Because we are so naturally interactive, we picture an apology as being something given or presented by the person who did wrong to the person who as been trespassed against; we picture forgiveness as being extended from the person who has been wronged to the one who offended, as grace given. The opposite is closer to the truth. We apologise for our own good, whether the apology is accepted or understood or not. We forgive for our own good, whether the offender has apologised and understood or not. That latter counterintuitive thought is becoming more well-known, but is still not much a part of popular culture, neither Christian nor secular. Christians may claim to have known that for years, and there is some validity to that, but we can't claim deep penetrance into the cultures we have supposedly influenced the most. The most common view of apology is to make things right with someone we have hurt. We say something that makes them (more) whole.
To tell someone how to apologise properly, then, seems to be telling them how to appease another, and there is an aspect of it where we are indeed putting ourself into the power of another. This is what I did wrong. I am prepared to be more specific if you like, but I won't otherwise burden you with the details. Here is what I will do to prevent it happening again. I am sorry. With such statements you open yourself up to the other person lashing back at you. They might not be fair about it. You may have opened the door to greater acrimony (which is why wisdom is also important, as the people in the 12-Step groups who have worked long and hard on Step 9 know. Reinserting yourself years later into the life of a person who would prefer to forget you and have nothing to do with you may not help matters), or even cause them to sin.
Yet if this seems only obvious, consider how often people think they have traveled far on the road to reconciliation with you by saying "I'm sorry I treated you like I did." Sometimes that is not a real apology, only an attempt to make bad feelings go away when they dimly sense they have done wrong. It is a child's apology, not an adult's.
So forgiveness is slowly coming into focus as something that is a painful liberation for ourselves, whatever it does for others. This is counterintuitive, but gaining recognition. I now add in the mirror image that apologies are not for the other person, we contemplate them and craft them for ourselves. I think this is even farther from our usual thinking since childhood, yet I think it is so.
Our usual encounters with what we consider the really difficult apologies and forgivings come from the news. The congregation in South Carolina that had people at Bible study shot forgives Dylann Roof almost immediately, and we wonder how such a thing can be. Politicians and celebrities apologise and we observe very closely exactly what they are and are not saying, even while we recognise that most of the public is saying "Well she apologised. What else do you want?"
Yet most of what we encounter in real life is much more complicated and interactive than that. When we take proper care and apologise in an adult fashion we are often quietly asserting what we are not apologising for, even when we quite sincerely throw ourselves on the mercy of the other to say what they will against us in response. And in so doing we are performing a service of teaching understanding of themselves after all. We apologise for this but not for that. And as they seldom hear or understand the distinction, achieving reconciliation is now much farther away rather than closer, and we will have to start calculating according to kindness and obsession when it is better to simply cut our losses and when it is better to press on.
Yes, yes, we have hit another of those topics where I found myself in deeper waters than expected and now have to rename this post "Part One." Does that scare you away? Likely not ye few who remain.
7 comments:
Some rocket never got far because someone forgot to change metric to US standard, or the other way, so the story went.
Your exploration of apology may? benefit from thinking about a rare term 'supererogation' that only v recently became known to me, and still working on it.
The Wikipedia definition of this word was the pilot light for me - our ?Western world is built on ancient Calvinist/ Protestant piles, and this construction has gone well beyond foundations, and now crazy people on the highest most outthrust balcony of almost no support think they own it. Utilitarian legatees of unpleasant and wrong beliefs in preDestination are the balcony dwellers. But that is their only support.
The Soviets proved Stakhanovite thinking goes nowhere.
Your thoughts on correct and healthy apology seems to with this.
Perhaps the Catholic Church is correct and hundreds of years of thought and much lumber is rotten.
I had not known the term supererogation. It is indeed worthy of contemplation, whether it can become a vice or an evil. At first take, I think CS Lewis would say it could be, as following Chesterton, he believed that a virtue swollen out of proportion is dangerous. Yet how do we tell, in ourselves and others, and isn't it safest to err on the side of more goodness?
And yet...
And yet...
As an alternative way of thinking about it, in ethics generally (as opposed to specifically theological ethics), we use the term “superogatory” to mean that an action is overdetermined. The question is often whether a particular ethical system — Kant’s, say — supports the idea. You could potentially profit from the discussion and work it back into your own ethics.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/supererogation/
Generally if one thinks of moral action as a duty, it doesn’t really matter if it’s a duty for one reason or two. However, for Kant one often has wide or imperfect obligations; you might have a moral duty to do kind things, but you still have a range of choice about to whom to do them. You might use the superogatory as a mode of helping you to decide where precisely to do your duty; or in how exactly to fulfill it.
For example, you might have a choice between fulfilling your duty to kindness by visiting your mother and taking her a gift; or, alternatively, by riding into town to serve at a homeless kitchen. Both alternatives satisfy the duty to kindness; you can think about which alternative best satisfies your other duties as well. None of the actions are wrong, and you have to choose between them anyway. Here’s one way to think about how.
Perhaps. It would be good to be sure. Wanting is not getting, though.
The rocket that did not go far declared itself pretty soon after the error in one? small part of it. Some errors are not so easily traced and proved. Big ones that matter.
I think JoshScorcher put it well in his video on the ToonKriticY2K pedophilia scandal.
“The word ‘forgiveness’, for most Christians, holds a drastically different meaning than for most secular audiences. First, I want to talk about what we DON’T mean. Some think that when we say ‘forgiveness’, we mean that we need to run up and hug this guy, and have all sorts of lovey-dovey feelings towards him, or that we mean forgive and forget. NO. We don’t believe that. No one in their right MIND would defend nor absolve Toon’s actions. … The law is very clear that he needs to pay for what he did, both the laws of the land and the laws of God. I am in TOTAL agreement with everyone.
“Another thing we don’t mean is to dismiss the pain that Toon’s victims are going through. To all of Toon’s victims, we hear how much you’ve suffered, and we do want you to be heard. We are sorry that you had to fight through the pain for so long, and we’re grateful that you had the courage to speak up. … You should know that all of us just want for you to heal. …
“As for what we DID mean: It should be noted that the secular and popular definition of forgiveness is synonymous with acceptance. Ever since the beginning, people have been telling us that forgiveness should be earned. Going on THAT definition, yes! I agree, acceptance must be earned. The Christian definition of forgiveness, however, means something else entirely. It is rooted in something that is not a feeling and cannot be earned. I think it’s important to know that when I or Doc say ‘forgiveness’, we do not mean that someone should not still be punished for a sin. We simply mean that they should be treated without cruelty[.] … My beliefs empirically state that we must love everyone as we love ourselves, and as such, if I was to commit a serious crime, even though I may believe my intentions were good, I know that I should turn myself in and face the consequences of my actions.”
Reversing the polarity: It Could Work
using Grim's reply to advance the attempt to look at AVLs topic on apologies, supererogation, by his definition as meaning 'overdetermined' is said to be in a generally ethically framework. To restate, unless I'm mistaken.
As a fish may not know what water is, never knowing different, do we know? if we are in the biggest sea of ethics, or is it an adminstratively convenient aquarium with a porcelain hard helmet diver some plastic water weed and a bubble oxygenator.
'Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's...'
Supererogation (relating to the whole body of water and not just apologies ) seems to me a freedom from, and not an overdetermination.
I owe this much to Caesar ....and all the rest to God. Take God out and the Wizard of Oz gets total control of what remains.
Those who wish to be aquarium keepers and deny that part that is Gods, or that there is a God who has His part, of course deny supererogation. Work like a Stakhanovite because Stalin says so. Swim endlessly mouthing the glass with all the other goldfish.
Shame casters and unresting seekers after apology have no limit, because their world is so limited. Shame acceptors, are much rarer than casters, esp in this aquarium where the Siamese fighting fish don't stop until all but one are dead.
The limit to the requirement is humane and not overdetermination. And a necessary mental boundary if part of the culture, for those who can't see this themselves, and to protect all from Big Frogs in v small ponds. But esp from themselves.
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