5 ms·

> if you're actually dealing with a genuine person or group who you've genuinely wronged then a real apology is warranted A pitfall of this mentality, at least

by cowpig 6y ago

> if you're actually dealing with a genuine person or group who you've genuinely wronged then a real apology is warranted A pitfall of this mentality, at least in my experience, is that people I hurt are usually much better judges of whether I hurt them than I am. Something I learned that helped is: you can hurt someone without being wrong. "I regret that my actions had this effect on you," is a good place to start a conversation when I'm not (yet?) convinced I would have done anything differently in hindsight. Often, simply acknowledging that someone has been hurt by my actions, and trying to understand why, has yielded far better outcomes than sticking with my judgment. Both in that they affected party feels better, and in that I get to add a new dimension to my understanding of social dynamics. It often doesn't matter how legitimate someones' complaint is according to my personal worldview; what matters is how the affected feel.

ponker 6y ago
"I'm sorry you felt that way" is considered worse than a non-apology by the current leading apology extractors.
- npatrick04 6y ago
  I agree with you, but he didn't say the word "sorry". Check out "Thank You for Arguing" by Jay Heinrichs. It covers the same basic steps, but recommends to exclude the actual apology part. It's also a great book for other reasons.
nomdep 6y ago
That only works of you know you are dealing with people rariobal and with good intentions. We human tend not to be thos things when acting in large groups.
- ZainRiz 6y ago
  It also requires the recipient to know they're coming from a sincere person with good intentions. If that perception isn't their, it comes across as a very different message ("I'm sorry you don't have a thick enough skin")
BaronVonSteuben 6y ago
In a normal world I would agree with you completely. However, if you've offended some of the woke crowd then this may be worse than saying nothing at all. In your example, they would say you are rubbing salt in the wound with "I regret that my actions had this effect on you." If you aren't prepared to unambiguously denounce yourself, you may (unintentionally) make things worse.
pvarangot 6y ago
> A pitfall of this mentality, at least in my experience, is that people I hurt are usually much better judges of whether I hurt them than I am. It would be easier if people just talked more about their feelings even if they don't understand me. If I hurt someone and they just say something like "look I feel weird because of this and this that happened between us", then I can process and understand what went wrong. I spent some years running teams and doing management and I used 1v1s for this to really good results. I do that and a lot of my closest friends also do that. I think people that expect you to read their feelings are the ones that are going to get hurt if they spend time around because they have unrealistic expectations. I can only feel my feelings, or get empathetic with people that have opened up to me before. I can't be apologizing all the time just in case, that's also ridiculous and even though a lot of people do it in, specially in California, I think it comes down as condescending and sometimes even egotistical.
grawprog 6y ago
>Something I learned that helped is: you can hurt someone without being wrong >It often doesn't matter how legitimate someones' complaint is according to my personal worldview; what matters is how the affected feel. I can't get behind this. Why am I responsible for the way the chemicals in someone's brain react if I say something that unintentionally hurts them? If i'm doing nothing wrong as you say and someone else is offended, or sad or hurt, that's honestly their problem. People need to take responsibility for their feelings instead of making everyone else take responsibility for their feelings. Why should I ever be responsible for the way someone feels unless i've done something intentionally to make them feel that way? People's feelings are their own business, nobody else has the unintentional responsibility of random people's arbitrary feelings.
textgel 6y ago
You're absolutely right about not knowing being a problem; unfortunately I'm guessing it's a bit of an art, at least with respect to the "be careful of bad-faith actors" replies you've received, or at least a heavy dose of knowing the other party. I do however find that if I actually take time to think about what's happened, a genuine wrong that might have been caused in a rush/unthought out moment is (usually) pretty obvious when looked back on in hindsight; there's usually an "aaah shit yeah that'd piss me off too" moment.
mseepgood 6y ago
> "I regret that my actions had this effect on you," That's just a variation of "I'm sorry you're so impatient" or "It's too bad you have no sense of humor.": https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Apology#Acknowledgment_of_the_pain_or_embarrassment https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Apology#Acknowledgment_of_th... https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/celebrity/people-are-making-hilarious-parodies-of-priti-patel-saying-shes-sorry-if-people-feel-theres-not-enough-ppe/ar-BB12y8Qv https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/celebrity/people-are...
- filoleg 6y ago
  No, it isn't a variation of those two. The two you mentioned are bad, because they implicitly shift the fault on the person on the receiving end, because they make qualifying statements about the person without addressing your own actions that led to it at all. Very similar to the badness of "I am sorry you feel that way about what I said", because it only addresses the person on the receiving end and makes it sound like there is something wrong with them. "I regret that my actions had this effect on you" is not bad because it doesn't do that. It clearly just says that you are sorry for your actions causing such an effect, without making any qualifying statements about the person on the receiving end, leaving the possibility of your actions being wrong fully open.
Aunche 6y ago
I don't disagree with anything you said, but I don't think this applies to the original comment. The majority of people who demand an apology aren't the victims. They're just random people on Twitter who are just looking for ways to attack people they don't like. It may have been a mistake for someone to wear a mildly racist costume on Halloween a decade ago, but there is no reason they should be expected to apologize.
wolfgke 6y ago
> A pitfall of this mentality, at least in my experience, is that people I hurt are usually much better judges of whether I hurt them than I am. But these people are very biased judges.

by cowpig 6y ago

ponker 6y ago

"I'm sorry you felt that way" is considered worse than a non-apology by the current leading apology extractors.

npatrick04 6y ago
I agree with you, but he didn't say the word "sorry". Check out "Thank You for Arguing" by Jay Heinrichs. It covers the same basic steps, but recommends to exclude the actual apology part. It's also a great book for other reasons.

nomdep 6y ago

That only works of you know you are dealing with people rariobal and with good intentions. We human tend not to be thos things when acting in large groups.

ZainRiz 6y ago
It also requires the recipient to know they're coming from a sincere person with good intentions. If that perception isn't their, it comes across as a very different message ("I'm sorry you don't have a thick enough skin")

BaronVonSteuben 6y ago

In a normal world I would agree with you completely. However, if you've offended some of the woke crowd then this may be worse than saying nothing at all. In your example, they would say you are rubbing salt in the wound with "I regret that my actions had this effect on you." If you aren't prepared to unambiguously denounce yourself, you may (unintentionally) make things worse.

pvarangot 6y ago

> A pitfall of this mentality, at least in my experience, is that people I hurt are usually much better judges of whether I hurt them than I am. It would be easier if people just talked more about their feelings even if they don't understand me. If I hurt someone and they just say something like "look I feel weird because of this and this that happened between us", then I can process and understand what went wrong. I spent some years running teams and doing management and I used 1v1s for this to really good results. I do that and a lot of my closest friends also do that. I think people that expect you to read their feelings are the ones that are going to get hurt if they spend time around because they have unrealistic expectations. I can only feel my feelings, or get empathetic with people that have opened up to me before. I can't be apologizing all the time just in case, that's also ridiculous and even though a lot of people do it in, specially in California, I think it comes down as condescending and sometimes even egotistical.

grawprog 6y ago

>Something I learned that helped is: you can hurt someone without being wrong >It often doesn't matter how legitimate someones' complaint is according to my personal worldview; what matters is how the affected feel. I can't get behind this. Why am I responsible for the way the chemicals in someone's brain react if I say something that unintentionally hurts them? If i'm doing nothing wrong as you say and someone else is offended, or sad or hurt, that's honestly their problem. People need to take responsibility for their feelings instead of making everyone else take responsibility for their feelings. Why should I ever be responsible for the way someone feels unless i've done something intentionally to make them feel that way? People's feelings are their own business, nobody else has the unintentional responsibility of random people's arbitrary feelings.

textgel 6y ago

You're absolutely right about not knowing being a problem; unfortunately I'm guessing it's a bit of an art, at least with respect to the "be careful of bad-faith actors" replies you've received, or at least a heavy dose of knowing the other party. I do however find that if I actually take time to think about what's happened, a genuine wrong that might have been caused in a rush/unthought out moment is (usually) pretty obvious when looked back on in hindsight; there's usually an "aaah shit yeah that'd piss me off too" moment.

mseepgood 6y ago

> "I regret that my actions had this effect on you," That's just a variation of "I'm sorry you're so impatient" or "It's too bad you have no sense of humor.": https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Apology#Acknowledgment_of_the_pain_or_embarrassment https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Apology#Acknowledgment_of_th... https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/celebrity/people-are-making-hilarious-parodies-of-priti-patel-saying-shes-sorry-if-people-feel-theres-not-enough-ppe/ar-BB12y8Qv https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/celebrity/people-are...

filoleg 6y ago
No, it isn't a variation of those two. The two you mentioned are bad, because they implicitly shift the fault on the person on the receiving end, because they make qualifying statements about the person without addressing your own actions that led to it at all. Very similar to the badness of "I am sorry you feel that way about what I said", because it only addresses the person on the receiving end and makes it sound like there is something wrong with them. "I regret that my actions had this effect on you" is not bad because it doesn't do that. It clearly just says that you are sorry for your actions causing such an effect, without making any qualifying statements about the person on the receiving end, leaving the possibility of your actions being wrong fully open.

Aunche 6y ago

I don't disagree with anything you said, but I don't think this applies to the original comment. The majority of people who demand an apology aren't the victims. They're just random people on Twitter who are just looking for ways to attack people they don't like. It may have been a mistake for someone to wear a mildly racist costume on Halloween a decade ago, but there is no reason they should be expected to apologize.

wolfgke 6y ago

> A pitfall of this mentality, at least in my experience, is that people I hurt are usually much better judges of whether I hurt them than I am. But these people are very biased judges.