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

41–50 of 141 posts

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

#41

Post by banannaise »

seydor wrote: post #27
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.

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.

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.

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

#42

Post by eesmith »

> Whose P.R.-purposed apology was worse? Al Franken’s or Louis C.K.’s? ... At SorryWatch.com and @SorryWatch, Susan McCarthy and Marjorie Ingall have been

Let's take a look at what they say about those two, at https://sorrywatch.com/al-and-louie/ .

Franken's first apology was a not-pology. The second is described as, on the whole, a good apology.

As for Louis C.K.'s: "People! He never says he’s sorry! So many words, and none of them are “I’m sorry” or “I apologize”!"

And from https://sorrywatch.com/a-roundup-of-good-celebrity-apologies... : "Look, I’m feeling kinda demoralized by people thinking Louis CK apologized well, what with him not actually saying he was sorry. (As we note repeatedly here, REGRET IS NOT APOLOGY, chant it with me.)

I don't see how the author of this piece connects Franken's apology to "performed remorse". How are we to conclude it wasn't an expression of real remorse?

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

#43

Post by seanhunter »

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…

  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.
This is an incredibly interesting observation. In this sense then, forgiveness is an act of kindness- to oneself. Because I have moved on, I don't need to carry the bad feeling around with me anymore.

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

#44

Post by politician »

As I scrolled down the article, my browser reduced the reading area down to ~6.8 lines of content rendered into a rectangle having an area of ~8 square inches. The rest of the screen filled itself with junk.

If anyone from the New Yorker is reading, please tweak the breakpoints on the media queries for the 13" MacBook Air.

:emoji-laughing-at-the-futility-of-such-an-ask:

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

#45

Post by rqtwteye »

eastbound wrote: post #5
rqtwteye wrote: post #3

The same can be said for things like diversity statements. You know exactly what you are supposed to say and any deviation will be punished . It’s just a formality you have to perform correctly.

In other words, we tell lies, to people who pretend to believe them. Everyone lies and we know it, our companies have mottos and everyone knows they’re fluff, and we teach kids to “thrive in ambiguity”, which is a beautiful phrase I’ve found on a job offer and which I have found symptomatic of our economy. I still wonder what it was like to live in ex-RDA. Did people tell lies that others pretended to believe?

“In other words, we tell lies, to people who pretend to believe them.”

The same happens at corporations. When you are in planning meetings you often know the politically correct answer already. If you say it will actually take five times longer you are out of the inner circle. That although everybody knows that it will take that long. Seems the whole hierarchy is one big circle where everybody bullshits each other and knows it.

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

#46

Post by chasd00 »

tdehnel wrote: post #39
seydor wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 .

I can see how forgiveness can be weaponized like that but to me forgiveness is only there to benefit the forgiver. Granted, getting good at forgiveness risks you just becoming a door mat. Similarly, Getting good at grace risks you becoming naive and ignorant to the world around you.

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

#47

Post by pksebben »

P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #35
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 valu…

That story is heartbreaking, and such a good example of what to do with grief. Grieving about the thing that hurts has a terminus, emotionally; bearing a grudge 'pins' the grief to you, holding it in place indefinitely.

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

#49

Post by qikInNdOutReply »

seanhunter wrote: post #43
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…

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. This is an incredibly interesting observation. In this sense then, forgiveness is an act of kindness- to oneself. Because I have moved on, I don't need to carry the bad feeling around with me anymore.

You could put that feeling behind you by automating holding a grudge. Let Grumblebot take care of your anger issues.

def ifPersonaNonGrataPosts(Person NonGrata):

   let ListOfSins = getListOfSins(NonGrata)

    for socialMedia in AllSocialMediaAccounts do

      socialMedia.post(ListOfSins)

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

#50

Post by chasd00 »

seanhunter wrote: post #43
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…

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. This is an incredibly interesting observation. In this sense then, forgiveness is an act of kindness- to oneself. Because I have moved on, I don't need to carry the bad feeling around with me anymore.

I suppose that also aligns when someone seeks forgiveness, they want the forgiver to move on and not hold a grudge.
Post reply on HN