A Life Reset

The phrase “if I am wrong” or the related phrase ” if I offended anyone” is something that I am seeing or hearing far too often lately now in public. Mainly it is politicians or media personalities called out on some transgression they uttered, forcing to make amends in some way but many people in real life are now starting to do it. I call it the fake apology, saying you are sorry when you do not mean it and couched in a phrase that essentially denies that you are apologizing. It is always in some sort of defensive reaction as well as if getting caught is worse than what you actually said.

In the past week or so, we have had a few instances of that happening. Senator Jim Bunning(R) of Kentucky made a remark that he believed that Justice Ruth Ginsburg, who just completed surgery for the treatment of cancer, would be dead in nine months. Needless to say, people did not think highly of that remark and so accordingly he made an apology that lacked a certain sincerity:

I apologize if my comments offended Justice Ginsberg,” Bunning said. “That certainly was not my intent. It is great to see her back at the Supreme Court today and I hope she recovers quickly. My thoughts and prayers are with her and her family.

I am not sure how Justice Ginburg would not be offended by his comments. He did not even get the spelling of her name right.

Then there is the incident of the New York Post cartoon showing two cops standing over a chimp they just shot and refer to the incident as “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill”. It is pretty hard not to see the racist connotations in that cartoon as the recovery bill is closely identified with President Obama and for far too long people have made the associations between African-Americans and primates of various kinds. So after some demonstrations, the paper released an apology that was not really an apology:

To those who were offended by the image, we apologize. However, there are some in the media and in public life who have had differences with the Post in the past—and they see the incident as an opportunity for payback,” the editorial continues. “To them, no apology is due. Sometimes a cartoon is just a cartoon—even as the opportunists seek to make it something else.”

Again, those words “who were offended” along with a line that anyone who had criticised the paper for its cartoon or stands, well, no apology to them. Of course, no one could accept an apology under those circumstances so it ended up being in the hands of the publisher/owner, Rupert Murdoch, to make his apology on behalf of the paper for the cartoon.

“Today I want to personally apologize to any reader who felt offended, and even insulted,” said the statement from Murdoch, who is also chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, which owns the paper.

“I can assure you — without a doubt — that the only intent of that cartoon was to mock a badly written piece of legislation.

“It was not meant to be racist, but unfortunately, it was interpreted by many as such. We all hold the readers of the New York Post in high regard, and I promise you that we will seek to be more attuned to the sensitivities of our community.

By all accounts, people have apparently accepted it for now. Still…

” … who felt offended”.

This is really weaselly on part of these people and anyone who uses those words. It is like you can not commit either way of either apologizing or not apologizing and you come off an insincere. If anyone asks them about an apology , they can always say that they have apologized but they haven’t really unless it met some level of qualification. So they are trying to have it both ways, satisfying any third person demand for an apology yet take comfort in themselves that they did not really apologized because when these apologies are expressed is that it is never directed to the person receiving the apology. This is because the person supposedly being apologized to heard that sort of phrase spoken to them probably would never accepted the apology as expressed.

If you are person of character, say you are sorry or do not say anything at all. If you offer an apology, make it meaningful. Just say ’sorry’ without qualification or restricting to just a certain group of people. It is like these people never heard what their mothers told them when they were young: “Say it like you mean it”. Character still counts for something in this world. Yet by this very use of the fake apology we are not only debasing social norms but also our very language. This is one practice I would like to see gone from our lexicon as soon as possible.