"There are two things in ordinary conversation which ordinary people dislike - information and wit"
About this Quote
Leacock’s line lands like a parlor-room insult delivered with a smile: the very ingredients that should elevate talk - knowledge and cleverness - are, he implies, social irritants. The joke works because it reverses the polite fantasy about conversation. We like to imagine chat as a marketplace of ideas, but Leacock, the economist, treats it more like a market where “demand” is for reassurance, belonging, and low-stakes affirmation, not intellectual goods.
The pairing is surgical. “Information” threatens status; it smuggles in expertise and makes someone a student when they came to be an equal. “Wit” threatens face; it introduces a competitive edge and the possibility of being outshone or, worse, being the punchline. Ordinary people, in Leacock’s framing, aren’t stupid so much as prudent: they’re protecting the fragile social contract of small talk, where the point is harmony, not discovery.
Subtextually, the quote is a defense of mediocrity that doubles as a lament. Leacock isn’t merely dunking on the masses; he’s diagnosing how social life quietly disciplines intelligence. If you bring facts, you risk pedantry; if you bring jokes, you risk cruelty. The safest conversational currency becomes warm redundancy.
Context matters: Leacock wrote in an era of expanding mass literacy and public discourse, when “ordinary” was becoming a cultural ideal rather than a private descriptor. His cynicism anticipates modern anxieties about being “too much” at the dinner table - too informed, too funny, too sharp. The real target isn’t conversation; it’s the social penalty for raising the temperature above comfortable, agreeable noise.
The pairing is surgical. “Information” threatens status; it smuggles in expertise and makes someone a student when they came to be an equal. “Wit” threatens face; it introduces a competitive edge and the possibility of being outshone or, worse, being the punchline. Ordinary people, in Leacock’s framing, aren’t stupid so much as prudent: they’re protecting the fragile social contract of small talk, where the point is harmony, not discovery.
Subtextually, the quote is a defense of mediocrity that doubles as a lament. Leacock isn’t merely dunking on the masses; he’s diagnosing how social life quietly disciplines intelligence. If you bring facts, you risk pedantry; if you bring jokes, you risk cruelty. The safest conversational currency becomes warm redundancy.
Context matters: Leacock wrote in an era of expanding mass literacy and public discourse, when “ordinary” was becoming a cultural ideal rather than a private descriptor. His cynicism anticipates modern anxieties about being “too much” at the dinner table - too informed, too funny, too sharp. The real target isn’t conversation; it’s the social penalty for raising the temperature above comfortable, agreeable noise.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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