In my own company I try to apologize every time I screw something up. I know my position is unassailable, and my team members should have trust that their leadership is in touch with reality.
I am also cognizant of the fact that no hired employee has the same level of security, and it troubles me.
Refusing to apologize has the opposite effect.
What I try to do is apologize concisely, but then feel free to ignore people who want to drag this out into "that was not a REAL apology" / "now confess to your OTHER crimes" territory.
But even in those situations, I see absolutely no upside in publicly denying your mistake at length, if in fact you've made one.
On the one hand, you have the people who are talking about when you genuinely make a mistake, and recognize it as such before public outcry.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have people that maybe feel that they were acting / talking / behaving in a way that is normal but are being told that they made a mistake. In these circumstances, there is usually the issue that the nature of the mistake is quite subjective.
In the former case, your strategy is probably a good one. In the latter, I think the "don't apologize" is probably the better way to go, for the reasons outlined by GC.
If e.g. Kavanaugh had admitted assaulting Ms. Ford and apologized, do you think enough Democrats would have said "Apology accepted" and voted to confirm to make up for the Republicans who would be unwilling to vote to confirm someone who has admitted to sexual assault? As long as Kavanaugh denies it, everyone who votes for him can just publicly say that they believed his denial, whether or not they actually did believe it.
As far as Kavanaugh, obviously none of this applies if he is not-guilty, because few advocate apologizing for things you didn't do. However:
There are a lot of middle-aged adults who did terrible things when they were teenagers. Among those, the ones who own up and apologized are excluded from many positions of power, while those that deny it are included.
So for this particular subset of the population, we punish the best, reward the worst, and incentivize any fence-sitters to lie. Perhaps it's a bit OT, but something is clearly broken here.
That depends on the level of power the said adult has accumulated. We've witnessed people who were persecuted for most minor transgressions, and people who were forgiven for very major things (e.g. credible rape accusations, being an officer in the KKK, being a member of a terrorist organization, being in prison for murder while being a member of a terrorist organization, etc. etc.). That, of course, needs very powerful position and very powerful friends - which none of us likely has.
I also find it interesting how the issue of admitting to making mistakes is being conflated with apologizing. While they are related, there is an important difference: a person who will never apologize is merely immature, while one who never admits to making mistakes might be a dangerous liability to himself and others, and is unfit for positions of responsibility.
I mean, it is absurd expectation. Apology does not even absolve you if minor crime in legal system. Plus, Supreme Court has great only little checked power. I just don't see someone willing to use power that way as suitable, even if he apologized.
Which is why you don't deny it either; you move on, avoiding the Streisand Effect as best as possible by not engaging. It's passive denial vs. active denial.
I'm not saying this is moral or good - I'm only saying that it seems to work for people. It's a question of game theory. We can get better apologies if we start to accept apologies and move on with our lives, but the mob wants blood and these days the public apology only serves as an admission of guilt, absolving the mob of any evil when they pull the person apart limb from limb.
"...absolving the mob of any evil when they pull the person apart limb from limb."
That's a little excessively dramatic, don't you think?
It's 2020, everything's a little excessively dramatic
To that end, an apology that allows s/o to "get out" as in "saw no further consequences" isn't necessarily what's being claimed, because it still needs to come with (some) costs, even if they are mostly symbolic.
And, yes, of course there are people apologising for all sorts of behaviour that's being criticised every day. A Google News search has about five dozen examples from just the last day or two[1]. If apologies are never beneficial, I doubt they would be used that often.
Apologies are also a central factor in the most formalised system of "being cancelled" we have, the criminal justice system.
As to "getting out" of "being cancelled" by "mobs" I wouldn't know since I already have trouble identifying what that's supposed to mean.
[1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=apologized&client=safari&rls...
I have a strong suspicion that you know what I mean, you just don't want to recognize that. If you indeed know nothing about cancel culture, I envy whatever bubble you reside in, and I wish I could organize my life to never encounter it too, however it is not so for me. If you pretend not to know about it because you don't want to engage in discussion about it, well, I certainly can't force you.
> And, yes, of course there are people apologising for all sorts of behaviour that's being criticised every day.
You may find it hard to believe, but I actually know people do such thing as "apologizing". I do it myself once in a while. My question was in specific context of the comment "Agreed. Apologizing may keep the mob size small and insignificant." and related to this context, not to general act of apologizing and whether or not it is practiced in human society. I think you have missed this context and from that follows your trouble to identify what I supposed to mean. I think I made it cleared now, or at least did as much as I could to make it clear.
Also the related phenomenon where people walk through cities being casually and formally anti-semitic, deliberately crashing cars into groups of people, but call the other side "mob", because they complain about that on Twitter.
I think you are confusing your imagination with reality. Nobody - and by that I mean literally, without exaggeration, no single person who lives or ever lived - ever pretended that Harvey Weinstein raping women is the reason they don't want women on their team. Not "everybody", not somebody - literally no single person is pretending or ever pretended that. Moreover, you know that as well as I do, I am certain of that (because you don't know any such person, by virtue of such person not existing). So why are you writing these obviously false words?
> Because apparently "showing up at their colleagues' hotel room doors, naked and at night" is somehow just bound to happen in the course of standard operating procedures.
I do not know who told you that (I suspect you imagined it just as you did the above) but it certainly is not the course of any operating procedures at all. None of them.
> Also the related phenomenon where people walk through cities being casually and formally anti-semitic, deliberately crashing cars into groups of people, but call the other side "mob", because they complain about that on Twitter.
People who walk through cities being anti-semitic and people who complain about cancel culture are distinct sets of people whose intersection is minuscule. And you also know it. Also, cancel culture is not complaining on Twitter about somebody marching somewhere, and you also know it too. Again, you are writing words which both you and everybody reading them knows are false. What for?
It is not like actresses who lost careers because they refused Weinstein could ever get their careers back. And it is not like those who complain about securely harassment cold easily get new jobs - people are afraid to hire them.
If possible, do not immediately make any statement and if in a organization, make an "we are investigating" response. Most mobs are moved by emotions and herd mentality so just being silent for a while can disperse the worst of the mobs.
Make an thorough apology (like the guideline here) later.
Most internet mobs just move on to the next totem pole to burn in days so this seems to work (and is indeed how a lot of companies respond if they can't just fire someone and get over it)
A real mob, such as campus students can be a bit more troublesome.
Every time a person/company apologizes for getting caught, it demeans public trust in everyone’s apologies.
For example, if I make a commitment to somebody and then circumstances outside my control prevent me from fulfilling it, I may very well say "it's not my fault, apologising would be insincere". But to an external stakeholder what they see is they are wearing consequences and I am not accepting accountability. There are a million shades of gray according to how much I could / should have anticipated the eventuality ... but that makes it really not simple to make this kind of call, and I would have to say, if you are going to err, I would rather err on the side of apologising than not.
A side effect of everyone getting 15 minutes of fame/infamy is that it means an increasing fraction of social interactions are one-shot. Often, the only time you will ever hear about someone is when they do something dumb that catches the Twitter zeitgeist. Once the moment has passed, they fade from view.
The optimal strategy for iterated prisoner's dilemma where you will interact with an opponent multiple times involves some level of fairness and give and take. The optimal strategy for single-turn prisoner's dilemma is to assume bad faith and selfishly betray your opponent.
Infer from that as you will.
I think there's definitely some truth to what you're saying, but I also wonder how much this is a problem offline, I've not encountered it heavily, but I'm also not a particularly online person.
I'm not sure about that.
I think there needs to be a distinction between a private apology to specific individuals for specific wrongs vs public apology to an undefined amorphous set of people. The former is certainly the right thing to do and it also offers hope of redemption because the wronged individual can accept the apology and forgive (or not). In the latter case, there is no acceptance, there's only the mob who wants to make an example of you because they now have 100% proof of your guilt.
Note that those to whom you apologize may communicate that apology to "the mob", with the result that they have proof of your guilt as well as proof of your lack of forthrightness.
In the ultimate case, if you are following your own advice, Machiavelli and my bitter cynicism suggest that not leaving live enemies behind you is the best strategy.
The world would be a lot better place if everyone did (any number of things), but perfect compliance is just never going to happen. We cannot get people to not murder each other over shoes or sports teams. Any plan which depends on this compliance is doomed to failure.
Doubtless many people have made things worse with "non-apology apologies" [1]. But your brain wants to say "apologizing is right" because when done right, it is right.
To me, truth and reconciliation are self-evidently how we build a better world, and refusal to take responsibility for mistakes is self-evidently corrosive to the individual and to society.
Sure it has, for example Dan Harmon's public apology to Megan Ganz: https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/1/11/16879702/dan-harmon-ap...
Public apologies, therefore, are the metaphorical equivalent of blood in the water for attracting sharks.
What are some examples of public apologies that met all 5 of these criteria [1], but made things worse rather than better? Would you consider the possibility that maybe the apologies that made things worse were actually done wrong, but they could have helped if they were done right?
More generally, apologies, restorative justice, truth and reconciliation, and related ideas seem to me like the obvious and only way to we can heal from injustice in our society. Refusing to admit fault seems obviously corrosive to society, and to a person's ego.
[1]: https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/12/5/16710430/sexual-har...
[Edit: man, I feel stupid for complaining about downvotes, but I am really not sure how I could have been more constructive with my disagreement in this comment. I cited examples, suggested an alternative explanation for observations my parent described, and didn't criticize anyone. What did I do wrong? I am ready and willing to apologize if I made any mistakes]
The power advantage that young women have on men; due to evolutionary pressures. Harmon didn't mean to be attracted to her. It happened.
I know biology isn't important in 2020. But I listened to his apology and realized that the human nature discussion is never part of this situation.
Ted Chiang's "liking what you see a documentary" is a good case study of a world where attraction's turned off. As a woman, I sometimes think we aren't empathic enough about how attraction works in men. It doesn't mean they are excused for sexual harassment. I just think evolutionary pressures should be part of the discussion.
Neither person should be setup to fail.
If you are in a "cancel culture" situation, then people that surround you are not you friends, and they do not have common goals with you. You can not win. Best thing is to get out of that situation ASAP, if you can not - minimize your losses in any way you can. And continue looking to get out of this situation, because you can not win, and you will surely lose sooner or later. Try to still be kind to others - you won't fix the broken culture, but at least you can have a little island of non-awfulness around you.
I think that's a pretty good middle ground. Apologizing too readily might also signal you lack self-respect or confidence which may invite even more vitriol.
Perhaps apologies do "serve as a license for the mob to further punish". Even so, what is the result to your life or to an organization of doing what you suggest?
This is legally because apologies from companies are so full of doublespeak and low value language that it’s a waste of my time to read, much less expect any understanding. Here’s an example from Pichai [0].
I do like the outage report style that some companies use [1] and think this is the way to repeat a problem and what you do to fix it. This takes the place of an apology or denial.
[0] https://www.axios.com/google-ceo-apologizes-past-sexual-hara...
"Yeah, I made a mistake, shit happens, now I know better".
Though looking at current leaders of industries and countries, you could get away with just pretending you did nothing wrong.
Public apologies stamp official guilt on the individual and therefore serve as a license for the mob to further punish them because now they have admitted their fault and therefore are 'officially' guilty of the crime. Public apologies, therefore, are the metaphorical equivalent of blood in the water for attracting sharks.
Maybe it's better to just ignore and maintain innocence because then at least there is some gray area? I don't know.