I think a major point missing in amongst the discussion so far, and one that's causing a lot of crosstalk is whether you should even be apologising at all. For example. Progressives are widely known for their enthusiastic use of forcing people into public apologies for perceived crimes against the faith or for not acquiescing to unreasonable demands which can then be framed as a perceived wrong. I think a lot of the…
> 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…
>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.