Adam-Troy Castro

Writer of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Stories About Yams.

 

The Art Of The Apology Is Broken Beyond Repair

Posted on June 11th, 2015 by Adam-Troy Castro

This has only tangential connection to recent upsetting events in the science fiction community. I mean, it happens to be true of us, but it also happens to be true of everybody, in politics, in media, and in interpersonal relationships.

The Art of the Apology Is Broken Beyond Repair.

It is broken up and down the line.

It is broken at every step of the process, from before the original offense to after the last of its repercussions.

It is broken for all of the participants, including the offender and the offendee.

It is broken to the point where it has lost all usefulness.

In theory, an apology is supposed to be a simple acknowledgment that one has done wrong, coupled with remorse. It may or may not be connected to an offer of expiation, but that is optional. The acknowledgment is the important part. It is useless without sincerity – by which I mean true understanding of the nature of the offense – and it is useless unless it can advance our understanding of one another as human beings.

But it is now dysfunctional at every step.

It is dysfunctional because it has been bargained with, played with, tinkered with for advantage, and gamed, from first to last moment.

It is no longer a means of spreading understanding, but of prolonging misunderstanding.

Manifestations include:

The Pre-emptive Apology. Presented before the original offense, it is an acknowledgment that the offense will cause damage, offered immediately before that offense is committed anyway. “I know it’s rude to park my truck on your flower bed, but I need a place to put my truck,” is worse than just heedlessly parking your truck on the flower bed without understanding that this is a terrible thing to do. In that case, you might just be an inconsiderate jackass, and the pre-emptive apology makes you fully considerate, in that you considered the cost of what you were about to do and did it anyway. Called on it, the offender will often fulminate, “But I apologized! In advance!” But really, the pre-emptive apology is an effort to head off consequences by short-circuiting recriminations in advance. It is a Get Out Of Jail Free card.

The It’s All A Matter of Perception Apology: Frequently used by politicians, this is often phrased as, “If anyone was offended…”, presenting the offense as an accidental result, initiated entirely by those who took offense. A true apology begins with the acknowledgment that one did something offensive, but here, that admission has been rendered entirely passive, something that happened to the offensive party, and not something he actually initiated. You can tell that it is often divorced from any ambitions of better behavior in that the sentence containing the perception apology is all too often followed by another that reiterates the initial wrongdoing. To wit: “Last week I said X; if anyone was offended, I am deeply sorry; however, {equation that equals X}.” Again, the apology is not offered as expiation, but as shield, immediately followed by another body blow to the same bruised region.

The Angry Apology: This is where whatever awful thing is being apologized for is not nearly as offensive, to the offensive party, as the horrible misjustice of being made to apologize for it. Teenagers know this one very well, rolling their eyes while crying, “I said I was sorry, okay?” Again, the apology is not offered in expiation, but as a cancelling force, expected to eliminate any consequences for the original offense. I trashed your house and spray-painted FUCK on your Picasso, but jeez, I said I was sorry, okay? If consequences are still forthcoming, the offending party can only roll his eyes at being so unfairly persecuted. If they are not, he can perform in some equally offensive manner, again, as soon as possible.

The I-Can-Demand-An-Apology-But-Yours-Isn’t-Enough Dynamic: This is the first manifestation where the sin belongs to the injured party. That party claims offense, with or without justification, demands an apology, and receives one – which may well depending on circumstances be an elaborate, flowery, over-the-top acknowledgment that the party responsible for the offense deserves an eternity of punishment for what he’s done. This is usually not called for, but even in such cases no apology will ever be accepted as sufficient; even weeping and rending of clothes will not be enough. Shorn of frills, the process goes: The least you can do is apologize. You know, you’re right, I apologize. Followed by a triumphant, that doesn’t make it better! This becomes easier to understand with the increasing heinousness of the original offense, but the dynamic exists even when the original offense is minor. Regardless of the degree of sin, you will be told that your apology is not enough until the offended party grows weary of torturing you with demands for an even truer apology. Anybody who’s ever offended his mother in a small way is familiar with this.

The I-Can-Demand-An-Apology-But-Will-Never-Give-One-And-Never-Accept-One Dynamic: This is a related phenomenon to the previous listing, in which the offended party cannot and will not accept any responsibility for a mutual dispute, saying, “I would be more than happy to apologize if I was wrong,” which somehow never ever happens. In such relationships, the offended party can last years without ever being in error. Imagine that. The current controversy in the SF community is led by an individual who has actually come out and told his followers, in as many words, that they should never apologize at any point no matter how excessive their behavior might have been, because that’s surrender and the point is to gain as much ground as possible. He has come out and said this. He has also simultaneously demanded apology for one offense or another an almost daily basis. Here, apology is used primarily as a tool to back the other party further and further away from his previous position, capturing territory but never at any point acknowledging any point on which ground might be given. One manifestation of this is insisting that everybody on the other side apologize for and disavow every regrettable thing ever said by any ally, no matter how tangential, while simultaneously saying, “I’m not responsible for everything everybody on my side does!” Apology is here a military strategy, not an attempt at understanding.

The I-Can-Demand-An-Apology-While-Indulging-In-Equivalent-Behavior-Apology: Otherwise known as the Torgersen, this is best summarized as “X needs to apologize for tarring everybody on my side with the same brush, which is the way those SJWs and CHORFS always behave.” This manifests without any self-awareness or sense of irony. Again, this is about gaining ground, not achieving understanding.

The Demand For Apology After An Apology Is Already Given Dynamic: X does something clearly wrong, X acknowledges it and sincerely apologizes for it, but the offense will be brought up again the next time anybody has a beef to pick with X. In any discussion where it is then brought up that X did in fact apologize, and actually apologize, the discussion circles back to whether he should apologize, even though he already did. No subsequent virtues demonstrated by X, no matter how much time passes, are ever recognized in this dynamic; no apologies are ever ceded as genuine. The argument returns to the premise that X has “never apologized.”X might rescue a busload of orphans from going over a ravine, but the original sin remains recent, always the magnet that draws the attention of those who would rather chew that cud than discuss anything else. This can go on for decades. It happens in marriages, where a fight over remembering to close the kitchen cabinets in 2015 will inevitably rope in offenses committed, apologized for, and dealt with in 1998, because nothing’s ever really forgiven, just stacked away in a deeper part of the armory. The apology is continually re-purposed as a non-event. It never happened. Therefore another apology is demanded.

The Personal Destruction Apology: in which the apology is seen as the first step toward eradicating the offender from the face of the Earth. To wit: X does something wrong and apologizes for it. This is not enough. She must be ostracized. She must be deprived of employment. She must be banished. If the consequences that X faces for her offense are defined as Y, the punishment the demander of the apology will accept is somehow always Y Plus Something. If it was Y Plus Something to start with, it will always be Y Plus Something Plus Something More. More nails must always be applied to the cross.

The Mystery Apology: X has done something wrong. Y is infuriated. X has no idea why. He begs for an explanation of the offense, so he can apologize. This is the way he should act. He did something unthinking and desires education. This is how people learn and improve. However, to Y, part of the problem is that X cannot already see what he has done wrong. If X doesn’t know, Y is not about to explain it to him. X is reduced to guessing. Every wrong guess digs the hole deeper, but “I give up,” or “Give me a clue, at least,” are equally heinous offenses. This frequently happens between the sexes, which perceive things differently and frequently can benefit from more communication, but must instead deal with if you don’t know what you’ve done wrong, I’m not about to tell you. Note: when I say, “between the sexes,” I tend to mean that women do it to men. If men do it to women or if gay people torture each other this way, I don’t have the personal experience to know it, and I apologize for not knowing it. But that apology is of course not sufficient; I should have known before I even said it. You can’t win.

The Apology as Post-Hoc Escape Hatch: This is the same thing as the Pre-Emptive Apology, except applied after the fact, as a sort of catch-all attempt to escape from consequences. In short, your house may be a pile of smoking rubble, and the guy who caused it will snort, “I said I was sorry,” a statement which is somehow never quite the same thing as actually being sorry, or offering restitution. I said I was sorry is in the case supposed to mean you must not express any resentment of what I’ve done. Again, it’s a Get-Put-of-Jail-Free card.

The Withheld Apology: Two people agree that they’re both wrong and should apologize for mutual offenses. One apologizes. The other triumphantly reneges. This is apology as a game of chicken.

There are more, but I believe I have made the point. The art of apology, one of the social inventions that makes peace and progress a possibility, is irrevocably broken. At every point up and down the line, it has been gamed and co-opted as a means of keeping arguments going, inflicting deeper wounds, and inflicting more damage.

I am truly sorry about that. I really am.

 

20 Responses to "The Art Of The Apology Is Broken Beyond Repair"

  1. Elton John said it seems to be the hardest word. Nowadays it’s impossible to find the sentiment, much less the expression of it.

  2. We say it too easily and not sincerely.

  3. Thanks for acknowledging the type that begins with “If I….” It passes the “blame” for the kerfluffle to the offended one and gives the real perpetrator an out. Another favorite is the offender who says, after being challenged for an insincere apology, “Well, I APOLOGIZED! What more can I do?” No room for remorse when there is still this much anger.

  4. Jim Butcher:

    “I don’t know if Ms. Gallo’s apology was sincere or insincere.

    I don’t know that, because I can’t read her freaking mind.

    And neither, presumably, can anyone else.

    I work with words professionally. I know exactly how powerful they can be. I am also well aware of their limits–and when it comes to expression complex thoughts in emotionally tense situations over the goddamned internet, the magic of written language has little power.

    How can it? It’s missing too much. You can’t read tone of voice, or the expression on a person’s face when they’re making keys click. Pretty much all you get is “clickity click click.”

    I’m also an English major. So I’m very aware of how skilled human beings can be at reading all kinds of absolute horse manure into other people’s writing, and then declaring it “subtext” or “internally consistent logic.”

    But it isn’t. It’s you, guessing. And your guess is probably prejudiced to one degree or another, most often by projecting things into it that were never meant to be there. Or, put another way:

    http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/what-the-author-meant.jpg

    Maybe Ms. Gallo wrote the apology with a smirk and a cigarette hanging off of one lip while reciting nasty twitter quotes at every individual member of Science Fiction Fandom. Or maybe she was crying and upset and genuinely trying to make amends. Or maybe she was just numb and exhausted. I don’t know.

    Neither do you. That’s kind of my point.

    But maybe it’s simplest if the curtains were fucking blue, we take her words at face value, and extend a bit of human courtesy and trust to a fellow science fiction nerd. Because she is one, whether that pleases you or not.

    Deep breaths here, guys. Her comment was out of line and made a lot of people upset. She apologized to those people.

    The curtains were fucking blue.

    Can we just get on with life, please?”

  5. I have to write apologies on behalf of the company I work for several times a week. And I sincerely apologize for posting this comment. Cheers.

  6. Medieval theologians wrote multi-hundred-page books on the subject of penitance, which suggests to me that people had trouble with the concept back in the olden days as well.

  7. Just added this variant:

    The Mystery Apology: X has done something wrong. Y is infuriated. X has no idea why. He begs for an explanation of the offense, so he can apologize. This is the way he should act. He did something unthinking and desires education. However, to Y, part of the problem is that X cannot already see what he has done wrong. If X doesn’t know, Y is not about to explain it to him. X is reduced to guessing. Every wrong guess digs the hole deeper, but “I give up,” or “Give me a clue, at least,” are equally heinous offenses. This frequently happens between the sexes, which perceive things differently and frequently can benefit from explanation, in all sincerity, but if you don’t know what you’ve done wrong, I’m not about to tell you. Note: when I say, “between the sexes,” I mean that if gay people torture each other this way, I don’t have the personal experience to know it, and I apologize for not knowing it. But that apology is of course not sufficient; I should have known before I even said it. You can’t win.

  8. There’s a distinction to be made between “if anybody was offended” and situations where someone sincerely regrets the unintended side effects of one’s actions or statements. For example, I deeply regret breaking your ribs but will risk doing so again the next time you need CPR. The main distinction is owning up to the consequences of ones actions and not hiding behind weasel words.

  9. There’s also a connection between the broken art of apology and our increasingly polarized political system. Apologies are seen as a weakness. That’s just messed up.

  10. And the trend toward what are clearly “non-pologies ” very carefully avoiding that any wrong was done, or what it was… And it being accepted as adequate or appropriate, when real harm was done. (Politicians pulling the “IF anyone was offended…” Bit)

  11. I

  12. A tragically brilliant essay. I call it “the Imus syndrome.” Like him or not, you cannot apologize more than he did. Offered to meet with the Rutgers team. Yet, he got fired anyhow. Of course sadly there too many examples to site. Thanks for writing this, although it breaks my heart.

  13. I don’t suppose you can add a “some” to this line?
    “I tend to mean that women do it to men”

    Just a small wist. No apology asked for, even if you choose to leave it as is (since “I tend” already leaves an opening for women who don’t do this.)

  14. “I tend to mean…” is indeed phrased that way to make it an issue of my perception.

  15. Re: The Mystery Apology, “Note: when I say, “between the sexes,” I tend to mean that women do it to men. If men do it to women…I don’t have the personal experience to know it…”

    My brother does a variation of this. If I notice that he’s mad at me and ask him why so that I can apologize, correct my behavior, etc., he just won’t respond. If he’s really angry, he’ll go full-on silent treatment and not speak to me for days; if he’s less angry, he’ll talk to me about other stuff but not about whatever I did to upset him. (Occasionally he’ll open up after a few days and tell me then, but more often I never get to know what I did to upset him.)

  16. Being able to take responsibility for one’s actions is what truly mature adult human beings do. Children who have not been properly taught that making mistakes does not mean you are a bad person have not yet learned to apologize. But, we have too many children in adult bodies these days.

  17. This is one of the many reasons I like animals better than I like people at this point.

  18. I call it “the Imus syndrome.” Like him or not, you cannot apologize more than he did. Offered to meet with the Rutgers team. Yet, he got fired anyhow.

    “Yet, he got fired anyhow” because having apologized, even genuinely, doesn’t erase the harm caused, or the trust broken, by the action apologized for. It doesn’t make the consequences of the bad behavior go away. Someone who is sincere in their apology knows this.

    An apology isn’t a quarter you put in a vending machine to make forgiveness pop out. It isn’t a magic word that obliges the offended party to forget the offense and treat the offender as though nothing happened. Expecting an apology to work that way, I think, falls under the “Geez, I said I was sorry! What more do you want from me?” rubric described above.

    That Imus was fired isn’t proof of degradation of the art of the apology. That some think his apology should have shielded him from further consequences, though, is.

  19. Sorry about that.

  20. Time to revert to the Roman, I think. “Apologies!” *falls on sword*

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