Apologizing makes everything forgivable?

Tropez

It really depends on context.

Sometimes people do stupid things. Sometimes people say stupid things. Sometimes these things cause harm or hurt to others. That's quite a normal part of life. Every single person has done or said something to offend someone else, or cause some sort of harm (however small and trivial) to someone else.

Apologising doesn't necessarily solve everything and in some cases it simply cannot but depending on the context, if genuine, it can be the start of a path to forgiveness. The problem is there are different reasons people apologise for things - some to try and make it go away, others because they're sorry something offends someone but are not sorry that they said it because it expresses a belief, some because they have genuine remorse etc.

There's no easy answer to whether an apology should result in forgiveness as even the most genuine of apologies from a truly remorseful person won't necessarily result in forgiveness but all genuine apologies should at least be considered on their merits and in the context of what the offence was.

Hermia

The thing that annoys me is when someone apologises and then immediately wants forgiveness and gets funny if you don't forgive them straight away. If you apologise you shouldn't do it expecting forgiveness. You should do it because you truly just want to say it. Putting pressure on someone to forgive you right that moment sort of ruins the apology IMO.

fluffnutter

victory wrote: »

All you hear these days in the news, politicians, footballers, celebs on twitter , people having affairs, messing up and then apologizing, so does that mean you can do and say whatever you feel like, hurt and upset people and then go ' oh sorry, didn't mean it' and that makes it all ok?

Well, perhaps so. You have to actually mean the apology though, and show true contrition. And part of contrition is 'I won't do it again' obviously.

Raksha

My Mum used to say 'you're not sorry, your only sorry you've been found out'...

Tropez

Hermia wrote: »

The thing that annoys me is when someone apologises and then immediately wants forgiveness and gets funny if you don't forgive them straight away. If you apologise you shouldn't do it expecting forgiveness. You should do it because you truly just want to say it. Putting pressure on someone to forgive you right that moment sort of ruins the apology IMO.

I think this also depends on context.

As an example, I accidentally bumped my injured wife's arm - it caused her pain, I don't want to cause her pain and immediately felt bad for doing so and immediately apologised to her.

Had she at this point said "I don't know whether I can forgive you for that" or something along those lines I would have felt she was being unreasonable. I will confess to being careless but it was an accident and I immediately expressed obvious regret for doing it. If she had chosen to ignore my apology and behave in a hostile manner toward me that would have been, in my mind, an overreaction.

If, however, I had bumped her arm even by accident - said nothing at the time - and apologised ten minutes later I could quite understand receiving a hostile reception and her not being so eager to accept my apology.

Hermia

Tropez wrote: »

I think this also depends on context.

As an example, I accidentally bumped my injured wife's arm - it caused her pain, I don't want to cause her pain and immediately felt bad for doing so and immediately apologised to her.

Had she at this point said "I don't know whether I can forgive you for that" or something along those lines I would have felt she was being unreasonable. I will confess to being careless but it was an accident and I immediately expressed obvious regret for doing it. If she had chosen to ignore my apology and behave in a hostile manner toward me that would have been, in my mind, an overreaction.

If, however, I had bumped her arm even by accident - said nothing at the time - and apologised ten minutes later I could quite understand receiving a hostile reception and her not being so eager to accept my apology.

That makes sense, but I wasn't thinking of bumping into someone's arm situations. I was thinking more of situations where someone has betrayed you or been utterly irresponsible etc.

marisco_2

victory wrote: »

All you hear these days in the news, politicians, footballers, celebs on twitter , people having affairs, messing up and then apologizing, so does that mean you can do and say whatever you feel like, hurt and upset people and then go ' oh sorry, didn't mean it' and that makes it all ok?

Sometimes just saying or hearing, 'Sorry', isn't enough. Relationships are fragile. If they are damaged by a major incident then the ensuing emotions can often feel difficult to get past, and prevent the relationship from moving forward or the person hurt from moving on. People often over-estimate the power of an apology. A five letter word does little to restore trust or put right a wrong. In my view actions speak louder than words. Rather than saying sorry people should go about proving it, by the way they conduct themselves and treat others from there on in.

Richard53

A prompt and sincere apology can go a long way to healing any rift that we may have unintentionally caused. In effect it is a public statement that you were in the wrong and want to make things right. I'm all for a proper apology in the right place, as it's part of the social lubricant that helps us all get along.

What I can't stand is the modern touch-feely celeb culture thing, where you make a public apology (often with carefully held-back tears) and try to score points for being humble, when you are anything but.

My hero in this is John Profumo. He did a very bad thing by lying to Parliament, so he resigned his high post, descended into obscurity, and spent the rest of his life working for charity. Today, a politician caught out like that would bluster it out, and if that didn't work play the abject victim of circumstances. I know which I respect.

DaveTheMus

victory wrote: »

All you hear these days in the news, politicians, footballers, celebs on twitter , people having affairs, messing up and then apologizing, so does that mean you can do and say whatever you feel like, hurt and upset people and then go ' oh sorry, didn't mean it' and that makes it all ok?

Read a Peter Hitchens article a while ago on this exact subject:

Why won’t anybody say sorry properly any more? The miserable behaviour of the police officers in the Plebgate affair, questioned by the Home Affairs Committee, is just the latest example of the strange apology crisis which has this country in its grip: too few of the right sort; too many of the wrong sort.
Nobody is ever straightforwardly sorry for what he has done.
He may be ‘sorry if’ you were upset, or inconvenienced or offended. But listen carefully. This is just a way of telling you to stop being so sensitive. It is not an admission of fault. Watch out for the treacherous little ‘if’, that gives the game away.

He doesn’t regret doing the thing that angered you. But he hasn’t the courage to say so. He just thinks it is tiresome that you are making a fuss about it, and wants to shut you up by faking contrition he doesn’t feel.
Then there is what I call the Railway Apology. There are now millions of these worthless things in circulation, like the old Zimbabwe dollar. They trickle out of station loudspeakers in an unstoppable, computer-generated flow.

They result from some long-ago market research, which showed that passengers thought they were due a bit of penitence for the lateness and unreliability they constantly suffered.
They did, and they do, but what they really wanted was some sort of readiness to put things right in future. It’s no good saying sorry for doing something you intend to repeat almost exactly, within a few hours, and then again and again for as long as you live, or as long as your franchise lasts.
It’s also no good getting a robot to do it for you. Real apologies stick in the throat, involve some shame and humiliation, and are intensely personal.
Perhaps it’s because the Japanese take apologies so seriously that their railways are so much better than ours.
Imagine the directors of some wretched rail company lined up in their suits at a big London terminus, bowing deeply to their customers as they promised to make amends for years of profiteering, cheeseparing and neglect. You can’t? Nor can I.
Some of this is of course the result of Margaret Thatcher’s and John Major’s too little-known legal time bomb, the delayed action decision to allow American-style ambulance-chasing no-win, no-fee lawyers to operate in this country.
The 1990 Courts and Legal Services Act (Section 58) cleared the way, followed in 1995 by the Conditional Fee Agreements Regulations. These, not ‘Human Rights’ or ‘Health and Safety’, are the source of the lawyer-infested culture in which we now dwell, in which a simple, decent and sincere apology has been turned into a dangerous admission of liability.
I am truly sorry about that. But it’s not my fault.

Mr_Toad

They do it because there's a lot of truth in the saying that it is easier to seek forgiveness than permission.