argues that empathy, while one of humanity’s greatest virtues, can become destructive when it’s untethered from reason and directed in ways that undermine the very people and institutions it’s meant to protect.
Whether he’s discussing evolutionary psychology, free speech, or consumer behavior, Gad has a talent for blending rigorous research with sharp wit, and for challenging conventional wisdom.
Those challenges have made him a controversial figure. Not coincidentally, the long-time professor of marketing at Montreal’s Concordia University is now a scholar at the Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom at the University of Mississippi. (Hotty Toddy!)
Today we’ll talk about the evolutionary roots of human behavior, the cultural forces re-shaping the modern West, and what it takes to think independently in an age of ideological conformity.
Follow Gad on X here.
Get tickets to Paul’s upcoming shows in San Francisco, Southhampton, and Sarasota here.
