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A sincere "sorry you feel that way" is only passive agressive in a culture that prefers emotional gestures like shame and contrition to practical gestures like

A sincere "sorry you feel that way" is only passive agressive in a culture that prefers emotional gestures like shame and contrition to practical gestures like reciprocity and restitution. In a culture that inverts those preferences, it's an acknowledgment of a new debt of reciprocity. "I recognize that you're negatively impacted and ask you let me make you whole again" We're in a bit of a weird and untenable cultural moment right now, where we allow anyone to call themselves a victim and insist that some other admit to an internal feeling of contrition. When that contrition isn't sincerely felt, which is natural in many cases, that's when we end up with both the vacuous and passive agressive "sorry you feel that way" and the equally vacuous and performative public apology. In a world where we focus more on exrtrinsic actions and reciprocity rather than making demands of each others internal state, both forms of vacuousness go away: people do step on each others feet now and then, as happens, but the stepper helps the stepped find their footing again and both move on with their lives.

kqr 3y ago
I think you are missing the point. The salient difference is between "I'm sorry you feel that way" and "I'm sorry my actions made you feel that way". For some people, the latter is implicit in the former, but for some people it's not and then it becomes very shallow.
- webnrrd2k 3y ago
  Yeah - I take "I'm sorry you feel that way" as a way of blaming the victim for their feelings, as a subtle way of blaming them for having inappropriate or out-of-control feelings. And sometimes that's true, but, the majority of the time, that's the wrong reason.
  - swatcoder 3y ago
    Yes, you're articulating the bizarre dance of people trying to have a say in each others internal state. The victim wants the offender to feel contrite and the offender wants to the victim to feel less hurt. Since nobody seems to have complete control over these seemingly internal states, and no reliable way to measure them in each other, you end up with this unresolvable performative dance where each party tries to control the other's subjective experience. And what shakes out of that is people inevitably calling each other insincere, insensitive, passive agressive, out-of-control, etc

kqr 3y ago

I think you are missing the point. The salient difference is between "I'm sorry you feel that way" and "I'm sorry my actions made you feel that way". For some people, the latter is implicit in the former, but for some people it's not and then it becomes very shallow.

webnrrd2k 3y ago
Yeah - I take "I'm sorry you feel that way" as a way of blaming the victim for their feelings, as a subtle way of blaming them for having inappropriate or out-of-control feelings. And sometimes that's true, but, the majority of the time, that's the wrong reason.
- swatcoder 3y ago
  Yes, you're articulating the bizarre dance of people trying to have a say in each others internal state. The victim wants the offender to feel contrite and the offender wants to the victim to feel less hurt. Since nobody seems to have complete control over these seemingly internal states, and no reliable way to measure them in each other, you end up with this unresolvable performative dance where each party tries to control the other's subjective experience. And what shakes out of that is people inevitably calling each other insincere, insensitive, passive agressive, out-of-control, etc