Recircumcision

A strange form of behavior is becoming more and more common. I've coined the term "recircumcision," which hopefully evokes a baby peering up from his crib in horror asking "Really? You're seriously going to cut me again?

The recircumcision phenomenon is best seen by examples:

Outdoing Your Self-Deprecation
You say something self-deprecating, and the other person one-ups you.

You: "I'm a screwup"

Them: "You're the biggest screwup who ever lived".

Your self-deprecation in no way immunizes you from my deprecation.

Congratulations on your recircumcision!

Apologies, My Ass
In one of the Slog's most popular postings, "Angel on a Bike", I tried to make hay out of the widespread reluctance to accept apologies:

I absentmindedly walked into a bike lane in Manhattan, forcing a biker to swerve around me. I recoiled in horrified shame, yelling "I'm so sorry! I'm an idiot! Are you okay?"

Over his shoulder, he roared, "You fucking asshole, why don't you look where you're going?"

I quickly realized that this person was an angel, perhaps even a sort of messiah. If he'd gamely nodded at me in weary resignation, I'd have felt awful all day. But his reaction absolved me of all guilt. I felt light as a feather.

The unwillingness to accept sincere apology is a hallmark of lousy character, but it also affords the highest possible absolution. The biker had taken me utterly off the hook, leaving me completely unburdened.

Measure once, cut twice. Recircumcision!

Forgiving You For Their Mistake
In the posting "Correcting the Record?", I noted that you go on probation whenever someone realizes they've judged you wrongly.

If someone has a wrong idea about you—about something you said, did, or thought—you might, with effort, convince them otherwise. Maybe!

But here's the problem: we exalt our assumptions and opinions, even when they're whimsical. They outweigh provable truth (if this seems odd, imagine how different this world would be if it weren't so). So after all the explaining, you won't have cleared yourself. You'll have been given a reprieve. They'll frame it like forgiveness. They've forgiven your transgression...this time!

So the next time you offend, confuse, or simply trigger another wrong conclusion, you’ll be treated as a repeat offender. No more benefit of the doubt for you, mister.

Recircumcised again and again, 'til it's whittled down to a stub!

Sue and the Speed Bump
Here's where I finally saw the heart of it. The kernel. The unseen flowing channels of ghastly glowing green ectoplasm beneath quiet city streets spurring all this ghoulish recircumcision.

I'm driving zippily through back roads with a passenger, Sue, a bitter elderly alcoholic who excels at the unique alcoholic skill of judging everyone and everything from atop a dizzyingly high perch and won't you please pass the wine BELLLLLCH thanks very much.

I hit a speed bump at speed. Jarring. I apologize profusely — at first, sincerely, but lapsing into more lavish and pathetic self-immolation as I try to delay and dispel the inevitable blast from Sue's loaded shotgun of verbal excoriation.

My tongue lashing is not the least bit reduced by my profuse mea maxima culpa blame-taking. The doctor has slated you for recircumcision, so recircumcised you shall be.

But just before she emits her inevitable harangue, I notice something. Her jaw sets. She has perceived an obstacle. An impediment. And she's revving her engines to clear it.

I realize, with a sickening start, what happened. My apology had infuriated her, because it was taking away her big moment. Sue's big moment where she'd enjoy free reign to savage another human being without compunction.

There are precious few opportunities to really let loose and harangue, harass, attack, insult, deride, and generally consume fellow human beings while remaining more or less within the bounds of proper behavior. Such moments are golden. Golden moments! And my extended apology had been like stealing a toddler's sundae cherry. Which, naturally, only peaked her pique.


The horrifying truth is that the knives are never far from out, anything you do might precipitate the snip-snip-snip of greedy scissors, and they actually like it this way.