Worthless Apologias - Saying You're Sorry Comes Pretty Cheap
Sean Scallon
July 30, 2007
There’s a funny scene during a Monty Python television show that captures my opinion about apologies.
A soundtruck that goes through a city that’s recently been bombed by the U.S. in a vain attempt to destroy “Mr. Neutron”, a supposed threat to the world. Of course, Mr. Neutron was nowhere to be found and the city was destroyed for nothing.
The soundtruck says “We are really sorry that we bombed you and we promise that we’ll never do it again.”
Now juxtapose this with apology for something like, I don’t know, slavery for example.
We are really sorry that we enslaved you. We are really sorry we whipped and tortured you, separated your families, treated you like animals, put you up for auction and even killed you and we promise we’ll never do it again.”
Yet despite the silliness and stupidity of such apologies, several state legislatures in the South, particularly Virginia and North Carolina, have recently passed resolutions apologizing for slavery.
Can a piece of paper make up for all that hardship and oppression? Can simple “sorry” make up for pain and suffering? Can an expression of humility make up for evil from long ago?
The answer of course is no but that doesn’t stop people from trying anyway. Empty symbolism apparently doesn’t deter those who think the record can be wiped clean and feelings soothed with a mere resolution. Legislatures pass resolutions all the way celebrating this or that which mean nothing in a larger context, so why should it stop them from doing the same thing when it comes to “apologies”?
Apologies, official or otherwise, do not change the mindset of the victimized no matter how well meaning. Some people like being victims and have grown accustomed to it. They like to feel morally superior even if the injustice took place 100 of years before they were born. Thus, when a replica of the Christopher Columbus’ ship the Nina sailed into Duluth, Minn.’s harbor one summer’s day, the local newspaper, the News-Tribune, carried a column from a pair of local Ojibwa activists decrying once again the destruction of the aboriginal population of the Americas due to Columbus’ discovery of the new world, even if that voyage had nothing to do with such atrocities. They typically demanded some form of apologia. But even if there was an official “apology” would such people give up their claims of moral self-righteousness or allow Europeans to escape the Mark of Cain they’ve placed on them hundreds of years later? No.
Why should they? There are financial and political benefits in hundred year-old collective guilt. So Germans are still marked for the Holocaust, Southerners still branded for slavery and Russians still shamed for Stalin. And whites are still benefiting from racism even if white supremacy hardly means much to someone living in a shotgun shack or a trailer.
Given that I’m Irish, I supposed I could take some benefit in victimization as well. British policies depopulated the island from 8 million to 4 million, including 2 million dead by starvation. Some my ancestors were Irish rebels. And yet some also fought for the British Empire as well, and gained opportunities through their service to that Empire. So how am I supposed to react to this graying of my black and white, good vs. evil situation? Basically to accept history as it happened and move on to the present and the future. What else can you do?
George Santayana once famously said “Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” And yet I would argue that those who remember the past too well are doomed to repeat it. Because for them nothing ever changes, nothing ever advances, the same circumstances still exist and have to be dealt with in the same manner. For the neocons it’s always Munich 1938. For civil right devotees, it’s always Birmingham 1963. For Indians, it’s always Hispaniola 1492. Time stops for them and world they live in is always colored by past wrongs, past oppression or past mistakes. They simply cannot move in time and yet time moves without them. It would be silly for me to condemn modern Englishmen for Trevelyan’s economic policies because they did not live back in 1848 and had nothing to do with such policies, just as it silly to continue to bait Germans about Hitler or white Southerners about Uncle Tom’s Cabin, because there’s nothing they can do to change the past or bring back all those lost.
Sometimes you just got to forgive and forget or you’ll be a prisoner in your own time warp, living out past resentments that only cause more resentment, bitterness and some cases, bloodshed as in Northern Ireland. This is not to excuse societies that try to suppress the past like Japan’s atrocities in World War II or Turkey’s genocide of Armenians. This is not to attack those who cherish history or heritage or those who try to preserve something good and right for future generations to uphold. But in many cases, there comes a point in time where you just got let go.
Sean Scallon is a freelance writer and journalist living in Arkansaw, Wisconsin.
A soundtruck that goes through a city that’s recently been bombed by the U.S. in a vain attempt to destroy “Mr. Neutron”, a supposed threat to the world. Of course, Mr. Neutron was nowhere to be found and the city was destroyed for nothing.
The soundtruck says “We are really sorry that we bombed you and we promise that we’ll never do it again.”
Now juxtapose this with apology for something like, I don’t know, slavery for example.
We are really sorry that we enslaved you. We are really sorry we whipped and tortured you, separated your families, treated you like animals, put you up for auction and even killed you and we promise we’ll never do it again.”
Yet despite the silliness and stupidity of such apologies, several state legislatures in the South, particularly Virginia and North Carolina, have recently passed resolutions apologizing for slavery.
Can a piece of paper make up for all that hardship and oppression? Can simple “sorry” make up for pain and suffering? Can an expression of humility make up for evil from long ago?
The answer of course is no but that doesn’t stop people from trying anyway. Empty symbolism apparently doesn’t deter those who think the record can be wiped clean and feelings soothed with a mere resolution. Legislatures pass resolutions all the way celebrating this or that which mean nothing in a larger context, so why should it stop them from doing the same thing when it comes to “apologies”?
Apologies, official or otherwise, do not change the mindset of the victimized no matter how well meaning. Some people like being victims and have grown accustomed to it. They like to feel morally superior even if the injustice took place 100 of years before they were born. Thus, when a replica of the Christopher Columbus’ ship the Nina sailed into Duluth, Minn.’s harbor one summer’s day, the local newspaper, the News-Tribune, carried a column from a pair of local Ojibwa activists decrying once again the destruction of the aboriginal population of the Americas due to Columbus’ discovery of the new world, even if that voyage had nothing to do with such atrocities. They typically demanded some form of apologia. But even if there was an official “apology” would such people give up their claims of moral self-righteousness or allow Europeans to escape the Mark of Cain they’ve placed on them hundreds of years later? No.
Why should they? There are financial and political benefits in hundred year-old collective guilt. So Germans are still marked for the Holocaust, Southerners still branded for slavery and Russians still shamed for Stalin. And whites are still benefiting from racism even if white supremacy hardly means much to someone living in a shotgun shack or a trailer.
Given that I’m Irish, I supposed I could take some benefit in victimization as well. British policies depopulated the island from 8 million to 4 million, including 2 million dead by starvation. Some my ancestors were Irish rebels. And yet some also fought for the British Empire as well, and gained opportunities through their service to that Empire. So how am I supposed to react to this graying of my black and white, good vs. evil situation? Basically to accept history as it happened and move on to the present and the future. What else can you do?
George Santayana once famously said “Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” And yet I would argue that those who remember the past too well are doomed to repeat it. Because for them nothing ever changes, nothing ever advances, the same circumstances still exist and have to be dealt with in the same manner. For the neocons it’s always Munich 1938. For civil right devotees, it’s always Birmingham 1963. For Indians, it’s always Hispaniola 1492. Time stops for them and world they live in is always colored by past wrongs, past oppression or past mistakes. They simply cannot move in time and yet time moves without them. It would be silly for me to condemn modern Englishmen for Trevelyan’s economic policies because they did not live back in 1848 and had nothing to do with such policies, just as it silly to continue to bait Germans about Hitler or white Southerners about Uncle Tom’s Cabin, because there’s nothing they can do to change the past or bring back all those lost.
Sometimes you just got to forgive and forget or you’ll be a prisoner in your own time warp, living out past resentments that only cause more resentment, bitterness and some cases, bloodshed as in Northern Ireland. This is not to excuse societies that try to suppress the past like Japan’s atrocities in World War II or Turkey’s genocide of Armenians. This is not to attack those who cherish history or heritage or those who try to preserve something good and right for future generations to uphold. But in many cases, there comes a point in time where you just got let go.
Sean Scallon is a freelance writer and journalist living in Arkansaw, Wisconsin.
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