The Art of Manliness - #522： What Is Wit and Why Does the World Need It？

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:11.160 Now, when you think about wit, what comes to mind?

00:00:14.220 Someone who's quick with a funny remark?

00:00:15.840 My guest today says that while humor is one part of wit, it's really better thought of

00:00:19.320 in a broader way, as a kind of improvisational intelligence.

00:00:22.420 His name is James Geary, and he's the author of the book, Wits End, what wit is, how it

00:00:26.840 works, and why we need it.

00:00:28.220 Today on the show, we discuss all things witty.

00:00:31.240 We begin our conversation describing the nature of wit and how it's linked to one's all-around

00:00:34.720 sense of resourcefulness.

00:00:36.160 James then makes the case that instead of getting our contempt, puns should actually be

00:00:40.600 praised as sophisticated forms of wit.

00:00:42.920 We then dig into what fencing, as the sport of fencing, not putting in fence in your backyard,

00:00:47.860 and jazz can teach us about the role of impoverization in wit and why we need wit more than ever in

00:00:52.600 these days and what you can do to start being a bit more witty.

00:00:56.100 After the show's over, check out our show notes at aom.is.wit.

00:01:00.380 James joins me now via clearcast.io.

00:01:12.480 All right, James Geary, welcome to the show.

00:01:15.760 Thank you for having me.

00:01:17.300 She's got a new book out, Wits End, what wit is, how it works, and why we need it.

00:01:22.660 So what got you thinking about wit and deciding, we need to have an entire book dedicated to wit?

00:01:29.580 Was it you had an experience with an incredibly witty person, or have you been trying to capture

00:01:34.140 what wit is for your entire life?

00:01:37.300 Well, I've always been interested in language and wordplay since I was really a little kid.

00:01:44.500 And there are not many or any books in my house when I was growing up, but we did, my family

00:01:51.420 subscribed to two magazines.

00:01:53.340 One was Time Magazine, and the other was Reader's Digest.

00:01:56.960 And I ended up becoming a journalist and actually working for Time Magazine eventually.

00:02:03.480 And Reader's Digest, that was the place where I first discovered quotable quotes, that page

00:02:08.260 in the magazine and every issue where you have a collection of sayings from various celebrities

00:02:13.900 and famous people.

00:02:16.100 And I remember reading, when I was about eight years old, the following quotable quotes,

00:02:23.300 the difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.

00:02:28.300 And that's an aphorism.

00:02:30.460 I didn't know about aphorisms when I was eight.

00:02:32.560 But there was something about that saying in particular and quotable quotes in general

00:02:37.240 that really fascinated me.

00:02:39.380 And I just became, over the years, obsessed with that kind of use of language.

00:02:45.120 Very concise, funny, paradoxical, philosophical.

00:02:50.500 And I ended up going on to write a couple books about aphorisms.

00:02:54.600 And from there, I was led to metaphor because I was trying to figure out how aphorisms work.

00:03:00.540 Aphorisms are really just short, witty, philosophical sayings working mostly through metaphor, like

00:03:07.500 the one about the rut and the grave.

00:03:09.260 Those are just metaphors.

00:03:11.140 And then I ultimately alighted on wit as the kind of the fundamental operating system in

00:03:18.220 our brains that allows us to have these kind of witty insights and philosophical musings

00:03:25.260 and to be able to express them, not just in language, but in all kinds of forms.

00:03:30.500 And one of the things that the book explores is verbal.

00:03:34.340 It can be intellectual.

00:03:35.860 It can be visual.

00:03:37.580 And I think that's the sort of the origin story for my fascination with wit.

00:03:45.100 Were you afraid that by putting wit under the microscope, like you would kill it in the process?

00:03:49.260 Like, you know, people who analyze jokes, like, you know, scholars who analyze jokes, like

00:03:53.260 they make a joke unfunny by figuring out what makes a joke funny.

00:03:58.440 Yeah.

00:03:58.820 Not only was I afraid of that, Brett, but I actually did that.

00:04:02.540 I actually, the first version of the book, the first, my first, the first chapters that

00:04:07.440 I wrote were truly horrific and just uninteresting, not funny at all, and completely uninspiring.

00:04:14.420 And I had a little crisis, actually not a little crisis, a big crisis early on when I was trying

00:04:21.500 to actually write the book, where I thought it would not be possible to write the kind

00:04:26.620 of book I wanted to write.

00:04:27.680 Because like you say, I didn't want to write a book that completely destroyed the liveliness

00:04:33.400 and the fun and the joy and the surprise of wit by analyzing it to death.

00:04:37.700 And I discovered that by trying to write it in a kind of conventional, straightforward,

00:04:44.420 nonfiction type treatment, that that's unfortunately exactly the effect I was having.

00:04:50.440 But at the time, our son, our eldest son was in drama school.

00:04:54.520 And he mentioned to me one day that his class was, they were watching, going to watch the

00:05:00.080 film, some films of Buster Keaton, a fantastic silent film star from the 1920s.

00:05:04.780 And as an example of wit, and I said, oh, wow, that's, you know, and I'm a huge Buster

00:05:11.080 Keaton fan.

00:05:12.080 And my son, you know, our kids grew up watching Buster Keaton films.

00:05:16.120 So I said, well, you know, you should tell your teacher that I'm writing a book about wit,

00:05:20.320 or I'm so far unsuccessfully writing a book about wit.

00:05:24.020 And I'll be happy to come down and give a talk about that subject.

00:05:28.160 And to my surprise, she agreed and invited me down.

00:05:30.840 And I did this talk to my son's class.

00:05:34.760 And as part of the class, we did some improv exercises that actors do.

00:05:39.940 And during that afternoon that that was happening, I thought, oh, this is the way, here I am standing

00:05:45.480 in front of a group of aspiring actors who specialize in dialogue and, you know, creating

00:05:51.520 scenes.

00:05:52.540 And I thought, well, this is the way I need to write the book.

00:05:55.260 The chapter on witty banter and verbal wit, which I was struggling with at the time, I

00:06:01.440 need to write it like a play and show, you know, there's a classic journalistic dictum,

00:06:06.800 show, don't tell.

00:06:08.000 I can show how wit works, how verbal fireworks, witty fireworks work, rather than trying to

00:06:13.840 explain it to people.

00:06:15.300 And that's how I kind of alighted on the idea to write each chapter in a different style.

00:06:20.240 So the chapter on verbal wit, well, actually, there's a couple, one is written in the form

00:06:24.900 of a play, another is written in the form of a rap song, lyrics to a rap hip hop song.

00:06:30.240 There's a chapter on the neuroscience of wit, how wit works in the brain, and that's written

00:06:34.900 like a scientific paper.

00:06:36.520 There's a chapter written in iambic pentameter, the heroic couplets of Alexander Pope, an English

00:06:42.120 poet from the 18th century, who's a great, great wit and wrote a lot about wit.

00:06:46.240 There's a poem about the spirituality, the spiritual side of wit, which is written

00:06:50.100 like a sermon, like you would hear in church on a Sunday.

00:06:53.580 And once I realized that was the mechanism through which I could tell this story by writing

00:06:59.020 in these different styles and taking on these different voices, then it became paradoxically

00:07:03.340 really easy to write.

00:07:05.800 And I felt like, and I hope that's also the experience of readers, that I bring wit to

00:07:11.800 life on the page rather than kill it through over-analysis or over-explanation.

00:07:17.260 Now, you're successful.

00:07:17.760 This was a fun read.

00:07:19.120 As you said, it changes up throughout the book.

00:07:21.900 So we've been talking about wit and I think people, most people, like they know wit when

00:07:27.720 they see it.

00:07:28.320 They know when they see a witty person.

00:07:30.080 But I think if you pressed most people to say, what is wit?

00:07:33.960 What makes a witty remark witty?

00:07:35.960 They'd probably be like, well, they wouldn't be able to, they'd just be hemming and hawing.

00:07:41.540 Yeah.

00:07:41.760 Um, so like what, what is wit?

00:07:44.120 Are there elements that are necessary for a phrase or a word or whatever to be witty?

00:07:50.680 Yeah, I think there are.

00:07:51.920 And I think, um, I think the first, uh, I think we tend to think when we think of wit,

00:07:58.020 we tend to think of verbal wit and someone being funny.

00:08:01.460 And while being funny is certainly an aspect of wit, it's not the defining characteristic

00:08:08.740 of wit.

00:08:09.220 You can be witty and not funny at all.

00:08:11.180 So my definition, the one that I came to as I researched the book is wit is the ability

00:08:17.360 to think, say, or do the right thing at the right time in the right place.

00:08:23.760 And if you think about the way we use the word wit in everyday conversation, we say we're

00:08:30.660 living by our wits or we've come to our wit's end, or we need to keep our wits about us, or 0.97

00:08:36.760 someone is dimwitted or quickwitted or a nitwit, um, these are all, uh, you know, very familiar 0.96

00:08:43.440 phrases, the way we use wit in, in just normal conversation. 0.99

00:08:46.660 And none of them have anything to do with being funny.

00:08:50.020 Um, what they, what they all share those expressions is, is wit as a kind of improvisational

00:08:55.360 intelligence.

00:08:56.480 And that's why my definition doesn't specifically mention being funny because you can be, like

00:09:02.380 I said, you can be witty without, without being funny and someone who, who, for example,

00:09:07.300 is living by their wits, they're not being funny.

00:09:10.420 They're being resourceful.

00:09:11.660 They're being ingenious.

00:09:12.780 They're solving problems when they have few resources.

00:09:16.740 And I think that's the essence of wit.

00:09:19.440 And part of that, um, essence involves, and I think this, this is where it intersects with

00:09:24.800 verbal wit.

00:09:25.460 It, it, it involves surprise or novelty because a witty saying we, we, we recognize and we

00:09:32.500 laugh at a witty saying because it surprises us in some way it's unexpected, or it gives

00:09:37.920 some kind of twist to, to what, what might seem familiar on the surface, but by just giving

00:09:45.460 it a little, um, twist, it brings a new aspect of that thing to light.

00:09:49.440 Right. So I think the, the intersection between, and, and in fact, wit, the, the original, the

00:09:55.280 way the word was originally used, you know, hundreds of years ago in English was more to

00:10:00.200 indicate someone's intelligence or acumen rather than their sense of humor. And if you look at the

00:10:06.120 etymology of the word, it comes from, wit comes from a Sanskrit verb, which is vid, which

00:10:11.680 means to see. And that's where the word video comes from. For example, the verb vid and to see

00:10:17.800 is also a metaphor for to know, or to understand, you know, like I see what you mean, means I

00:10:22.640 understand what, you know, what you're saying. And wit, uh, shares that same etymological root,

00:10:29.440 the Sanskrit verb vid with the word wisdom. So wit and wisdom actually can be traced back

00:10:36.240 to the same word. And basically their original meanings are the same. I have a book here on my

00:10:41.760 desk, women's wit and wisdom. It's collection of aphorisms by female, uh, writers. And the title

00:10:49.180 is actually redundant. It might as well be, you know, women's wit and wit or women's wisdom and 0.85

00:10:54.160 wisdom because wit and wisdom really mean identical things. And so I think that's what the, the real

00:11:00.740 essence of wit is. It's a kind of, uh, improvisational intelligence, um, spontaneous kind

00:11:07.560 of ability to react to things in the moment, to think on your feet. And that kind of sheds

00:11:13.480 some kind of light or provide some kind of insight on a common, a common experience or a common

00:11:19.740 challenge or a common problem. Oh, I want to dig deeper into the, the etymology and sort of the

00:11:24.620 concept of wit, because you mentioned resourcefulness sort of improvisation. You had a chapter talking

00:11:29.560 about how this idea even goes back to the ancient Greeks with Odysseus, like Odysseus, he kind of

00:11:35.460 represented this idea of metis. Uh, what, what is metis? Is that just resourcefulness? Is that,

00:11:41.360 what is that, is that what that means? Yeah. Metis is, is a kind of, I guess the, the best way to

00:11:46.960 translate it would be a shrewdness or a kind of mental agility, uh, involving like being able to

00:11:53.620 improvise. And so Odysseus, you know, the, the famous example is the, the Trojan horse, you know,

00:11:59.580 he's trying to attack, attack Troy, but the city is so well defended, they would never be able to,

00:12:04.580 to break through. So he comes up with the plan of, you know, hiding a bunch of soldiers in this huge

00:12:10.180 wooden horse that they're allegedly offering as a piece, a peace offering. And, you know, of course,

00:12:16.240 the, the Trojans take it in and at night, all the soldiers jump out and slaughter everyone.

00:12:21.920 But the whole, the Odyssey, you know, the whole, uh, epic Greek epic Odyssey is about, uh, Odysseus

00:12:27.580 getting into all kinds of scrapes and difficult situations, partly through his own, you know,

00:12:33.760 his own kind of ego, egoism and, uh, stubbornness, but he always manages to kind of find a way

00:12:40.240 out. And he's, it's so Odysseus is a great example of someone who's lives by, by his wits. That's,

00:12:47.580 that's what that whole epic is, is about him getting out of these really dangerous, uncomfortable

00:12:53.340 situations that he's, he's gotten himself into. So I think Metis is in, in Greek mythology is,

00:12:59.800 in Greek literature is that kind of improvisational intelligence that allows you to, to escape

00:13:06.740 tricky situations and solve difficult problems. And there's a wonderful, Homer uses a wonderful word

00:13:13.060 to describe Odysseus at the very beginning of the Odyssey. And the English translation is,

00:13:18.760 is a man of many turns. And I think that's just a beautiful way to think about wit, um, because it is,

00:13:25.100 it does have that idea of resourcefulness and being, you know, versatile in, in the face of

00:13:30.840 adversity. And also like we were talking about a minute ago, just being able to turn something,

00:13:36.440 you know, we say, we say, you know, he has a nice turn of phrase or you can turn the tables on someone

00:13:42.700 or turn things around. And being a person of many turns, I think is probably, it's a really elegant

00:13:49.960 and poetic definition of a fundamental personal characteristic of wit.

00:13:56.100 Well, one story you also talk about that exemplifies, Odysseus exemplifying wit is verbally. So not

00:14:02.680 only did he do witty things, but he, he said witty things. Like the one that's really famous is when

00:14:07.960 he's in the cave with a cyclop, Polyphemus and Polyphemus asked him, what's your name? And Odysseus

00:14:14.720 says, no one. Right. And it's sort of, it's like a pun. I forget, isn't there, there is like a pun.

00:14:20.320 If you look, if you know the Greek, that is a pun, correct?

00:14:23.040 Yes. So the pun there is actually on the word metis. So there's different ways in ancient Greek

00:14:30.020 and I am by no means an ancient Greek scholar, but the way that you can say, I am no one in a couple

00:14:36.800 of different ways. One way is, is involves the word metis. It's, it's a different word from the,

00:14:43.080 the, the one we've just been discussing, but it sounds exactly the same when it's said aloud,

00:14:48.040 which is basically what a pun is. It's a, it's two different words that sound the same

00:14:52.260 and have two different meanings. And so when in that scene where he's trying to escape the

00:14:57.320 cyclops, he's actually blinded the cyclops. He's gotten them drunk. So, you know, the cyclops is kind

00:15:04.020 of passed out on the sofa and Odysseus blinds him. And so that he and his soldiers can escape from

00:15:10.840 the cave that they're trapped in. And when, when he does that, the cyclops screams, you know,

00:15:16.940 he says, who is, who, who's done this to me? And Odysseus says, no one, I am no one. But when he

00:15:23.660 says no one, it means no one, I am nobody, but it also means I am wit because the word is metis.

00:15:30.220 So Odysseus is saying two things at the same time. He's saying, I am no one and I am wit. And that is

00:15:37.260 another example of that kind of resourcefulness. In this case, it's a kind of cruel resourcefulness,

00:15:42.460 but you know, his life was at stake and that of his, his soldiers. Um, but you know, when he says,

00:15:48.720 I am wit, he's saying, I am this, I am this person of many turns and I've just turned, turned the

00:15:55.800 tables on you cyclops by blinding you so that we could all escape. So I think that's a really fun

00:16:01.880 way for Homer to communicate this idea of metis in, in action through, through, uh, Odysseus's

00:16:08.340 story. Yeah. And so for the, the story goes on when the cyclops starts yelling out, Oh, no one is

00:16:13.820 hurting me. And all the other cyclops are like, then why are you yelling? What's the problem?

00:16:19.860 Yeah. This is very, very clever. He's got them coming and going there, Odysseus.

00:16:24.420 We're going to take a quick break for your word from our sponsors.

00:16:26.420 And now back to the show. Well, so let's talk about different forms of wit. And so we can explore

00:16:32.580 these ideas of improvisation. You start off talking about puns being a form of wit, but for a lot of

00:16:38.660 folks like puns are like the lowest, like eye rolling form of humor, but you think that's an

00:16:44.900 unfair characterization. Yes. Why do you think that is? Um, yeah, because I, first of all, I, I've never

00:16:52.100 understood why puns are so reviled, you know, that, um, and of course, when you make a pun,

00:16:58.520 what's the first thing you say? No, sorry, no pun intended. And I don't think puns are anything that

00:17:03.640 we should apologize for it because I do think they are in, in, in many ways they're, they're the most

00:17:10.480 pedestrian as well as the most profound example of wit in daily life. And they're pedestrian because

00:17:17.020 everybody, you know, makes puns, everybody gets puns, but they're profound because I think they

00:17:22.260 touch on the real essence of wit. And that is making these novel, surprising, instantaneous

00:17:29.140 combinations between things or among things that on the surface are not alike and are not similar in

00:17:36.180 any way. And so I think it's a, and I think that kind of wit, the sort of recombinatory aspect of wit

00:17:43.700 is the essence of human creativity really, because I think creativity is taking what you know and

00:17:50.680 combining what you know in ways that create, that create new things or create things that you don't

00:17:56.520 know. And so the pun that we just been discussing on Metis, I think is a great example of that.

00:18:02.440 Odysseus is, is he's both, he's doing so many things in that pun. He's confusing and overcoming an,

00:18:10.080 an adversary, but he's also making a very profound statement about what wit is and, and how it works

00:18:16.480 and why we need it. In fact, that's, that's the subhead, the subtitle of my book. And I think that,

00:18:22.680 that one pun really sums it up. And I think what's also interesting about puns is that the person who

00:18:30.700 makes a pun and the person who gets the pun or receives the pun are really performing exactly the

00:18:37.460 same kind of creative work. They're making exactly the same creative connections. It's just that

00:18:44.680 the person who makes the pun is kind of making that connection in one direction. And the person who

00:18:49.540 receives the pun is making the connection in the other direction. There was a great example. I did a

00:18:54.900 talk a while back in, in Washington in DC. And as part of the talk that I do about, about my book,

00:19:01.840 I have a pun competition towards the end of the talk. And I asked for volunteers from,

00:19:07.380 from the audience. And we, we name a theme like plants or something like that, or modes of

00:19:13.140 transportation or body parts. And the volunteers have to make a pun on that theme right away,

00:19:20.460 or they sit down. And then the last person standing and the last person punning wins a free copy of my

00:19:26.540 book. So if the subject were body parts, for example, you could say something like eyebrows,

00:19:32.080 the web, when I look for information, eyebrow, it's a pun on a body part. So, so as part of that,

00:19:41.020 the pun competition, I also ask the audience to shout out themes that they might want to have the

00:19:45.420 volunteers pun on. And of course this was in DC. So someone shouted out the wall and that no one

00:19:53.000 could come up with a pun on that right away, but a woman in the back of the back of the room shouted 1.00

00:19:58.920 out, don't take offense. And I think that's a great example of how puns can be profound because

00:20:06.680 it's a pun, offense and a fence, but it's also kind of making a political social statement about the

00:20:14.720 whole idea of the wall and the purpose of the wall and how the wall has become one of the many things

00:20:21.760 that people are become so polarized around. So I think that's why not all puns are of that high

00:20:28.000 level, but I think that's all puns, even the worst puns really speak to this essential creative aspect

00:20:35.060 of the human mind to create surprising, novel, and really fertile creatively and intellectually

00:20:41.900 fertile combinations. So when my kids start making pun jokes, I should encourage that.

00:20:47.620 Absolutely. And you should participate.

00:20:51.540 Right. And it seems like that's like one of the first forms of humor, like that they develop,

00:20:55.180 like they start seeing how language can be used in different ways and mean this, you say one word,

00:21:01.320 but it means different things.

00:21:02.520 Yeah. And I think that's like, I remember when our oldest child, the one who went to drama school,

00:21:09.860 he was two and, you know, he was just learning to talk. And I remember I was with him and he was

00:21:16.660 standing on the dresser. I was probably just getting him dressed or something like that. And he was

00:21:20.240 looking out the window and pointed up into the sky to the sun. And he said, big sky lamp.

00:21:26.680 And that's a beautiful metaphor for the sun. And that's the way kids learn. So when your kids are

00:21:35.840 punning, they are in their mind connecting something they don't know with something that

00:21:41.500 they do know. And that's the way we learn. That's the way human beings learn from childhood on up to

00:21:47.820 adulthood. And that's also the essence of metaphor. And so my son, here's another pun,

00:21:54.520 my son and talking about the sun was comparing it to a lamp, which was something that he knew

00:21:59.820 and trying to understand what the sun was by comparing it to a lamp. And that's where he came

00:22:04.640 up with big sky lamp. One chapter that I really enjoyed was where you had these two guys talking

00:22:11.140 about wit, but like as a fencing lesson, like fencing with swords. What can fencing teach us about

00:22:17.960 the art and nature of wit? Yeah. If you think of some of the phrases that we use to describe

00:22:24.380 wit, cutting wit, a cutting remark, here's someone's like a witty person has a foil, which is

00:22:31.680 someone who's not as witty, who they use for the, you know, to bounce their jokes off of.

00:22:37.180 There's also the word in English, riposte, which is actually a French word. And it's taken from

00:22:42.480 fencing and it means your reply to an attack. The same is true for the word parry. When someone

00:22:49.260 attacks you and you kind of repel that attack, that's called a parry. And all those words are

00:22:55.240 used when we talk about wit, you know, I parried his criticism. Well, he insulted me, but I had a

00:23:00.980 really great riposte. And those are actual fencing terms. And I noticed that. And then I just started

00:23:08.540 investigating fencing. And it actually is part of my research for the, for the book. I took fencing

00:23:12.740 lessons. And what I realized is that fencing is, is a very, it's a sport that involves incredible

00:23:20.180 precision and it's a very highly choreographed sport. And it happens like so fast. You can't even,

00:23:28.460 you know, like I would watch fencing competition. I wouldn't even, wouldn't even be able to see what

00:23:32.680 they were actually doing. And I think that's in so many ways analogous to the more combative forms

00:23:39.340 of wit, which is, you know, like classic example would be Groucho Marx. You know, there's a sort

00:23:45.160 of edge, another kind of fencing term. He has a sharpness and an edge to his, his one-liners that

00:23:53.120 I think is, is very, very similar to fencing. And when you're arguing with someone, you're,

00:23:58.580 you're pitting your wits against someone else. It's very much like fencing because a lot of the,

00:24:03.660 the art of fencing is, is in footwork. It's in kind of preparing the ground before you

00:24:08.920 strike. And I think that's true for wit as well. If you take the Socratic method of argument or

00:24:15.540 teaching where you have two people going back and forth in a, in a dialogue, trying to convince each

00:24:21.600 other of a point of view, that's very much like fencing just as two fencers are kind of arranging

00:24:27.680 their footwork and dancing around trying to get their opponent in a position that makes them

00:24:32.700 vulnerable to attack. That's what happens in, in witty repartee and, and, uh, witty banter and

00:24:38.940 witty argument. You're trying to kind of say things and position yourself verbally so that you can land

00:24:45.640 that strike with your, with your sword or with your sharp edged words. So I think understanding

00:24:53.700 fencing really helped me understand that, that particular form of verbal wit, which is kind of

00:24:59.320 more combative and, and more insulting than, than other kinds of verbal wit.

00:25:04.960 Well, a more modern or recent iteration of that combative wit is like the dozens you talk about

00:25:09.980 where it takes part in predominantly African-American communities where typically it's men. They'll get 0.99

00:25:15.760 and have these competitions where they, they're sort of like rap battles, but like, I mean, that rap

00:25:20.100 battles is another example of wit on display, but the, the dozens is where you just do insults at each

00:25:25.600 other back and forth and whoever can do the best insult wins. Yeah. And I think rap battles can, 0.99

00:25:31.600 you know, they, they really do come from that, uh, history of the dozens. Like in researching the

00:25:36.800 dozens, it's so fascinating and there's such great lines. Like when I remember, um, the whole point of

00:25:44.340 the dozens is you're insulting, you know, your opponent and you want to insult him or her in such

00:25:50.020 an expert way that they kind of concede and, and, and, and quit. And one of the lines was like,

00:25:55.980 you know, you're so dumb. You think the Supreme court is where Diana Ross plays tennis. 1.00

00:26:02.020 I just think that that's such a brilliant, it's like really insulting, but it's, it's done in such

00:26:07.340 a funny way and it's done in such an elegant way as, as well. And I think that's again, also analogous

00:26:14.460 to fencing, you know, fencing is actually a, like a really violent sport, but it's, it's done in this

00:26:21.220 beautiful, almost ballet-like choreographed way that the way that those moves are presented is just

00:26:28.980 beautiful to, to watch. And I think the same is true, is true in the dozens and, and those, and

00:26:34.680 actually the dozens all around the world, there are these forms of verbal combat that people indulge

00:26:40.700 into, you know, just as kind of entertainment. It's, it's not, it doesn't lead to violence or

00:26:44.880 anything like that. It's more just like a way to pass the time, but the rap, you know, rap battles

00:26:51.340 today are very much coming from that tradition of, of the dozens. And one of the reasons that I

00:26:57.580 wrote one chapter as a, as a rap song is I think, you know, rap is such really like the height of witty

00:27:05.360 expression in, in, in popular culture. And, you know, just, you know, some of the, the lyrics of

00:27:13.360 rap songs, I'm thinking of people like J Cole or Kendrick Lamar. I think they're just such exquisite

00:27:19.700 use of language and making, you know, social, political critique through a very elegant, but at times

00:27:27.840 really, really cutting use of, of witty language. And I tried to emulate that in, in the, in the chapter

00:27:34.980 that I wrote in the style of a rap song. Well, another way music can be cutting, you talk about

00:27:40.320 this too, sort of a forerunner to rap battles or the dozens was in the, during the jazz age where

00:27:46.520 piano players would have these cutting sessions where basically they would have these improvisation

00:27:52.660 competitions where one guy would play a tune and then you pass it off the next guy and who could do

00:27:57.560 the best improvisation on the piano and they pass it back and forth. And you, you wanted to see who

00:28:02.060 could be the wittiest piano player. Yeah. And that's, that's like, um, uh, and you, that still

00:28:07.880 exists. You know, if you go to a jazz gig today, that still exists in the, in the tradition of

00:28:13.280 trading solos, you know, the, you know, the, the band starts playing all together, then the sax

00:28:18.560 takes a solo and then the pianist or the double bass player or the drummer, and they each kind of

00:28:24.660 take a turn. And it's, that comes back to, you know, Odysseus and, you know, the, the person of

00:28:31.020 many turns, what's happening in jazz improvisation is that they're taking that musical phrase.

00:28:36.120 And as you say, you know, part of that improvisational passages are just trying to

00:28:42.280 see how many different ways they can turn that musical phrase and make it something different

00:28:46.660 and build on what the previous player was playing. And that's a great, that, that aspect of

00:28:53.380 improvisation, when you're taking something and building on it in the moment spontaneously,

00:28:57.640 that's a key aspect of, of, of wit. And in the, in the chapter on the neuroscience of wit that I

00:29:04.500 mentioned earlier, they've done studies, they've put jazz musicians and rappers in MRI machines and

00:29:12.460 scan their brains while they are improvising and compare that to their brains while they're kind of

00:29:19.640 playing something from memory or playing, uh, reciting pre-written lyrics rather than improvising

00:29:25.240 them off the dome. And there's different areas of your brain that are active when you're improvising

00:29:32.120 and creating things spontaneously, as opposed to when you're, you know, reciting something from memory

00:29:38.400 or reading something from, from a page. And that area of the brain that's active when you're

00:29:44.600 improvising and making things up on the spot, that's a crucial area of the brain for wit, because that

00:29:52.200 is the, that is the area of the brain that's active when you're trying to solve a problem with few

00:29:58.040 resources or you're engaged in, you know, the dozens and you need to have a, a, a smart witty

00:30:05.080 comeback to someone. So it's interesting to see how all the kind of human activities, human create,

00:30:11.480 creative activities that have to do with spontaneously generating ideas. They're all involved in this,

00:30:18.680 in this one brain network. So an aspect of wit is there has to be another person to understand the

00:30:26.420 witty remark, right? If you, if you say something witty and no one gets it, like, are you actually

00:30:32.120 being witty? That's a very relevant question for me because I often say something that I think is funny

00:30:39.300 and nobody gets it. You're right. I think, you know, we, we, we say it's a private joke. You know,

00:30:45.240 you can have private jokes and you can laugh to yourself, laugh inwardly, but I do think wit

00:30:50.960 needs witnesses. And in fact, witness is actually from that same Sanskrit verb, vid, to see, and it's

00:30:58.900 related to wit and wisdom. And I think the, so, you know, it's like the famous question, if a tree

00:31:06.140 falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a noise? And I think in the case of wit,

00:31:11.160 it probably does not make a noise because wit does require wit, like a, like we were discussing

00:31:18.780 about puns. You can make a pun, but a pun, it doesn't, it doesn't come into its, its fullness

00:31:25.540 of being unless someone deciphers it, someone, unless someone gets it. And that requires another

00:31:31.000 person. And what I think is so interesting about wit is it, it is a collaboration between

00:31:37.520 two people to create the wit or to, to complete the wit. And if you think about jokes, you know,

00:31:46.300 you've got a joke and it's got different parts and you've got the, you know, the setup and you've

00:31:51.000 got the punchline. But the punchline is never explicitly explained, you know, if it is, it's

00:31:59.200 then a, it's, it's, it's a terrible joke. And, you know, we say a person, you get it, you get the

00:32:05.080 punchline. And I think that's a well-chosen verb because it does require the, the, the hearer to

00:32:10.720 kind of go out and meet the teller of the joke halfway. And in many ways, the, like we're talking

00:32:17.980 about, about puns, the person who hears a joke is doing exactly the same creative work as the

00:32:23.500 person who's telling the joke. And the joke does not exist until it's completed, completed in the

00:32:28.820 mind of the, of the listener. When the, you know, the listener goes out and gets it. And I think

00:32:34.500 that's why what's so special about wit is it does create this kind of bond. It creates this kind of

00:32:39.560 intimacy because you are kind of working with someone else's mind in that moment to create the,

00:32:47.500 the wit that, that, that happens. And I think you see that, you know, like why does every,

00:32:53.240 almost every public speaker begin a speech by telling a joke? And I think it's because a joke,

00:33:00.020 a witty joke, a witty remark, some kind of self-deprecating humor creates that kind of bond

00:33:05.240 because you're, you're inviting your audience to complete this journey with you. And that when,

00:33:13.160 when you complete that journey, it creates this kind of almost a, in a, in a positive sense,

00:33:17.740 it's like a, you're co-conspirators, you're, you're working together to achieve this goal,

00:33:22.580 which is wit. And I think that's why it's essential that wit is a kind of, it's a collective

00:33:28.340 experience. It takes at least two people for, for something to be witty.

00:33:32.460 Yeah. I think you wrote at one point in the book, it said the perfect witty expression

00:33:36.600 can include so much or like mean so much because it leaves so much out. So like by leaving a lot

00:33:42.560 out, you force the other person to construct it in their head, which allows them to get more meaning

00:33:47.180 out of the, the witty remark.

00:33:48.720 Yeah, that's exactly it. And there's a great Polish aphorist, Stanislav Letz. In my opinion,

00:33:56.340 he's perhaps the greatest aphorist of all time. And one of his sayings is no snowflake in an avalanche

00:34:04.240 ever feels responsible. And if you think about that, if you think about that literally, it makes

00:34:11.480 absolutely no sense. And, and there's no kind of literal clue in the literal meaning of any of those

00:34:18.460 words as to what the actual meaning of the saying is, but the actual meaning, like you were just

00:34:23.480 saying, it has to be completed by the listener and let's in, in writing that he leaves out all the

00:34:31.060 most important bits. You know, what the saying is really about is group think and how people in a

00:34:36.580 group, it's easier for people to be, to go along with decisions that they might otherwise resist if

00:34:42.300 everybody in the else in the group is going along with it. And he was writing, he lived in Poland,

00:34:48.460 during, you know, the time of the Soviet Union. So he was writing about authoritarianism and

00:34:53.720 political oppression and group thinking in that context. But the way he leaves so much, he leaves

00:35:01.060 all of that out of the story. And it's the listener who has to provide that. And that's a great example of

00:35:09.280 the kind of collaboration and co-creation that's involved in, in any kind of witty remark or witty

00:35:16.980 experience. What do you think the state of wit is today? Because I think oftentimes people think

00:35:22.280 of like witty people, it's always from the past. And I imagine that's because like the really,

00:35:26.820 really witty remarks, like we just, they stand the test of time. But what do you think wit is? Is wit

00:35:32.640 alive and well today? Or is it on the decline?

00:35:35.340 You know, I think there's, there's, I don't think wit's like, I think wit is always, I don't think wit

00:35:44.100 can kind of, it's not like the stock market, it can go up and down. I think it's a fundamental way

00:35:49.700 that the human brain works. And so it's always there. But I think in certain eras or certain periods of

00:35:59.000 time, people think that way more or think that way less. So if, I don't know, if you're looking at

00:36:05.680 late night comedy, for example, then there's plenty of wit around. But if you take a look at

00:36:10.440 a broader look and understand wit, like, like I've tried to understand it in the book as not just about

00:36:17.500 being funny, but as a way of thinking and as a way of solving problems and a way of making connections,

00:36:22.520 because I think wit is more about making connections than it is just simply about making

00:36:27.920 jokes, then I think it would be pretty easy to conclude that we're living in a kind of witless age,

00:36:33.500 sadly, because if you look at our political and social debates, how polarized and partisan they have

00:36:41.580 become, that is by definition, rejecting the kind of collaboration and cooperation that's required

00:36:48.540 for wit to take place. You know, you have to listen, and you have to respond. You don't have to agree

00:36:55.980 by any means. But wit can only happen if people are in relationship, and they're listening to and

00:37:02.920 responding to one another in a kind of genuine, sincere, constructive way. And when it comes to

00:37:08.900 making connections, if you look at any of our biggest challenges as a society, as a planet today,

00:37:17.600 they are all interconnected, they're all multidisciplinary. And I think witty thinking

00:37:23.260 is the ability to make connections among all these different fields, and also to listen to

00:37:30.640 diverging points of view. And again, not necessarily to accept or agree with them, but to listen and then

00:37:36.580 try and come to a synthesis that that brings all those things together. That would be for me, like,

00:37:42.400 a really encouraging and hopeful sign of us as a society living by our wits.

00:37:49.060 What can people do to start being more witty? Is it just making, telling more dad jokes,

00:37:53.560 being more punny? I mean, is that the start? Is that the, I mean, what do you think?

00:37:57.700 I think, well, I think it's, I think, you know, part of being witty is being curious and noticing

00:38:05.800 things and being alert to things. And that, that has to do with a kind of open, I think a witty state

00:38:12.300 of mind is an open state of mind. You're, and that's, again, you know, you mentioned your kids

00:38:16.940 earlier. That's what children, you know, children are open to all these things and they don't kind

00:38:22.100 of prejudge anything. So I think having that kind of open, curious, childlike mind in that sense

00:38:29.820 is absolutely essential. And I think that's another trend that we see today is, you know,

00:38:35.160 people being very focused on a single discipline, whether you're an academic or professional,

00:38:41.860 you know, this is my, my field and, and I, I know everything about my field, but I don't know that

00:38:48.080 much about anything outside my field. And then it's, it sounds kind of flippant and maybe trivial,

00:38:54.460 but I do think, you know, like you said, making puns is a really good way to train your, your brain to

00:39:01.740 be, to be more witty and, you know, having like the simple pun competition with yourself or with

00:39:07.720 your family or with your friends, it's really fun, but it also, you know, the way, the way the human

00:39:13.660 brain works and the way it incorporates new experiences and new knowledge is by making different

00:39:19.080 connections. You know, the synapses in our brain, whenever we, you know, travel to a new

00:39:24.360 place or meet a new person or learn something new, new connections are formed in our brain.

00:39:29.880 Our brain actually physically changes to incorporate this new knowledge and this, this new information.

00:39:35.140 And when you're that, that's scientists called brain plasticity. And it's just basically means

00:39:42.440 the brain's ability to react spontaneously to new information and to respond and to, to learn and to

00:39:48.780 grow. And like I said, it may sound a little trivial or, or silly, but making puns, actually,

00:39:56.100 that's what you're doing in your brain. It's, you know, when you hear a good pun or you hear a good

00:40:00.960 joke, it's uplifting, you know, it really kind of perks you up. It makes you more alert. And this is

00:40:07.440 also has to do with brain chemistry and, you know, the neurochemicals that are released when we laugh

00:40:13.120 or, or take in new information that has a really positive effect on our, our brain chemistry and

00:40:20.280 our ability of our minds to keep making those connections as, as we age. So yes, I would, I would

00:40:27.240 urge everyone to make puns, um, make jokes and let your, let your, you know, let your mind wander

00:40:35.740 into those areas where you're, you can feel free to make new connections and new combinations.

00:40:40.500 Well, James, is there some place people can go to learn more about the book and your work?

00:40:44.740 Yeah, absolutely. The book is available online, Amazon, or if you want to help out your local

00:40:50.460 bookstore, IndieBound is a great, um, a great way to connect with local independent book,

00:40:55.620 booksellers online. And if people are interested in learning more about my other books or other

00:41:01.680 stuff that I do, they can check out my website, which is jamesgeary.com.

00:41:05.460 Well, James Geary, thanks so much for your time. It's been a pleasure.

00:41:07.660 Thank you so much for having me.

00:41:09.000 My guest today was James Geary. He's the author of the book Wits End. It's available on amazon.com

00:41:13.980 and bookstores everywhere. You can also find out more information about James's work at his

00:41:17.400 website, jamesgeary.com. Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash wit where you can find links

00:41:22.800 to resources where you can delve deeper into this topic.

00:41:25.160 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Check out our website,

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The Art of Manliness - July 03, 2019

#522： What Is Wit and Why Does the World Need It？

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