The Wit’s Guide to Self-Deprecation

Or, little old me

Grimacing Man (Self Portrait), Louis-Leopold Boilly, 1822-23

If you’re being self-deprecating, is it to beat your enemies to the punch by punching yourself first? Or is it because you desperately need attention but can’t figure out a better way to get it? Don’t ask me, I’m just an obscure newsletter writer!

“Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose honest arrogance and have seen no occasion to change.”
— Frank Lloyd Wright

In the United Kingdom, reflexive self-deprecation helps paper over class divisions. I’m a bit crap at that, you might say, and whether you are or not, everyone feels better. Hence gloriously sad football chants like “Let’s pretend we scored a goal!” or “You’re nothing special — we lose every week!”

“The English instinctively admire any man who has no talent and is modest about it.”
— James Agate

In the United States, it seems like an unforced error to take yourself down a notch. Do it enough and you become Rodney Dangerfield, a comedian whose fan club broke up when the guy died. He came up with his defining one-liner after seeing The Godfather, that most American of movies, and realizing it was all about respect: “I thought to myself: It sounds like a funny image — a guy who gets no respect. Maybe I'll write a joke, and I’ll try it.”

“Humility is no substitute for a good personality.”
— Fran Lebowitz

And stuck in the middle as usual are the Canadians, a modest people with plenty to be modest about — but hey, not that much! Torontonians in particular like to talk about being world class, an adjective rarely heard elsewhere. Misha Glouberman neatly dissected this habit a few months back, pointing out a municipal pattern of making an outrageous claim, backing it with obvious mediocrity, and steadfastly pretending it holds up. World-class humility!

“If a stranger in the train asks me my occupation, I never answer ‘writer’ for fear that he may go on to ask me what I write, and to answer poetry would embarrass us both.”
— W.H. Auden

Which, according to Mordecai Richler, is because we are “progeny of a twice-rejected land. From the beginning, Canada’s two founding races, the English and the French, had outbid each other in scornfully disinheriting them. A few arpents of snow, Voltaire wrote contemptuously, and Dr. Johnson dismissed the dominion as ‘a region from which nothing but furs and fish were to be had.’” And no mention of the indigenous population counts as a third rejection, a veritable hat trick!

“I do most of my work sitting down. That’s where I shine.”
— Robert Benchley

The all-time greats accentuated their magnificence with some gentle self-effacement, or so the old jokes go. How did Bach play so well? “There is nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time, and the instrument plays itself.” How did Michelangelo carve David? “It is easy, you just chip away the stone that doesn’t look like David.”

“I was born modest, but it didn’t last.”
— Mark Twain

So in that spirit, how did I write this modern-day classic from a land of fish and snow? This glittering assemblage of cleverosity? No great shakes, really — I just made a list of every word I could think of, removed all the clunkers, strung the rest together in a natural order, and hit send.

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What are Riposte Cards? Oh, nothing really, just uniquely commissioned works of art funded by my paid subscribers. This art project is now on No. 28, a riff on a Margaret Atwood observation as rendered by the Toronto illustrator Sarah Farquhar. Upgrade your subscription to get it delivered to you in the mail!

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“There’s no room for demons when you’re self-possessed.”
—Carrie Fisher

No one could possibly care what I have to say, he says as he persistently emails you, week in and week out. Don’t forget the three remaining Deadly Sins!

Get Wit Quick Issue No. 307 wasn’t my best, but maybe also not the worst? Good quotes, anyway — that’s what we’re all here for, innit? Especially Auden! Always pulls it out in a pinch, that Wystan! The newsletter’s mascot is a magpie named Magnus after the magician in Robertson Davies’ Deptford Trilogy, a Canadian Classic™ but still worth reading. The title font is Vulf Sans, the official typeface of the band Vulfpeck, which was modelled after IBM Selectric typewriters. The book was Elements of Wit: Mastering The Art of Being Interesting. If you accidentally tap the ❤️ while scrolling, mate, I’ve been there.