The Sorry State of “I’m Sorry”
The mid-term elections are now over, and it appears that those candidates who had embraced the 2020 “Big Steal” in hopes of earning “The Former Guy’s” all-important endorsement didn’t do so well. Here in Wisconsin the strategy boomeranged on the cocksure Tim Michels, who lost to a soft-spoken and charisma-free former educator, Tony Evers. Throughout the country the story was much the same, but with minor exceptions Trump endorsed losers resignedly accepted the voter’s verdict while refusing to swallow their election-denying pride.
Did any of these newly chastened souls apologize for what many had to know was an opportunistic and mendacious gambit? I haven’t heard one yet. In fact, the prevailing sentiment now seems to be, “Just let the matter rest.” As Harvard historian Jill Lepore observed in a recent installment of The New Yorker, “Predictably, the split seems to have become partisan, as if to apologize were progressive, to forget, conservative.”
In that same article, Lepore shares part of the rant Alex Jones delivered in the courtroom where a jury was deliberating on the amount of money he’d be required to pay the stricken families of the Sandy Hook children and teachers killed by a heavily armed assailant in December 2012. For much of time since the assault, Jones has told millions of radio listeners that it never happened and that Adam Lanza’s victims never existed - a fabulist narrative that has earned him mega-bucks from his conspiracy hungry fans. Under the circumstances, one might have expected just a wee bit of contrition from Mr. Jones. Instead, “I’m done saying I’m sorry,” is the line he used.
This unwillingness to apologize shouldn’t surprise us. Two hundred years ago, men squared off with pistols and rapiers rather than besmirch their honor by begging pardon after having given offense. The default position, particularly for men, is to raise the shields in order to present a false-front of capability and power and avoid any sign of weakness. Road rage may be the modern equivalent of the classic duel at twenty paces. What we fail to realize is that a sincere apology has the very real potential to “mend that which deserves to be mended.”
A minor example. A few months ago, Trina and I and our two small dogs were making an effortless drive to the Twin Cities to spent a couple of days with our son. A few miles east of Eau Claire on I-94, I happened to glance to my left where a stand of trees had been bushwhacked by what must have been a small twister. Just as my eyes returned to the road, I passed a State Trooper stopped on the right shoulder. There was no time to move into the left lane, so I wasn’t surprised when, a few miles further on, he pulled me over.
The trooper approached us on the safe passenger side of the van, and before he even explained the stop I gave him an honest account of why I didn’t change lanes as the law requires. I knew that I was at fault, I told him, and recognized how dangerous is was for him to make traffic stops on a highway with cars whizzing by at seventy-five miles per hour. After a brief discussion that I don’t now recall, he walked to his cruiser, then returned with a warning ticket. “I appreciate your honesty,” he said, “and your concern. I don’t hear that very often. Please drive safe.”
“Least said, soonest mended” is an aphorism that dates back several centuries. It is meant to dissuade us from offering lengthy explanations for injurious behavior that could well be received as justifications or excuses.
Now, my apology for this traffic infraction not only spared me a monetary fine of close to $200.00, but pulling back into the flow of traffic I actually felt rather peaceful. The trooper had been courteous and understanding, to be sure, but there was something else stirring inside that business ethicist John Kador points to when he writes: “Apology sends the clearest signal that we have the strength of character to reconcile ourselves with the truth…it is the most courageous gesture we can make to ourselves.”
Much has been written in recent years about the art of apology, often with the cautionary note that a bungled apology (e.g., Will Smith’s initial outreach to Chris Rock following his famous Oscars slap) often makes matters worse. One of the most common mistakes is to express “regret” instead of “remorse.” The former, as Beverly Flanagan explains, rues the outcome (I’m sorry you were hurt) rather than the deed (I’m sorry for what I did). Regret may well deflect responsibility onto the victim by implying that he or she might be too sensitive. To be remorseful, on the other hand, is to fully own one’s actions and make a commitment to do whatever inner work is necessary to avoid a recurrence.
The Buddhist teacher Ken McLeod puts it this way: “We have to stop feeding the inner patterns that moved us to do harm in the first place.” Regrettably, those obstinate patterns remain firmly embedded in too many people, including some of whom I myself had expected more.
“Why can’t we just get along?” Rodney King famously exclaimed after his senseless beating by unrepentant officers of the LA police force. The poor state of apology may have something to do with it.
