Tort advantage. Quite right. Which is why you'll never, if ever, see a corporation, company, doctor, lawyer or other professional apologize for anything. They may pay billions in reparations, such as with the asbestos litigation (which mostly benefits the legal establishment) but they'll never apologize for keeping the knowledge that asbestos kills people hidden for almost a hundred years. Apologizing would be an admission of guilt with aforethought making them highly liable and at much greater risk, possibly even criminal.
A while back I was driving down the street in San Francisco with my girl and her son. He and I had just picked her up and he was telling her a little in awe that in the model store, I'd just walked behind the counter and picked up the model we wanted to look at when I said, Bela, if you're willing to apologize you can almost get away with murder. His mother flew into a modest rage at my revealing this tidbit of slightly immoral wisdom to her son. I think he'd have figured it out on his own anyway. He was a smart kid with at least one whacked out parent. I think forgiveness and asking for forgiveness two very powerful acts. They reach deep inside most of us and resonate with what feels like a better self. Chris, this is why I get so pissed off at religion. It's not only catholics. The jews have guilt down pretty damned well too. And it seems the Muslims are turning out to be even better at it. And that accounts for half of all humanity. Not all but most religions teach that we are steeped in sin and can only find redemption through their version of god. Out of which comes the reality that guilt is one of the best control mechanisms in societies' arsenal. The request for forgiveness or for an apology because it is do deep in us, this guilt we all carry, is a request for the freedom to be honest or for honesty back from the other. It's a very effective and versitile tool which can be used at either end of the moral spectrum and everything in betweeen. But that's still not going back far enough. Where did this psychic dynamic of guilt come from. I tend to look back at our very early almost preconscious beginnings and ask what could it have been to have startled an awakening consciouness into a state of feeling guilt, of feeling badly. Was it a free floating state or did it attach only to certain sorts of behavior? Or was it free floating to begin with and environmental forces influenced its associations until they became as friendly as an itch. It seems it could also have been the beginnings of morality, of having a sense of wronging another and feeling badly enough to want to open oneself up to the hurt. But we were also fearful animals and that sort of vulnerability wouldn't be allowed for many more generations. So we took it inside and hid it away creating shame in the process. It is no small accident that the virtue humility and the shame of humiliation are brother and sister. Apology is important to everyone I think. Every one of us is susceptible to it in one form or another. We all wrong others and are wronged in turn. It's part of life ... at least at this phase of development ... and sometimes it feels good to apologize for having wronged someone especially when it is well received. Because if it's not that can cause friction. It's a risk but if one is steeled it's survivable. Besides, it gives you the high road. We all know making mistakes is a part of life. We don't learn, it's been said, without making mistakes. So making them isn't so bad. It's how one handles them that gives their experience character. And when our mistakes hurt another, that also seems to be character building depending on whether you can apologize for your own actions. But bottom line, for most of us, whether wronged or right, it feels good to apologize and be apologized to. Both acts add to one's sense of self worth. Apology as accusation. An interesting concept and one the Church I think used quite well back in their heyday. Brushing it under the carpet. Yeah, Slip, that happens a lot too. It's called denial and a favorite hobby of we humans. If I had a dollar for everything I've ever denied, I'd ... Denial is an art form taught in law schools and seminarys where it is practiced regularly. In law it's called discovery. That's where each side gets to ask the other questions under oath, to produce documents of all sorts, allow examinations, and admit to certain facts. The latter is called Admissions. You can create hundreds of possible scenarious and ask each other to either admit or deny the allegation. If there is no response to the Admissions after thirty days they are all deemed admitted to. There is an art form to denial that has developed. In criminal law it is practiced as mens rea or the guilty mind. One has to have the intent to break the law in order to be guilty of it. Without intent it is mere tort -- negligence or at worst callous disregard. So there are degrees of guilt determined by intent and foreknowledge, which is what intent is. You have to know that what you are going to do is wrong and going to hurt someone so that when it you do it you have done criminal wrong. Molly, I think the apologies that nations make and demand publicly are theatre of the absurd most of the time but do have diplomatic weight and therefore of some small value. Of course I agree that it would be much better if what needs to be said and done could be without all that posturing but that's asking for a lot of faith and trust. On the other side of that is the fact that I believe a lot of that sort of honesty and sincere apology does go on out of the public eye, behind closed doors where the real business of nations is for the most part thankfully conducted. I mean, I appreciate that they are sufficiently afraid of us they feel the need to posture about like prancing nancies, but they don't need to be so obsequious about it. Sometimes a strong dictator can be like a breath of fresh air. Heh. Another aspect of apology is the responsibility it implies. Sometimes apology can be a means of enhancing ones ego, other times it's such an admirable assumption of responsibility that the person feels obliged to apologize for perceived negligences. I think the act of apologizing has value in and of itself and when responded to with forgiveness merely enhances that value, a synergy of sorts I'd imagine, which goes in both directions. If the apology is false or the response hostility or both, there can be a negative effect. Yin yang, ipso facto and all that. I doubt there is anything humans can do that is without significance somewhere someplace somehow. We are first order causes. Our very breathing has import. Each beat of our hearts echos across time. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa. Francis, you've done some high reading. I envy you within limits. But in asia is there also not an honor bound need for apology? It sounds like you are only looking at one side of it. It is also a major humiliation to have owed an apology and not given it. Asian cultures seem to have taken such esoteric pursuits into cultural theatre. Perhaps it is all nothing more than a natural progression in learning how to be more mature. It's nice to find independent agreement that we seems to be growing out of the dark pit of our primitive natures. I'd put us about adolescence Francis. How about you? Unforgiven wrongs turn into regrets like bunions and as Sinatra tells it, we all have a few. This is the concept -- this examination of conscience they tried to teach me as a young catholic -- was nothing more than a rote review of certain sins we were expected to commit but confessing to another man, well that was just too much so confession became a rote practice, a litany of sins we knew would only get us a few our fathers and hail marys and a promise to never do it again. Therapy can be good. You're right, it's a paid friend, but what the hell, in a storm any port that offers safe harbor works. With stress levels what they are in society these days, it'd probably be good if we each had one at short call. Just someone you could let it all out with and feel safe, feel they had no agenda with you, wanted nothing from you, would just give you their frank reaction. Other than the personal annoyance it causes me because most people's 'me' is a thimbleful I don't see much wrong with the 'me' generation mindset, which spans more than one generation I think. It's almost gotten out of hand with kids but the overall outcome well be good. We are so much more than we think we are, its time we learned how to deal with the large ego that will be necessary to handle such responsibility. Nor do I see more wrong than right out of narcissism. Liking what one looks like seems necessary to stepping up and taking charge. It's the flip side of guilt and doesn't have to be bad. It can be but it doesn't have to and is in fact necessary to rise above oneself. I'd have to amend that Molly, to say that forgiveness requires two only to the point where one can forgive oneself, which seems to be the point where guilt can finally be lifted off one's shoulders. We sometimes hold ourselves to outlandish standards that couldn't be met by any of the gods we've belived in, let alone us. Other times of course we are like sluttish cats in back alleys with no standards at all, just wanna ... well, you know. Out out damned spot. Righteous indignation is sweet till someone shoves it back in your face. As an old pirate once said in a movie as he was about to hang a man whose innocense was being protested by a sweet young thing, well, 'e must be guilty of somethin' somewhars, eh? Then sliced his head off chuckling. Frits Perls, huh? Nice nugget. On Jun 27, 1:08 pm, Don Johnson <[email protected]> wrote: > I never have understood the request for an apology. Is it the > embarrassment this brings to the apologizer we are after or do we > really expect to feel better ourselves? I feel it's more likely the > person's ulterior motive is to gain tort advantage. Correct me if I'm > wrong Gruff, but in legalize isn't an apology akin to an admission of > guilt or at least responsibility for a wrongdoing? It's a good way to > get sued. > > When someone I love or respect is angry with me it's usually due to a > misunderstanding. Things get said or done by one or the other of us > and regret can follow. I neither want nor expect an apology. You > can't take "sorry" to the bank. What I try to do when I feel bad > about how I've treated someone is DO something, not say something. > Talk is cheap. I pay my debts in action, not words.(I'm running out > of cliches) > > In researching this topic on the internet earlier I ran across Plato's > Apology. Which of course is really no apology at all but more of an > accusation. In retrospect, looking back on all the times I've given > insincere apologies(these are legion and expected) I did the same > thing. If not out loud then certainly in my head and with my > expression. Deception has never been my strong suit. > > Does an apology mean anything to you and if so, why? Help me > understand why this is so important to some people. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Minds-Eye?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
