Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The case against the Twitter apology and our culture of performed remorse

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 141 posts

Re: The case against the Twitter apology and our culture of performed remorse

#31

Post by jlos »

mjburgess wrote: post #4

Forgiveness as a kind of mourning makes sense, but is counter-intuitive. I think we've come to regard "forgiveness" as inevitably ending with reconsiliation. But perhaps, more often, it shouldnt. That is, forgiveness is how I see the other when I see them not as an enemy or friend, but as a tragic part of nature. I have moved on. Our ability to forgive has, perhaps, been distorted by the perception that it's an act o…

Forgiveness is about your commitment to move on from the wrong independent on the other person's action. It is more often an ongoing personal effort, and one you should always aim for after allowing space for appropriate anger.

Reconcilliation is about the other person acknowledging the accusation of wrong. A confession of sorts. I'd suggest in the face of sincere apology this is always desirable to reconcile (turn the other cheek and what-not).

Restoration is about returning to the person trust and its associated privildges. Not everyone deserves to be restored depending on what they've done. I would argue the true mark of contrition is an acceptance they may be forgiven but never restored (depending on the nature of offense, of course).

Re: The case against the Twitter apology and our culture of performed remorse

#32

Post by conductr »

thinkingemote wrote: post #22
mjburgess wrote: post #4

Forgiveness as a kind of mourning makes sense, but is counter-intuitive. I think we've come to regard "forgiveness" as inevitably ending with reconsiliation. But perhaps, more often, it shouldnt. That is, forgiveness is how I see the other when I see them not as an enemy or friend, but as a tragic part of nature. I have moved on. Our ability to forgive has, perhaps, been distorted by the perception that it's an act o…

People may be slow to forgive as they may think it gives something to the other, a type of concession, an admission of something, something on one side of an equation. But forgiveness mainly gives something to oneself not the other. It frees oneself from that hold over oneself. Apologies, if they are expected, are expected within the frame of a transaction. But forgiveness which doesn't seek something from the other…

> The person who is forgiven doesn't need to know they are forgiven. Even if they are told, the feeling of freedom and the actual forgiveness comes before that.

I was with you until this last bit. My experience is that people will beg for forgiveness. Even if you forgive them, you’ll then find it’s reconciliation they were after. They will then ignore your forgiveness, or rather continue asking for it until you provide them a sense of reconciliation. I usually cut ties by then. They typically don’t really care how you feel and it’s all to boost their own ego and right the wrongs they’ve inflicted in their own mind.

Maybe not universally applicable but my experiences seem to follow this pattern.

Re: The case against the Twitter apology and our culture of performed remorse

#33

Post by seydor »

chitowneats wrote: post #29
seydor wrote: post #24

It's not a "culture" issue imho. The mainstream basically decided to promote those staged "apologies", signaling to other celebrities that they should act like that, and they did.

What the mainstream promotes is culture. Contemporary culture at the very least.

hey no, that may look like that in america, but even there it is not true, the deep cultural characteristics of americans (e.g. hard work) won't change if the media tells them so. Popular culture is not the whole of culture in general

Re: The case against the Twitter apology and our culture of performed remorse

#34

Post by clnq »

Sakos wrote: post #11
chitowneats wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ya hehe I had to be it's what reputations are made of, to some extent I feel bad for those who get f*** by it by this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shiboleths and so everyone likes us

> by this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shiboleths and so everyone likes us Unfortunately, the people who treat it like a game like SBF are the ones who make it in business and in politics. There's no need to have ethics if it's sufficient just to act like you do. Reminds me of Kyrsten Sinema who played the part until she had the job.

Related: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-....

Re: The case against the Twitter apology and our culture of performed remorse

#35

Post by P5fRxh5kUvp2th »

mjburgess wrote: post #4

Forgiveness as a kind of mourning makes sense, but is counter-intuitive. I think we've come to regard "forgiveness" as inevitably ending with reconsiliation. But perhaps, more often, it shouldnt. That is, forgiveness is how I see the other when I see them not as an enemy or friend, but as a tragic part of nature. I have moved on. Our ability to forgive has, perhaps, been distorted by the perception that it's an act o…

I think it's easier described as a dismissal of the other as unimportant. I don't know that I would give it the moniker forgiveness, but it absolutely means you've moved on.

For example, an idea I live by is giving enough trust such that if the other person breaks that trust you've gained more than you've lost. A trite example would be letting a co-worker borrow $20. If they never pay you back you've gained more value from that than the $20 loss. Or if you have cleaners come into your home, if they steal that $5 sitting on the desk then you've gained much more you've lost.

From personal experience, through a bad set of circumstances, I once had a cat I loved very much scared up into a tree that hung over the privacy fence over the neighbors yard, who had a large dog. Long story short, the neighber was up in the tree, removed the cat, it fell into his yard, and the dog killed it. I wasn't there at the time since said neighbor was supposed to come and get me when he was ready (he had a friend who trimmed trees for a living supposed to come over). When I came over, he had the dog chained up in a corner so I could safely walk into the yard.

I was extremely sad over the cat, I spent over $2k in emergency surgery trying to save her. My gf to this day can't talk about her without crying and it's been years.

But I never got angry with the neighbor. Was it on purpose or just sheer stupidity? I honestly don't care, I can engage in an impotent rage or completely dismiss them as unimportant. I chose the latter. I was able to live next to that same neighbor for 3-4 more years, although we never had any other interactions.

quite frankly, they're not important enough for me to expend the energy on them.

Re: The case against the Twitter apology and our culture of performed remorse

#36

Post by chitowneats »

seydor wrote: post #33
chitowneats wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the mainstream promotes is culture. Contemporary culture at the very least.

hey no, that may look like that in america, but even there it is not true, the deep cultural characteristics of americans (e.g. hard work) won't change if the media tells them so. Popular culture is not the whole of culture in general

I did not say it was the whole of culture. I said it was culture. In English, saying something "is" something does not mean it is only that, or that it is all of that.

Re: The case against the Twitter apology and our culture of performed remorse

#37

Post by jabroni_salad »

themaninthedark wrote: post #6

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.

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.

Re: The case against the Twitter apology and our culture of performed remorse

#38

Post by P5fRxh5kUvp2th »

conductr wrote: post #32
thinkingemote wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People may be slow to forgive as they may think it gives something to the other, a type of concession, an admission of something, something on one side of an equation. But forgiveness mainly gives something to oneself not the other. It frees oneself from that hold over oneself. Apologies, if they are expected, are expected within the frame of a transaction. But forgiveness which doesn't seek something from the other…

> The person who is forgiven doesn't need to know they are forgiven. Even if they are told, the feeling of freedom and the actual forgiveness comes before that. I was with you until this last bit. My experience is that people will beg for forgiveness. Even if you forgive them, you’ll then find it’s reconciliation they were after. They will then ignore your forgiveness, or rather continue asking for it until you provi…

apologies are supposed to be an acknowledgement that they wronged you and letting them know you forgive them allows them to have closure so THEY can move on with their lives (emotionally).

We use it as the grease between the wheels for smaller things because we can't know what's in each others heads. And for larger things, it allows both parties to move on.

To forgive without letting the other person know is absolutely about punishment (assuming they're alive, available, etc).

I had a brother who had a fiance that left him, when she went to get remarried she sent him an email basically apologizing for all the shitty things she did and asking for forgiveness. he came to me in tears asking what he should do and I told him not to respond. Don't give her that closure, she wants to start her new life "clean".

I have no idea what he ended up doing, he never told me. Knowing him, he most likely did respond, but my point is that I viewed her apology as selfish and would have preferred she never got that closure.

Re: The case against the Twitter apology and our culture of performed remorse

#39

Post by tdehnel »

seydor wrote: post #26
mattgreenrocks wrote: post #16

Whoever figures out a secular distillation of the concept of grace is going to be very, very successful in community-building. The lack of it is painfully apparent, and it offers something to both the accused and the accusers. Now, whether people actually want that from others in these cases, or are merely enjoying the use of power a little too much, is another discussion.

grace or forgiveness?

Forgiveness: Making a big deal about how great you are for not judging someone, making it all about you. I forgive you.

Grace: Getting on with your life and not letting yourself get caught up in someone else’s moral failings. You do you.

Re: The case against the Twitter apology and our culture of performed remorse

#40

Post by banannaise »

themaninthedark wrote: post #6

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.

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.
Post reply on HN