On Apology

Abstract

On Apology Gregg Murray (bio) Every man initiates a slanderous trial against himself.1 * When I cheated on my wife, it felt like I had broken into my own house and kidnapped myself. From then, a vast trial began to inhabit me, one in which I was found guilty. What I needed was apology. * Lance Armstrong is known for riding his bicycle in the streets of France. With a special kind of blood coursing through his body. In October of 2012, the United States Anti-Doping Agency released its bulletproof report of his guilt. Armstrong maintained his innocence. * Plato's Apologia Sokratous. This sense of the Greek word "apologia" means defense. In this text, Socrates is accused of corrupting the youth and not believing in the gods. He is on trial for his life. * Among some ancient communities, the worst punishment for murder was not execution. The guilty lived alongside their kinsmen but were banished from communication with them. They were still alive, but their tribal identity had been removed. * Twelve Atlanta Public Schools teachers stood trial in 2014-5 for altering test scores. In the face of convincing evidence, Judge Jerry Baxter gave the teachers an option: either admit guilt and apologize or face the consequences. Those who apologized were given light sentences with only one or two years of jail time. Those who didn't were given 20 years. * The Latin plagiarus, which arrives via the Greek plagion, means "kidnapper." [End Page 175] * She told me not to contact her. * During the 17 years Lance Armstrong rode bikes, his blood was different from yours and mine. It could hold more oxygen. Through narcotic doping, Armstrong was also able to manipulate the amount of pain he felt when fatigue set in on arduous mountain climbs. * In The Stranger of Albert Camus, Meursault kills an Arab man in cold blood. At his trial, he says he did it because it was too hot outside. Meursault is sentenced to execution. But, the narrator makes it clear that Meursault is not being executed for the murder. No, the real crime is that he didn't cry at his mother's funeral. This kept the jury from seeing him as a human being. * A juridical trial involves an examination of facts, which presupposes an objective reality to which we all have access. We call this "what happened." But trials in which we act as defendant and prosecutor and judge and jury… those are subjective to the bitter end. We produce narratives that deliberately incriminate or deliberately exonerate. The presence of the trial itself is a conviction. All that matters in such a trial is the sentencing. The sentences we write. The time we serve. Put another way, all that matters is a set of conclusions that reveals whether we have truly let ourselves go free, or whether in our masochism we lock the cell, turn the screws, up the voltage. * 20 years. * I had conversations with myself. Call her. No, that will make it worse for her. No, it won't. But it's what she wants. Maybe she doesn't know what's best. That's her decision to make, not yours. But I'm hurting so much. So is she, and it's your fault she's hurting. [End Page 176] * In cycling, a simple revolutionary movement is repeated billions of times. * Actor and Filmmaker Shia LaBeouf plagiarized his apology to the person whose film script he had plagiarized. * When she found out I had cheated, she refused to see me. I had been banished or, perhaps, kidnapped? * "I apologize" is one of the few examples of what linguistic philosopher J.L. Austin calls a performative utterance. To say "I apologize" is to do so. Another is saying "I do" when getting married. Sorry to tell you this, but saying you're sorry involves more than just contrition. It involves a performance of contrition. * I cry as I write this. * She wouldn't let me apologize, so I had to learn to forgive myself. How many times did I have her phone number completed on my screen? How many times the same dialogue in my head? * "Thank you for accepting responsibility...