Do you ever apologise?

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If on online forums or mailing lists or something like that you say something and then a few days later think "blimey, overstepped the mark there" do you apologise? Or do you just think "fuck the lot of them for disagreeing with me"?

There was an interesting thing last year when a subber to the London Review of Books was annoyed by the tone of their Sept 11 coverage, and wrote in proposing to come to their offices and force feed them dog shit. In the next issue he wrote in again to apologise for the intemperate tone of his comments (while still disagreeing with the articles that annoyed him). It did make me think how seldom you see that kind of retraction.

― DV, Friday, 15 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I never apologise because I am always right. Everything I say is said in a calm and well mannered tone of voice.

― DV, Friday, 15 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i apologise too much. i am too nice. i a pologise insincerely sometimes, like i did tonight when i had done nbothing wrong. but lets not go there.

― di, Friday, 15 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh I dunno. People apologise quite a lot on ILE. Haven't we got a special thread for 'I wish I hadn't posted that'?

― N., Friday, 15 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I would like to apologise for starting this thread. I should have thought about the hurt and offence it would cause.

― dV, Friday, 15 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

yes i believe so. at least i hope i do. anyone can be wrong at any time, i have been wrong before and i'll be wrong again. and you'll have your mind changed from time to time.

but, really, apologsing for an opinion is an odd concept, its agressivesness and/or tone that i would want to apologise for (although i hope i never come across this way because i don't feel this way). but then, maybe its right for some people to be aggressive, maybe they shouldn't apologise, i don't really know. but i do know that if i came across in a way that i didn't like, i would be very keen to apologise for that

― gareth, Friday, 15 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i like overstepping marx

― Geoff, Friday, 15 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I think Moore should apologise for starting this weary willy of a thread.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 15 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

for a GRATE moment i tht that DV was telling as that the fellow who wrote in to LRB was one of the mag's OWN SUB-EDITORS!! "I wish to rub yr face in dogshit!" "But Todd you proofed that article!! Why didn't you say something then?"

I find it much much easier to say sorry and mean it in print than in person. In person I say sorry all the time, but it's just a device to trick ppl into liking me.

― mark s, Friday, 15 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Yes of course. I try not to speak or act in ways that I will regret later but if for some reason I do I'm big enough to apologize.

― Samantha, Friday, 15 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Marcello, you have broken a sacred IL* rule by referring to me by my real surname, so now I will refer to your by yours, Vadgemonkey.

― DV, Friday, 15 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

VADGEMONKEY THE BILIOUS ONE-MAN ARMY!

I like that!

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 15 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

me too.

― richard john gillanders, Friday, 15 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

It would be great if someone apologised for not being insulting enough.

the best ever insult I ever saw on the web was on a website about tamagotchis where someone posted in to inform the person whose site it was that he was a "twenty geniteled motherfucker with no dick".

― DV, Friday, 15 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I can't think of anything I've ever done that I regret. There are a few things I haven't done that I regret not having done, but they all involve extreme acts of violence upon people bigger than me so it's probably a good thing I didn't do them.

I rarely apologise and when I do it is only to placate/manipulate someone else e.g. I'm sorry you were upset rather than I'm sorry I did whatever.

― toraneko, Friday, 15 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I APOLOGISE THAT TORANEKO IS SO CATTY

― Mike Hanle y, Friday, 15 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

baby's on fire, better throw her in the water.

― helenfordsdale, Friday, 15 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Richard, this is where you should post that "Women Drivers Convention" photo again.

― Mandee, Friday, 15 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

If I'm in the wrong I'll admit to it and apologise.

― jel, Friday, 15 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Apologising is more than just deciding you were wrong in some opinion. That's trivial, but as some people have alluded to, it's often about GETTING ALONG. I don't think that apologising when one secretly thinks the other party is more in the wrong than you is fine and not necessarily 'manipulative' or dishonest. Partly it's about deciding a relationship is worth more than a pig-headed fall out over something and partly it's just the recognition that just because you feel in the right yourself EVERYONE does and we can't all be right all the time.

― N., Friday, 15 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Nick is OTM. Apologizing != "You are right and I am wrong."

― Dan Perry, Friday, 15 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Hi All. Yes I apologise often. I know that most times I can't find the words that I want to get across, and it comes out completely opposite to what I want to say :( I'm not mean mouthed and I don't curse people out and call them names. I like everyone here and I respect all of your opinions, athough sometimes I might disagree with some. If I have offended anyone here, i do apologise. Gale

― Gale, Friday, 15 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

You know what drives me insane? "I'm sorry for what I did, BUT..." followed by a lecture on exactly why I deserved whatever they're supposedly apologizing for. And it's always said in the most sincere tone.

I do apologize, but only when I think I did something wrong (most of the time I get into arguments wiht people). I can't bring myself to apologize when I'm not actually sorry.

― Maria, Friday, 15 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I meant what i said. I didn't mean to offend anyone.

― Gale, Friday, 15 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

You didn't offend me at all....

― Maria, Friday, 15 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I find it much easier to say sorry in person. Never said sorry online.

― Atul, Saturday, 16 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm amazed you thought what I said was catty, assuming that you were serious (I'm wondering if the pun intentional).

Someone mentioned regret further upstream and I find it interesting that so many people hold regrets and experience guilt. They are two emotions with which I am not very familiar. I have rarely done anything that I feel bad about afterwards, sometimes I have found other people's reactions to things I've done (or said) tiresome or offensive or annoying but possibly never enough so as to cause me to actually regret having done whatever it was in the first place.

Guilt has almost no role in my life, unless it is associated with what I would call an addiction taking precedence over other things that are really important to me (such as eating too much sugar, spending too many hours on the internet or reading too many books instead of losing weight, going to sleep or doing an assignment).

There are, however, some things I regret not having done - mostly involving not reporting sexual abuse, not protecting someone in a fight, not having stood up for someone being harassed or bullied.

As I rarely regret anything I have done, when I do upset someone it is only suitable for me to apologise for upsetting them, not for what I have done - but I do this begrudgingly and with (positive) ulterior motives (i.e. to placate them, I consider placation to be a form of manipulation). I do not feel that I should have to take responsibility for someone else's sensitivities if they are towards something with which I have no qualms. I don't like giving apologies for having upset someone because I consider it to be a kind of lying by omission thing - the apology is usually only accepted if they don't clue on to the fact that you are not actually apologising for the thing you did, just for making them feel the way they did.

Sitting here thinking about it, just about the only thing that would qualify for regret or guilt (but in my mind qualifies more for dismay) is the fact that I am not always demonstrative enough to let my friends know how much I appreciate them and how grateful I am when they are there for me.

― toraneko, Saturday, 16 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

If I'm drunk or mashed or something I get really paranoid and think I'm offending everyone. I walk through the club like it's a minefield apologising to anyone I brush off. Usually someone turns me round and says "ITS OK!!!! HONESTLY!!! YOU'RE DOING NOTHING", and then my mentalism subsides.

― Ronan, Saturday, 16 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

toraneko = matty.

do you think you have never done anything wrong?

― di, Saturday, 16 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

In above "I don't think that" = "I think that", sense fans.

ps. Maria is totally right. Qualified apologies are the worst.

― N., Saturday, 16 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Qualified apologies are unchivalric, but more accurate. Because to apologise wholeheartedly is either to be rhetorical or simple-minded.

We need more moral cubists in this world, more people who admit the complexity of moral choices. And we need more tolerance of ambiguity. Qualified apologies may be unchivalric, but chivalry is about a knight on his high horse. He gets down, makes a ceremonial bow, apologises unconditionally, then gets back on his high horse again. The qualifying apologiser is someone on your level, who speaks to you about his feelings as honestly as you speak to yourself about your own. It's never simple.

― Momus, Saturday, 16 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

That's all very well, Momus, but what if you want to stay friends with someone who doesn't like qualified apologies?

And like I said, swallowing your pride and accepting that you might be wrong even if you can't see it yourself is part of 'admitting the complexity of moral choices'.

― N., Saturday, 16 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

SOMETIMES WHEN YOU GET DOWN OFF YOUR HIGH HORSE, YOU STEP IN THE MUD OF SELF PITY, BUT APOLOGIES CAN MAKE YOU FEEL LIKE YOU BIT INTO A YORK PEPPERMINT PATTY

― Mike Hanle y, Saturday, 16 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

It's never simple.
Yes, it is. You either apologize or you don't. So what's it gonna be, Momus? Huh huh? ;-)

― helenfordsdale, Saturday, 16 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I LOVE YORK PEPPERMINT PATTY

― N., Saturday, 16 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

We're working with two different definitions of apology here. There's the apology which is 'chivalric' or symbolic: essentially it's giving someone whose feelings have been hurt a bunch of flowers. Then there's the apology in which you try to explain your true feelings, typically making a compromise between your former position (the one that caused the hurt in the first place) and your new position, in which you are prepared to compromise because of the results of your previous behaviour or position. This is the 'show all working' apology. I think it gets a bad press. It's the more honest and vulnerable of the two apologies. Flowers are cheap, but self- revelations and subtle renegotiations are always difficult. We shouldn't diss the people who dare to take that route. I think they are more laudable than the chivalric gentlemen.

― Momus, Saturday, 16 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Perhaps you're right, in a wider moral context, and in terms of working towards a more intelligent utopia. But pragmatically speaking, I find life to be a pain without those chivalric gentleman and ladies.

― N., Saturday, 16 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Au contraire, it's the chivalric gentlefolk who live in a Utopia, a sort of Hallmark Utopia where someone does something, then undergoes a frog-to-prince transformation and, in the waving of a wand and a dozen red roses, suddenly represents the very antithesis of his former deed. Get real, Sir Horace Horsewhip!

― Momus, Saturday, 16 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

By the way, I just want to make clear that I am not defending the strategy Maria outlines and denounces above, the Wooden Horse apology in which I make a fake apology all the better to mollify you and penetrate your defensive walls, then leap out of my 'gift' to lay waste to your city with bloodcurdling warcries.

We have to distinguish between the qualified apology which explains my own thinking and the qualified apology which attacks yours, though I admit that's not always possible.

― Momus, Saturday, 16 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The qualified apology I'm familiar with isn't what I would call "discussing your true feelings." It's more like using the apology at the start as an excuse to go into a lecture and get mad at the person you just apologized to all over again. If you say "I'm sorry," that doesn't mean that any subsequent words are friendly, and using a qualified apology to reopen your grievances and act like the other person's a total ingrate if they say anything besides a humble apology (and not a qualified one as that is merely answered by "but I just SAID i was SORRY") is TOTALLY UNFAIR because it's a guilt trip.

― Maria, Saturday, 16 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh, I didn't see that last post before I replied. Heh, carry on then.

― Maria, Saturday, 16 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I should just like to point out that I do indeed do the 'show all working' type of apology sometimes, when I know the person well enough and there are issues to resolve that shouldn't be brushed under the carpet. But you have to pick the right, non-shouty moment.

― Sir Horace Horsewhip, Saturday, 16 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I do do things that were probably wrong in retrospect, but I don't regret them and they are usually personal things, not to do with other people.

Part of it is about choosing whether to live in the past, the present or the future. Things are how they are now because of things that have been done in the past.

To regret what you have done in the past is to regret where you are now in the present. That's not a way I choose to live my life. I accept that things are how they are for what ever reason and I do what I believe is right in the present in order to try to create the future that I want.

Good comes out of every "wrong" turn, just as bad comes out of every "right" turn. And without being able to live parallel existences how are you to really know that what you did/said etc. was actually the "wrong" thing.

In order to maintain friendships that I want to continue to exist in the future I have occasionally found it necessary to apologise for the way something I have done has made someone feel but I do not like this way of behaving. I would much rather express sympathy or empathy with the way they are feeling that to apologise for it.

Recognising that you have done something that may have been wrong in no way requires you to feel regret or guilt.

Wrong and right are not black and white. I have no interest in living in or dwelling on the past so I accept the present as being right, even when it is bad.

― toraneko, Saturday, 16 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Good lord. It has happened. I agree with Momus!

― Kim, Sunday, 17 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

toraneko called me an ugly bulldyke wannabe, and she didn't even say sorry. i think she told me to fuck up too.
"apologising" for the way someone else felt from what you did, like "i'm sorry you're upset about what i did" is such a lowdown weasel thing to do and it's NOT apologising. toraneko is fuckin self- righteous, and rude.

― elizabeth anne marjorie, Sunday, 17 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

people shouldn't apologise for telling people to fuck up because its so funny that any humour that arises from it would cancel out the offensiveness."hey fuck up" "no you fuck up" "fuck you you fucking fuck why don't you fucking fuck up fuckwit" etc.

― hamish, Sunday, 17 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

people shouldn't apologise for telling people to fuck up because its so funny that any humour that arises from it would cancel out the offensiveness

yeah, i agree; i thought it was funny when toraneko posted that to me, but i just wanted to make fun of her now, except i can't, 'cause she's unimpeachable (and i'm not smart 'nuf to do well fighting people with words and being sarcastic and the like)

― elizabeth anne marjorie, Sunday, 17 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Why would I say sorry? I meant it.

― toraneko, Friday, 22 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

toraneko you have shit for brains. i'm not sorry i said that and i'm not sorry if i hurt your feelings.

― di, Friday, 22 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Well Di, it would be pretty pathetic if you did feel sorry. I'm surprised at your comment though, I had thought you were a bit more open-minded and intelligent than your friend Liz.

I know that you have done a women's studies course of some type but from many of your comments on ILE I had assumed that you had not been completely indoctrinated by the bullshit, feminist rhetoric that they tried to shove down your throat.

I had noted that despite your attempts to defy normal female stereotype behaviour you still suffered the guilt that is so commonly and so wrongly taken on by women - for not "behaving" how they are meant to, or for expressing how they are feeling even if it is going to cause a tense situation or make someone else feel less than joyous. I suppose this should have been a clue that really you are no different to any other woman who is trying to break stereotypes by doing a women's studies course (i.e. sitting around whinging about how unfair life is in this "patriarchal" society) rather than actually getting out there and doing something.

I liked what you had to say on the Lesbian Desire thread, if Liz hadn't brought the tone of the discussion down so low it would have been a great thread to continue. I'm sure it would have got more interesting with the input of Nitsuh and others who joined it towards the end.

Anyway, whilst you did not hurt my feelings at all you did disappoint me somewhat. I did not think you were the sort of person to start making insults to defend someone else just because you know them - have you actually read what she had to say? Are you defending what she said or just defending her? I find it very hard to believe that you would not find what she said offensive and counter-productive unless you have been so numbed to such offal through your women's studies.

I think you have a choice. You can either continue to follow the path of typical female behaviour where you sacrifice the ability to communicate with people who challenge your opinions, who have different morals and who have beliefs that are contrary to your own or you can move on a bit from that and learn to say what you believe without fear or guilt - and also not just listen to but really hear what others have to say without fear and guilt. I suspect you are intellectually capable of the latter, but it would take a fair bit of mental strength too.

― toraneko, Sunday, 24 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

toraneko i think its very rich that you should talk about self- expression after the way you flamed liz for expressing herself. what is this "indoctrination of womens studies" shit? assuming firstly that people don't get indoctrinated in whatever discipline they choose to take up and secondly assuming that people who do womens studies can't think for themselves. the reason why feminist theory is so interesting to me is precisely because every theorist has something different, new and exciting to say. if i believed in everything i learnt in womens studeis i would be a very confused individual. i appreciate that you are attempting to break with female stereotypes too, but i think that respect for other people including what you call "bull-dykes" is still crucial. i wasn't defending liz with my statement, by the way, liz is obviously quite capable of defending herself. i was just calling it how i see it.

― di, Sunday, 24 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Di, I flamed Liz for flaming me. If she had expressed her opinions without having to flame, then I would have been happy to discuss them with her. As she was not able to do this, I did not consider it worthwhile to discuss anything with her - but I did consider her flaming worth a riposte.

I do not believe that people need become indoctrinated by their discipline, although I do believe that they will all become tainted by it (precluding suitably timed amnesia perhaps).

As for you calling it how you see it - if you considered me to have shit for brains, why would you take note of anything I have to say?

― toraneko, Thursday, 28 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

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