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Sorry, but apologies really are the work of the Devil

Anna Blundy

Wednesday, 28th May 2008

Saying ‘sorry’ is mostly wicked and usually irrelevant, says Anna Blundy. People should not be allowed to dump their inner shame so easily

Another typical sorrysayer’s tactic, usually cleverly combined with the you’re-stupid-for-minding ploy, is to apologise and then to follow the apology with a water-tight reason for having performed the hurtful action in the first place, again rendering the sinned-against ridiculous. When the children were little my husband used very often to go out drinking all night. ‘Sorry,’ he would say. ‘But you were in anyway and wanted an early night and Karim made me come to the pub and I hadn’t seen him for ages and...’ This is the ‘sorry, but...’ followed by justification ploy. And all the complicated pub-based justification being true, there was no way I could rationally argue that I was upset. For it is, especially with a man, a rational argument that is required — no amount of ‘it upset me’ will do. (And the justification, reworded, is always translatable as, ‘Sorry, but I wanted to and I don’t care about you very much.’)

Isn’t the self-justification — the claim that it wasn’t that bad, that I’m stupid or petty for minding — something verging on psychological abuse? Isn’t it the kind of thing that sends people mad? Very Gaslight. So, I feel wronged and angry and miserable, but if the wrongdoing is trivialised and an apology has been made, then I must, surely, be insane to continue to harbour hurt?

The Catholic Church has perhaps, this once, got it about right. Only if you are genuinely remorseful, and resolved never to do this awful confessed thing again, can you be forgiven. In addition, it is essential to make amends in some concrete fashion (A bit like step nine of AA — step nine of 12! Imagine how contrite you’d be by step nine!). Of course, a sincere apology, genuine remorse, a reparation and a promise, might move the misdeed out of the arena of horrific attack and into the arena of ‘something to be discussed and dealt with’. This, in the Catholic sense, would certainly be a positive move. And, again, the sorrysayer would be unlikely to offer a really sincere apology for poking her brother in the eye with a pen, when clearly this was something she’d been plotting for weeks and will certainly do again at the earliest opportunity. It’s not as though she slipped on a banana skin and fell with her finger pointing towards his face.

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Water

May 29th, 2008 11:53am

I'm glad the vast majority of us don't think like you. This isn't to say the vast majority of spec readers don't, neither is it to say that they do.

Air

May 29th, 2008 3:34pm

Spot on, Anna, except for one nagging detail; there seems to be some confusion in the article between forgiveness and reconciliation. All forgiveness means is that the injured party not exercise active revenge against the wrongdoer; it doesn't mean injured parties can't cut wrongdoers out of their lives altogether.

Reconciliation is something else altogether; the burden lies with the offenders, who must 1)acknowledge the offenses committed 2) apologize sincerely; and 3) actively make amends. If they can't or won't do that, the injured parties aren't obliged to take them back.

Abu Nudnik

May 30th, 2008 12:40pm

Great!

David Short

May 30th, 2008 11:23pm

This is far too much over-long blathering to make one simple point, and in any case it belongs in the Polly Filler sections of the Evening Standard, where they have a lot of pages to fill up around the advertising five days a week, not in an expensive, supposedly thoughtful weekly such as the Spectator.

Gordon H

May 31st, 2008 11:41am

How do you feel, Anna, about those who apologise on behalf of others?

Here in Australia we have a new Prime Minister who felt it necessary to say sorry to people who claim they were of a stolen generation.

He was referring to young Aboriginal Australians who were put into care decades ago because they were suffering great deprivation or abuse.

They were not stolen, but given a chance, often by their parents, of a better life.

Wilf

June 1st, 2008 12:38pm

And?

Sam Korn

June 1st, 2008 3:59pm

Let's look behind the blather at the logical step you are making...

* People abuse apologies when they are insincere;
* Therefore, apologies are bad.

This is so remarkably devoid of logic as to be completely nonsensical.

Len Burch

June 4th, 2008 4:42pm

Ever heard the "Soaps"?

They are nothing more than a succession of apologies and sighs mixed with expressions of wants - liking or disliking.

Len Burch

June 4th, 2008 4:51pm

Time Anna realised that brackets go as two's and confusingly make no sense in the way she uses them

Deepak Malhotra

June 7th, 2008 6:44am

Sorry, nothing to say.

Ella

July 15th, 2008 4:24pm

This is great, and perpetually true. Well done, I laughed out loud.

BILL

August 20th, 2008 11:55pm

Needed to be said.

It is interesting that people try to fend the pseudo sorry on people they generally feel they can piss on.... because that's the kind of person they generally have no compunctions supporting.

I sent this to my brother, who while 19 and in college lived with my family free of rent while I lived in a children's home and haven't heard from them since. As a straight A, well behaved student, who wondered for years why I was cast out... he expects me to accept sorry for his years of privilege. He nurtures self-pity that I don't accept his 'apology'.

To which I say, SORRY.

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