Uh okay, and sometimes people deliberately say something they know may ruffle some feathers, mean it, and are forced to apologize. You’ve never heard of this happening? The concept of forced apologies is foreign to you? I mean, it shouldn’t be something happening left and right, but it’s not so uncommon a thing that it’s unfathomable.
I think this is another one of those threads where the Doperverse is in a whole different galaxy than mine, except right now I’m not nearly drunk enough to find it entertaining, so I’m going to disappear into the bushes.
Um, yeah, sure I have. But I would have thought it was a lot less likely to happen to somebody who “doesn’t talk to other people much”, which is how I figured Merneith was explaining how he mostly gets through life without forced apologies.
To be honest, though, I talk to other people quite a bit and I can’t remember the last time I was “forced to apologize” for anything. Not that I don’t sometimes get in trouble for saying something I meant, but it’s pretty rare for me to say something that I feel honor-bound not to apologize for if it upsets somebody.
I can’t remember the last time I was either. I was maybe 10. But I don’t think I’m speaking Klingon here. I mean, it happens and I was inquiring about how to deliver a proper “I’m not sorry, so fuck you” non-apology when forced. The “Well I don’t get into these situations!” response didn’t answer my question.
One more thing:
How about “The situation is unfortunate, and I’m sorry about that.” Not an admission of wrongdoing, but still an apology, not *too *weaselly.
‘The rape and murder of the victim were recorded in graphic and unmistakeable detail by several HD digital surveillance cameras she had installed fearing just such a fate. My client informs me that he deeply regrets that all of the cameras seem to have functioned perfectly as designed.’
I don’t think you understand what people are (or at least I am) saying when they say “I’m sorry that you got upset about what I said.” I’m not lying at all. I’m sorry that they got upset. It would be better if they hadn’t been upset. That is not a lie. What I will not do and what you are advocating is that I lie and say I’m sorry for saying what I said, which I usually am not.
Your final couple of sentences disappear off into total confusion and victim blaming. You say “You put your own balls in hock if you tolerate a situation where you will do something that you sincerely consider unprincipled just because you’re afraid of the consequences if you don’t.” I never advocated doing anything that I sincerely consider unprincipled when my balls were in hock. You do. You advocate lying blatantly and say you are sorry for what you said when you aren’t. In your weird upside down view this is the most principled course.
Obviously if the apologisor has actually done something wrong then you are right. But that commonly isn’t where this sort of qualifed apology is offered. It is commonly offered where the apologisor hasn’t actually done anything wrong but some offenderati have become offended. Very often offenderati can’t convincingly argue that what has been done is actually wrong. So if the offenderati fails to accept a qualified apology (“I’m sorry you were offended…”) then they have to justify why what the apologisor did was actually wrong and that often isn’t too easy, so the offenderati will save face and just accept the qualified apology.
This is particularly true where there is a third party arbiter involved. For example, I have seen the situation where an employee says something in front a second employee who squeals off to the employer claiming to be horribly offended. The employer understands that what the first employee said wasn’t actually wrong or unreasonable so they can’t impose a sanction on the content of what was said but the employer wants to keep the peace. The employer (or the first employee) suggests a qualified apology and the the employer leans on the first employee to offer it. The second employee is prepared to accept this. Everyone’s happy-ish.
It’s also not actually an apology. If it satisfies the people who want you to apologize to them, fine by me. But as I noted earlier, to me that sort of “non-apology apology” sounds petty and boorish.
If you’re not sorry for what you said, and you’re not actually being forced to apologize, then why are you bothering at all with mealymouthed attempts at ass-covering non-apologies like “I’m sorry that you got upset”?
Why not just stand by your original statement, the one you’re not sorry for, and leave it at that?
I never advocated saying you’re sorry when you’re not: in fact, I explicitly said that the principled thing to do if you don’t feel you should apologize is not to apologize.
I didn’t claim that you personally, as opposed to generic “you”, were advocating doing something unprincipled.
However, I do stand by my opinion that it’s unprincipled to apologize for something that one doesn’t think one ought to apologize for.
And if one is being forced into an apology in such a case because one is afraid of the consequences of not apologizing, then I think it comes across as petty, cowardly and boorish to try to weasel out of the situation with a “non-apology apology”.
No, I just think that if you’re lying anyway (and offering any kind of apology when it’s against your principles to do so counts as a lie in my book), it’s better to sack up and lie generously than try to pretend you’re apologizing when you really aren’t.
Oh, is that what you mean by “being forced to apologize”? Gosh, my sympathies are with the poor employer having to deal with either of those two employees. The second one sounds like a whiny drama queen and the first one like a mean-spirited insecure weasel.
There are two situations here and you are either deliberately or inadvertantly equivocating between the two.
Situation A is whether you should apologise if you don’t have to and don’t want to. You say you shouldn’t. I’m not arguing with you about this and never have.
Situation B is where you “are being confronted with demands for an apology that you can’t ignore” and you say in that situation “what you need to do is apologize”.
I disagree with you about Situation B for reasons given above. I have pointed out that it is highly unprincipled to lie and apologise because of a demand "for an apology that you can’t ignore’’ (ie when your balls are in hock) if you don’t have to lie because an honest qualified apology is sufficient. Each time I point this out you immediately equivocate and justify your shit by blathering about Situation A which I have not and never have been discussing.
[spoiler]He’s the one who said that the Airlines “invented a new verb tense in English: First Person Removed. They say they want to welcome you to Atlanta. But they never do!”
I hope I got the quote right or even nearly right.[/spoiler]
Prefaces such as these are actually a warning that the speaker is about to say something, um, offensive, racist, or personal. If your purpose is to induce the listener to flee your presence, then well done.
I’d be willing to do some kind of exchange. Last time I checked Dum Dums were going for four for $500. So Instead of the $5000 I was going to give you I’ll give you forty Dum Dums. Sounds fair to me.
Don’t take this personally and I’m not a racist but I like coconut in cookies.
One of my personal rules is that I will not make an insincere apology, period. It’s gotten me in some hot water a few times, but it has also saved my ass a few times because people who know me know that and it has a great deal more impact than it otherwise would. Of course, this arises from my philosophy that an apology is not an exchange where one person offers and apology and the other person accepts, but rather an apology is what one does when one feels as if one has wronged another, whether or not that other person particularly feels wronged, or accepts is. Similarly, one can forgive another person when one feels wronged, whether or not the other person believes they wronged or if they offer an apology.
As with the sort of apology here, it’s as if the apology is conditional, it’s like they’re saying they’re only sorry if they offended people. Seriously, it’s wrong to throw a punch at someone, whether you’re a professional boxer and you break their jaw or you hit like a wet noodle; in both cases, a wrong act was commited, even if the result is the same. If you can’t be sincere, don’t apologize, just offer an explanation about how it was actually intended. If you are sincere, just apologize and only offer an explanation if you need to differentiate between a few possible motivations, just make sure it’s a true.
Apologies also come off a lot more sincere when people say what they’re going to do to prevent it from happening again, correct, or atone for the current situation as appropriate.
So, yeah, when a random celebrity or politician or whatever says something that causes outrage, own it. Don’t give some half-ass “sorry if you were offended”. Either explain why it shouldn’t be offensive and refuse an apology, like that ridiculous story when the guy was forced to resign after using the word niggardly. OTOH, if you say something racist or sexist when you don’t think the camera is on you, either own it and do something about it or you just regret getting caught on camera. In either case, people will judge you more by your actions rather than some story your publicist told you to say.
*Written without any disagreement regarding the primary focus of the OP. *
I think this happens all the time with complete sincerity. For example, sometimes I say something to Mrs. Devil that unintentionally hurts her feelings. A full explanation of the remark’s context and my intended meaning amply demonstrates that there was no persistent, tangible rationale for offence. Yet despite being ‘in the right’ (or whatever you want to call it), it’s still right to apologize for hurting her feelings. It’s of course not always the case (I’m [del]sometimes[/del] typically an ass), but there are times that I, and I assume lots of Dopers, are sorry for offending someone without being sorry for the underlying statement per se.
I’ve got no problem with saying or hearing “I’m sorry if you were offended by what I said” as long as the person saying it actually means it. Sometimes honesty hurts or offends other people, and your intent is to be honest by speaking the truth, not to hurt someone else’s feelings. So you may feel genuine remorse over having said something that offended someone else, but not sorry that you ever said it.
I agree most of the time it is used as a non-apology though: the person saying it doesn’t even care that you were offended at all.
