Before I left Twitter two years ago, I was disturbed by a pattern I noticed in cases of mass public criticism. I’m sure you’re familiar with the dynamic where subsets of Twitter choose a “villain of the day” to brutally criticize and mock; if someone lands in this situation, it’s almost impossible for them to apologize in a way that others will broadly accept. The goal of this post is to evaluate some popular reasons for rejecting apologies as insincere, giving them credit for what they get right but also identifying cases where they fail. I’ve drawn from my memories of Twitter because I saw this process unfold many hundreds of times on that platform, but I think that these observations are also applicable to apologies between people who know each other.
Unfortunately, it’s impossible to give clear guidelines that will work out in every case. Some people are already too strongly inclined to trust people who have mistreated them; these people need to become less charitable, and the last thing I want is for someone to be worse off because they followed my advice. Still, I suspect that most people can safely rule out the possibility that they are far too forgiving, and this post is directed at that vocal majority.
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Here are a few examples that I can remember being cited as evidence that an apology was insincere, reconstructed for an apologizer named Abigail:
Abigail uses a phrase which is often flagged as evidence of an insincere apology–for example, the phrase ”I’m so sorry that [group] felt trivialized by my comments” may be read through the standard line, “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
Abigail’s apology contains an error unrelated to the mistake for which she is apologizing. For example, her apology uses the phrase “he or she” to refer to a generic person, whereas “they” is considered superior because it includes people who use other pronoun sets.
Abigail mentions other positive things about herself or her history, perhaps to demonstrate that whatever she did is not indicative of her character to the extent that other people have assumed.
Abigail apologizes for some portion of the accusations against her, but rejects some other accusations as illegitimate.
Abigail falls short of an arbitrarily high standard of penance, such as donating a very large portion of her income or quitting her job.
Someone asserts, without even citing evidence, that Abigail is only apologizing for personal gain, and that any apology she makes is not to be trusted.
Abigail took too long to apologize (even a few hours of delay can earn this criticism).
The act is simply declared to be unforgivable; to seek an apology is to downplay its moral wrongness.
The first five arguments are kind of latching onto something real:
(1) Some people really do make “I’m sorry you feel that way”-type apologies in an attempt to gain the social benefits of apologizing without the psychological burden of feeling bad about their conduct. Still, I’ve seen some apparently heartfelt apologies torn to shreds over minor accidents of phrasing that merely remind people of bad conduct.
(2) Of course it’s possible that Abigail ought to apologize for something she said while apologizing-–apologies aren’t immune to criticism. But again, if her apology for X is apparently sincere, then Y should be treated as a totally different matter.
(3) Some apologies are unhelpful because Abigail focuses more on defending her character than she does on redressing harm. Ideally, people would criticize Abigail for doing X, and their criticism would remain proportionate to that particular action; then, when Abigail apologizes for X, both the action and the apology play a modest role in determining her reputation in X-like affairs. The problem is that, when Abigail is accused of X, she is also accused of being an X-er, a person who loves doing X, X-es whenever she can get away with it, and kicks puppies. Under these circumstances, it’s very reasonable for Abigail to let us know that she doesn’t do X all the time, and that in fact she has a long history of not doing X and campaigning against the people who do. Most people are not rhetorically savvy, so we should expect Abigail to have some trouble raising this point in a way that perfectly balances her intention to apologize against her need to defend herself against brutal criticism.
(4) As you likely know, people sometimes apologize for relatively mild accusations against themselves in order to distract from more serious accusations. In situations like this, where an accused person has obviously overlooked a serious, plausible accusation in order to address a lesser one, I think it’s reasonable to view that person’s apology with suspicion. However, it’s also extremely common for a person who has been legitimately accused of one thing to be illegitimately accused of others. When a person becomes infamous for some particular reason, it’s very likely that people will find additional reasons to hate them. Once you reach the point that many and diverse criticisms are circulating about a despised person, it’s extremely likely that some of these criticisms are false, even if the earliest or most significant accusations are true. Accusations must be considered separately, and accused people must have the option of apologizing for some wrongs while denying others.
(5) If I am known to have a lot of money, and especially if I profited from doing something immoral, then it could be reasonable for other people to expect me to “open my wallet” as a show of contrition for a wrongful action. First, the demand must scale with income–a poor person’s contrition should be acceptable without a donation, and a middle class person can only be expected to donate some amount that she can reasonably afford.
Second, these calls must be proportionate and consistent. In practice, this move is almost always bad because people make up standards idiosyncratically; any random person could say, “I don’t trust this because you haven’t donated to [X charity].” Even if Abigail has donated to a relevant charity, her critics are likely to disagree about which one she should have chosen. (Imagine that Abigail said something offensive about autistic people and subsequently donated $5,000 to Autism Speaks, a charity which many autistic people dislike because it frames autism as a disease in need of a “cure.” Rather than successfully demonstrating her contrition, Abigail now has to deal with criticisms like, “Of course she supports Autism Speaks.”) Even if she chooses an appropriate charity, people might insist that she should donate more money; they may tell each other that she is much wealthier than she actually is, and thus set the standard at a level which is unreasonably or impossibly high.
Lastly, a large majority of transgressions are too trivial for this approach to be reasonable. Everyone makes moral errors frequently. Imagine living under a degree of scrutiny where you’re expected to give up thousands of dollars every time you say something unintentionally hurtful. There should be a strong presumption against demanding donations as proof of contrition; anyone making this argument should be on the hook to support it extremely well.
(6), (7), and (8), however, are useless. (6), the evidence-insensitive claim that Abigail is only apologizing for personal gain, is a fully general argument–it sounds plausible every time someone apologizes, regardless of any other relevant information. The truth is that almost all apologies are partly selfish: Even if I really am contrite, of course I also want to be accepted and forgiven. I think that almost anyone who tries to be honest with themselves will notice that they, too, have some selfish motives when they apologize. Maybe there are a handful of sages who act with a mindset of selfless moral clarity, but I doubt that even one such person is rationalizing hatred on Twitter.
(7), the tendency to punish delayed apologies, makes it even more difficult to escape the first six criticisms. It’s completely unreasonable to expect someone to apologize perfectly according to these standards within a few hours of becoming a target of mass criticism. We should actively expect people to cool off before apologizing, and any delay should not be considered a mark against their sincerity.
Do I even need to explain the problem with (8), the tendency to declare an act unforgivable and to blame a person for seeking forgiveness? This is naked cruelty. I’m personally disposed to think that there are no unforgivable actions, but even if we disagree about that, I think we should agree that there are very few things a person can do to become unforgivable. Even if someone has committed an unforgivably heinous action, it is cruel to punish them specifically for apologizing, especially when other people have threatened to punish them for failing to apologize.
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We’re too worried about accepting fake apologies, and we aren’t worried enough about rejecting real ones. When you’re tempted to reject an apology, stop what you’re doing immediately and think: Why specifically do I want to reject this apology? How sure am I that I know what’s going on in her head? If she’s really sorry, how would I know? Is it possible that I just want to hurt her, or that I’m afraid other people will judge me if I let her off too easily? Is there any apology she could possibly make that I would recognize as legitimate, and how would she know to apologize in that way? Challenge yourself at every step, and don’t give up on apologies so easily.
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