4 ms·

An apology is useless if it is not accompanied by a change in behavior. Actually, worse than useless as it is an insult. I know what I am doing is wrong but I a

An apology is useless if it is not accompanied by a change in behavior. Actually, worse than useless as it is an insult. I know what I am doing is wrong but I am not changing. Large public apologies are performance art.

seydor 4y ago
Yes, and audiences love performance art. They don't even really hate the actor for what they did, they enjoy the vengeful feelings i guess. Everything is molded to please the public.
- banannaise 4y ago
  It's not the public who is pleased. It's the talking heads, the newsroom bosses, the politicians, the corporate officers. The people who can spread the message that the public is pleased, regardless of whether the public is actually pleased. And as long as the public is not incredibly angry, they'll mostly just quietly go along with it, because it's not worth fighting against. But they're not the source. It's manufactured forgiveness.
washadjeffmad 4y ago
Apologies don't necessarily imply wrongdoing. An apology can be issued to acknowledge inconvenience or understanding, or to indicate someone is being heard. You can apologize for not changing or for disagreeing.
- nmz 4y ago
  Example: "I'm sorry to say this but" ... Means you acknowledge the hurt saying something will cause but you still need to say it. because it needs to be said.
  - Mikeb85 4y ago
    No it means you pretend to apologise but are really talking more shit. Everyone knows the part before the "but" is passive aggressive window dressing and means nothing.
    - nmz 4y ago
      I'm sorry but I disagree.
    - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
      That's a very unusual reaction to something that simply reflects good manners. "I'm sorry to say this" is just a polite way to express real displeasure for the fact that people sometimes have strong opinions, but they can be wrong at the same time, but in some cases they get easily offended when more knowledgeable people or simply more thoughtful people point it out. So starting by saying sorry does not refer to the person they are answering to specifically, but to the larger aufince that is listening, because they'll have to hear something that is probably obvious to the majority, but not to that particular very wrong and aggressive person Simply because they are trying to be polite. Also. The part before "but" counts as much as everything else, or the English language would not contain the word "but". I'm sorry yo say this, but quoting GOT it's not deep. An apology doesn't mean you did something wrong, many times it means you're doing something that did not want to do, but need to do and it's gonna hurt someone. I'm sorry sir, but your parking is expired, I have to give you a ticket. Apologizing on a social network to your 4 million followed because you have a vegan channel but in reality you are not vegan, have no intentions to become one and also find them pathetic, it's not an apology, it's damage control and trying to control the narrative, there's no space for real feelings at that point. Real apologies are between people who know each other and love each other and do not want to lose each other over their ego. So in conclusion most of the time apologies are a formalism, an ice breaker "sorry, what's your name again?" you are not really sorry. You just don't rember who that person is, but sorry works better than "hey you insignificant NPC my boss said I had to do this thing, but I don't care and I will forget your name in... what's your name again?" Finally, I'm also sorry to say this, but the article is a puff piece for wanna be PR of the rich and famous and the authors should apologize for it. The only time you should ask yourself "is this a good apology?" is when you are writing one for someone else.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    I don't mean to be rude, but a friend of mine used to begin a criticism with "I don't mean to be rude, but ...". He did it so much it became a meme in the office, and people would laugh whenever he opened with that. He finally stopped :-)
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    If something truly 'needs to be said', the sayer believes it has greater value for the hearer than not saying it, eg 'I'm sorry to say this but I don't want to drink with you any more because you're an alcoholic.' The non-apology the other poster is talking about is professing to be sorry about something while having no intention of remediating or changing the offensive behavior.
jabroni_salad 4y ago
That came up in the Freakonomics episode about apologies. If you make a promise but fail to deliver, the result will be worse than just not apologizing at all.
banannaise 4y ago
This is the actual problem. We're doing Goodhart's Law with self-improvement. In a lot of cases, particularly concrerning people with power/clout, those people are never going to change. But they can make a vague simulation of it that hits the metrics. And now we've reached the stage where they can simply farm that process out to paid help, so they don't even have to do the simulation themselves.
hackerlight 4y ago
> Large public apologies are performance art. But this is the use, and so it isn't useless. Not everyone who compels a public apology actually cares whether the accused feels genuine remorse. They want to enforce a cultural standard because they think that cultural standard is a good thing.

seydor 4y ago

Yes, and audiences love performance art. They don't even really hate the actor for what they did, they enjoy the vengeful feelings i guess. Everything is molded to please the public.

banannaise 4y ago
It's not the public who is pleased. It's the talking heads, the newsroom bosses, the politicians, the corporate officers. The people who can spread the message that the public is pleased, regardless of whether the public is actually pleased. And as long as the public is not incredibly angry, they'll mostly just quietly go along with it, because it's not worth fighting against. But they're not the source. It's manufactured forgiveness.

washadjeffmad 4y ago

Apologies don't necessarily imply wrongdoing. An apology can be issued to acknowledge inconvenience or understanding, or to indicate someone is being heard. You can apologize for not changing or for disagreeing.

nmz 4y ago
Example: "I'm sorry to say this but" ... Means you acknowledge the hurt saying something will cause but you still need to say it. because it needs to be said.
- Mikeb85 4y ago
  No it means you pretend to apologise but are really talking more shit. Everyone knows the part before the "but" is passive aggressive window dressing and means nothing.
  - nmz 4y ago
    I'm sorry but I disagree.
  - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
    That's a very unusual reaction to something that simply reflects good manners. "I'm sorry to say this" is just a polite way to express real displeasure for the fact that people sometimes have strong opinions, but they can be wrong at the same time, but in some cases they get easily offended when more knowledgeable people or simply more thoughtful people point it out. So starting by saying sorry does not refer to the person they are answering to specifically, but to the larger aufince that is listening, because they'll have to hear something that is probably obvious to the majority, but not to that particular very wrong and aggressive person Simply because they are trying to be polite. Also. The part before "but" counts as much as everything else, or the English language would not contain the word "but". I'm sorry yo say this, but quoting GOT it's not deep. An apology doesn't mean you did something wrong, many times it means you're doing something that did not want to do, but need to do and it's gonna hurt someone. I'm sorry sir, but your parking is expired, I have to give you a ticket. Apologizing on a social network to your 4 million followed because you have a vegan channel but in reality you are not vegan, have no intentions to become one and also find them pathetic, it's not an apology, it's damage control and trying to control the narrative, there's no space for real feelings at that point. Real apologies are between people who know each other and love each other and do not want to lose each other over their ego. So in conclusion most of the time apologies are a formalism, an ice breaker "sorry, what's your name again?" you are not really sorry. You just don't rember who that person is, but sorry works better than "hey you insignificant NPC my boss said I had to do this thing, but I don't care and I will forget your name in... what's your name again?" Finally, I'm also sorry to say this, but the article is a puff piece for wanna be PR of the rich and famous and the authors should apologize for it. The only time you should ask yourself "is this a good apology?" is when you are writing one for someone else.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  I don't mean to be rude, but a friend of mine used to begin a criticism with "I don't mean to be rude, but ...". He did it so much it became a meme in the office, and people would laugh whenever he opened with that. He finally stopped :-)
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  If something truly 'needs to be said', the sayer believes it has greater value for the hearer than not saying it, eg 'I'm sorry to say this but I don't want to drink with you any more because you're an alcoholic.' The non-apology the other poster is talking about is professing to be sorry about something while having no intention of remediating or changing the offensive behavior.

jabroni_salad 4y ago

That came up in the Freakonomics episode about apologies. If you make a promise but fail to deliver, the result will be worse than just not apologizing at all.

banannaise 4y ago

This is the actual problem. We're doing Goodhart's Law with self-improvement. In a lot of cases, particularly concrerning people with power/clout, those people are never going to change. But they can make a vague simulation of it that hits the metrics. And now we've reached the stage where they can simply farm that process out to paid help, so they don't even have to do the simulation themselves.

hackerlight 4y ago

> Large public apologies are performance art. But this is the use, and so it isn't useless. Not everyone who compels a public apology actually cares whether the accused feels genuine remorse. They want to enforce a cultural standard because they think that cultural standard is a good thing.