Sorry, but apologies really are the work of the Devil
Saying ‘sorry’ is mostly wicked and usually irrelevant, says Anna Blundy. People should not be allowed to dump their inner shame so easily
There is no end, of course, to all this human erring. And we know forgiveness is divine — look at Nelson Mandela. But, for the non-divine of us, genuine forgiveness is largely impossible. This is, in my view, because most apologies are so insincere and self-serving. And it is to the, frankly, Satanic act of apologising that I would like to turn my attention. ‘Oh, I slept with someone else. Sorry.’ ‘I hit my sister over the head with a cello bow. Sorry.’ ‘I embezzled the Christmas club money. Sorry.’ ‘I hired five prostitutes and snorted loads of cocaine. Sorry.’ See? ‘Sorry’ is almost always empty, manipulative rubbish that serves the sorrysayer and cripples the sorree.
The only circumstances in which ‘sorry’ is remotely acceptable are those in which the hurt caused is genuinely accidental or unforeseeable. So, for example, you slip and crash into someone who is in front of you in the queue for the ski lift. Or you had no idea when you slept with him that he was your sister’s boyfriend. Or you say something that you couldn’t have known was offensive because you didn’t have the requisite information (that your friend’s husband was actually raised a Christian Scientist and, though he has left the church, finds it hard to hear his beloved parents grouped with their fellow devotees as ‘a bunch of murdering psychopaths’). In any of these situations an apology is the standard way to proceed and forgiveness is likely to ensue.
But almost every time I have ever had the word ‘sorry’ inflicted on me it has seemed, in the circumstances, a deeply inappropriate thing to say. The person doing the erring knew perfectly well that his or her (almost always his) actions would inflict all kinds of damage but, deciding that the short-term pleasure would be greater than the potential (but not guaranteed) medium-term pain, he did it anyway. Now you’re sorry? Well, wallow in your remorse (if you really have any, which is unlikely). If you knew it was going to hurt, then you should either a) not have done it or b) have the courage of your convictions and not smarm around apologising afterwards. You took the decision and had the fun, so suffer the inner shame without dumping any emotional responsibility on me.
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Water
May 29th, 2008 11:53amI'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 3:34pmSpot 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 12:40pmGreat!
David Short
May 30th, 2008 11:23pmThis 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 11:41amHow 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 12:38pmAnd?
Sam Korn
June 1st, 2008 3:59pmLet'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 4:42pmEver 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 4:51pmTime Anna realised that brackets go as two's and confusingly make no sense in the way she uses them
Deepak Malhotra
June 7th, 2008 6:44amSorry, nothing to say.
Ella
July 15th, 2008 4:24pmThis is great, and perpetually true. Well done, I laughed out loud.
BILL
August 20th, 2008 11:55pmNeeded 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.