Comment by marcinzm
5 years ago
Not really. Don't apologize unless you first Google "how to apologize" and are willing to mostly follow the advice you get. The problem is that to follow that advice you need to publicly accept that you were the bad guy unequivocally which many high ego people are not willing to do.
I guess my problem with this (and with the idea of the "right way" to give an apology in general) is, what if you weren't the bad guy unequivocally?
Say someone punches me and out of anger I stab him. I apologize for stabbing him. But I'm not going to say I was the bad guy unequivocally, because I wasn't. He punched me and he punched first. He's at least, like, 10% the bad guy. That doesn't mean my apology for stabbing him is insincere. I regret that part 100%. But it's not wrong for me to say "I still think he shouldn't have punched me" because otherwise it's like I'm admitting to stabbing him for no reason, which isn't true.
I get that one goal of an apology is to make amends to people who have been hurt/offended. Those people understandably want to see the apologizer grovel without hesitation. But humans have both a head and a heart, so shouldn't being accurate in one's apology be an equally important goal?
Not taking a side here either way. Just something I've noticed about the social expectations around apologies in general.
“I apologize for stabbing them.” Period. End of sentence.
Not “I apologize for stabbing them BUT they started it”
The latter is just trying to justify and excuse the bad behavior and save face. A true apology shows remorse and that’s it.
Bingo, apologizing and then going "but <they deserved it / totally provoked me / blah blah blah>" is anything but an apology, it's just a cheap attempt at winning in the court of public opinion: "Yeah I was wrong but I was right, actually" is just a confession with some faux remorse veneer and a rationalization stapled to it.
what if they deny that they started it?
> The latter is just trying to justify and excuse the bad behavior and save face
Ok, but in the example that was given, it does justify it, a little bit.
It doesn't justify it completely, but I would absolutely have more empathy for someone who stabbed someone out of some amount of self defense, than I would for someone who stabbed someone for no reason.
Do you really believe, that in the stabbing example, someone who stabs someone, for literally no reason at all, is exactly the same as someone who did it, in response to being assaulted first?
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