[HN Gopher] The case against the Twitter apology and our culture...
___________________________________________________________________
The case against the Twitter apology and our culture of performed
remorse
Author : mitchbob
Score : 98 points
Date : 2022-11-18 03:52 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
| logicalmonster wrote:
| Has anybody well-known ever used a phrase like "For my own
| personal safety, I apologize for XYZ transgression" when
| apologizing to a Twitter mob? Kind of curious how that
| simultaneous apology and subtle call-out might work.
| JSchmoe wrote:
| That'd make no sense to do. The "Twitter mob" remains angry and
| now a few more people are annoyed that you openly gave a non-
| apology.
| logicalmonster wrote:
| The reason I brought up that phrase is that Scott Adams of
| the Dilbert cartoon endorsed Hillary in 2016 using this exact
| language, despite actually liking Trump.
|
| > "So I've decided to endorse Hillary Clinton for President,
| for my personal safety."
|
| If I recall correctly, he says that merely that endorsement,
| however transparently fake it was, got a lot of people off of
| his back.
| sinoue wrote:
| Its cultural and Trump epitomized the worst of American sorry not
| sorry. That is why Twitter mob justice plays a role in
| accountability and creating hyped outrage.
| nmz wrote:
| I've always fantasized about a facebook like dirty laundry
| website. basically a place where people freely and anonymously
| perform slander and indicate all the wrongdoings of everyone. Not
| unlike what we have now, but organized. It would either
| completely break some people, or show how incredibly hypocritical
| mob justice is with their public shaming.
| executive wrote:
| https://thedirty.com/
| nmz wrote:
| This is pure internet gossip cancer... It's great. Now they
| just need to clean it up and be more facebook like and done.
| unity1001 wrote:
| Performative remorse of those responsible and forgiveness of them
| without the responsible having to do anything to remedy their
| deeds are killing the American society. People can do all kinds
| of evil deeds and misconduct, break their own principles and
| rules, and they say that they are sorry, and its all 'okay'.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| sounds like something far more structural is at play in that
| case
| jscipione wrote:
| politician wrote:
| As I scrolled down the article, my browser reduced the reading
| area down to ~6.8 lines of content rendered into a rectangle
| having an area of ~8 square inches. The rest of the screen filled
| itself with junk.
|
| If anyone from the New Yorker is reading, please tweak the
| breakpoints on the media queries for the 13" MacBook Air.
|
| :emoji-laughing-at-the-futility-of-such-an-ask:
| mauriciolange wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20221111171546/https://www.newyo...
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| Whoever figures out a secular distillation of the concept of
| grace is going to be very, very successful in community-building.
| The lack of it is painfully apparent, and it offers something to
| both the accused and the accusers.
|
| Now, whether people actually want that from others in these
| cases, or are merely enjoying the use of power a little too much,
| is another discussion.
| seydor wrote:
| grace or forgiveness?
| tdehnel wrote:
| Forgiveness: Making a big deal about how great you are for
| not judging someone, making it all about you. _I_ forgive
| _you_.
|
| Grace: Getting on with your life and not letting yourself get
| caught up in someone else's moral failings. _You_ do _you_.
| chasd00 wrote:
| I can see how forgiveness can be weaponized like that but
| to me forgiveness is only there to benefit the forgiver.
| Granted, getting good at forgiveness risks you just
| becoming a door mat. Similarly, Getting good at grace risks
| you becoming naive and ignorant to the world around you.
| d4mi3n wrote:
| How does this dynamic of grace vs forgiveness interact
| with genuine feelings of guilt?
|
| There are times in life where we (or people around us)
| fuck up. Genuine remorse occurs and receiving forgiveness
| can bring closure as it can signal that a relationship
| with someone is still there.
|
| I think assuming forgiveness is a one-way interaction may
| be true in some contexts, but not all.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| I genuinely don't think it's compatible with contemporary
| western morality that holds that actions are either valid
| expressions of self-actualization and so require no apology, or
| are transgressions for which no forgiveness is possible.
|
| The idea that regardless of a person's "right" to make a
| certain choice, an action can be so harmful that it cannot be
| corrected, but also that _it can be forgiven_ is too far from
| how we think and live now.
| ldldldo wrote:
| This is true, but "contemporary" isn't the right adjective.
| This is the culture of the moralist left, of the blue cities,
| of the Coast, of Progressivism as the only moral ideology
|
| In the US, at least, if you engage with conservative culture,
| with Christians, with rural people, with the people who are
| tired of "cancel culture," you will still find plenty of
| grace.
|
| I'm an independent. Over the last few years, it has been
| entirely Coastal people who have cut me out of their lives
| for things like saying I think the EcoHealth Alliance might
| have had something to do with COVID-19. The ones left in my
| life are the ones that know how to give grace.
|
| Sure, this is anecdotal, but it's cultural commentary.
|
| And to throw a bone and not pick too much on one side of the
| culture war, the Red areas have their own pathologies. For
| instance, while they won't necessarily stop talking to you
| altogether if you do something wrong, but lots of them will
| spread shit about you all over the community if you do.
|
| Maybe everyone could stand to listen to Christ on this topic,
| whether or not they believe in him in so many words
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| I mean I have been a christian all my life, and I am also
| unambiguously very far to the left explicitly _because_
| that is the only way I can see to truly act within my
| religious beliefs in the world right now. So I 'm not sure
| how far this framework can get you, really. I certainly
| don't find it to have much explanatory power on any of
| these issues.
|
| I also think it could be rephrased in a way that would make
| it easy to see how it describes the american political
| right, but I kind of trusted the readers to do that and
| didn't bother. But things like refusal to wear masks, wide-
| spread gun ownership, these are the "self-actualizated
| rights" that conservatives understand as needing no
| forgiveness regardless of harm caused.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > that is the only way I can see to truly act within my
| religious beliefs
|
| I've been unable to find in the Bible the phrase that
| says "take from bob and give it to bill and you will be
| righteous".
|
| My interpretation of the Bible is that Jesus encouraged
| people to freely give of their own to help others.
|
| I'm genuinely curious where your leftist views derive
| from Christian principles.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| You've already mischaracterized my views and further I'm
| not particularly educated or skilled in debate or
| theology, nor do I enjoy defending the deep foundations
| of my self from what is likely to be a hostile audience
| on the internet. So you will have to remain curious,
| sorry.
|
| But I am lucky enough to have received a centuries-long
| tradition of christian radicalism, and came to no
| conclusions on my own. You can read john chysostom, or
| mother maria, or talk to your own priest. The path is
| well-worn and there are many ways to find it.
| user3939382 wrote:
| > everyone could stand to listen to Christ on this topic
|
| Yup.
|
| The new thing is that we're too smart and cool for all the
| things religion teaches, while we scratch our heads trying
| to solve all the problems it gives you the solution for.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| I think my intense aversion to Christianity originates
| from knowing only those people who take the Bible
| literally and have true faith in the stories that are
| told. Hell actually exists, gay people go there, divorce
| is fine though, oh don't worry about that line, etc. It's
| all very pick and choose.
|
| I think I would have had much more interest in
| faith/religion if they acknowledged the myth component of
| their stories, and acknowledged the utility of abiding by
| the framework nonetheless.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| It'd be great if these paragons of grace would have a
| serious chat with the 'fuck your feelings' crowd about
| their death threat fetish, since they are nominally all in
| the same big tent.
| glial wrote:
| I grew up in the American south, hearing I would go to hell
| if I had premarital sex, took God's name in vain, or
| watched the Simpson's. There wasn't really a 'cultural
| left' where I lived (or I wasn't aware of it), but I was
| well aware that the Christian right had a stranglehold on
| the idea of morality.
|
| Now that situation seems to have shifted, and the left has
| adopted and re-branded ideas of original sin, absolution,
| performative prayer, etc. But I don't believe for a minute
| that folks in my hometown have discovered how to embody the
| idea of grace and cultural liberality. If anything I see
| more antagonism now that evangelism and Trumpism have
| created a terrible two-headed beast.
| abeppu wrote:
| > or are transgressions for which no forgiveness is possible.
|
| Is that really a thing people believe? I don't think that's
| actually true. B/c people know they fuck up, and they will
| ask the people around them for forgiveness, and they think
| they can deserve it. And when someone who actually matters in
| our lives does something wrong, we can sometimes forgive
| them.
|
| I think the problem is:
|
| - the most highly visible cases are often public figures who
| did something wrong for a long time and only expressed when
| they were caught or caught and publicly shamed. It's hard to
| believe these people are sincere when they repent.
|
| - the public performance of unforgiveness has itself become
| an opportunity for virtue signaling.
|
| - the most sincere apologies are for these reasons given and
| received out of the public eye, and I think we then don't see
| the real response modeled very often.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Don't apologize publicly. It's pointless. It only matters to
| people who spend their time on the Internet arguing over whether
| apologies are good (they never are).
|
| Apologize to people if you must, but never to the public.
| seydor wrote:
| It's not a "culture" issue imho. The mainstream basically decided
| to promote those staged "apologies", signaling to other
| celebrities that they should act like that, and they did.
| chitowneats wrote:
| What the mainstream promotes _is_ culture. Contemporary culture
| at the very least.
| seydor wrote:
| hey no, that may look like that in america, but even there it
| is not true, the deep cultural characteristics of americans
| (e.g. hard work) won't change if the media tells them so.
| Popular culture is not the whole of culture in general
| chitowneats wrote:
| I did not say it was the whole of culture. I said it was
| culture. In English, saying something "is" something does
| not mean it is only that, or that it is all of that.
| ergonaught wrote:
| Jimmy Swaggart wants a word with you.
| wernercd wrote:
| Apologizing to a mob never makes sense. You just make the other
| mob angry and most of the current mob doesn't think you're
| authentic anyways.
|
| Or, as the article says, "It was either not enough or, oh, my
| God, please stop.".
|
| Trying to placate a mob is pointless.
|
| Be authentic (apologize if you really mean it), otherwise stand
| your ground and stay still. The mob will move on eventually. They
| are fickle and easily distracted. If you stay still? they'll move
| on. If you dart around? You're a target for the pack. Let them
| find the next target.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Exactly, this integrity and sincerity is what is missing with
| this stuff. These people are apologizing out of fear, not
| because they feel it's the right thing to do.
| ehnto wrote:
| A great way to think about any discussion on the public
| internet to be honest. Everything you say on twitter is to a
| mob, and within that mob is a very diverse group of people, not
| all of them working with the same perspective or even the same
| context and goals as you.
|
| There's that joke about using accidentally using Personality A
| with Friend Group B; with the modern social internet, you're
| talking to every friend group at the same time and I think
| that's why we have such defensive pretense, placation and
| weasel wording going on. You lose all nuance, and you also lose
| benefit of the doubt.
|
| I think that's what is missing on broadcast platforms like
| FB/Twitter et al, and why Discord has been such a hit. Discord
| gives you discrete friend groups, so you can form deeper more
| nuanced dialogues about topics over a long period of time.
| f154hfds wrote:
| Forgiveness in the Bible is formalized as a cancelled debt: the
| act of forgiveness is when you decide to eat the cost of a debt
| owed (Matthew 18:21-35). I think forgiveness is mostly
| misunderstood by our society. It has several implications:
|
| 1. Forgiveness does not equate to trust or even reconciliation.
| If I lent you $1000 and you never paid me back, I might forgive
| your debt but will be much less inclined to trust you with my
| money in the future.
|
| 2. Forgiveness absolutely does not necessitate repentance of the
| perpetrator. In the Bible forgiveness is a necessity regardless
| of the situation because the Bible treats the inability of a
| Christian to forgive the ultimate hypocrisy (Matthew 6:14-15).
|
| 3. Wronging another person (or yourself - this might be far more
| common) does tangible harm to them. This harm is analogous to a
| financial debt owed. This debt is on the cosmic books so to
| speak: it's very real and must be dealt with either by
| forgiveness or retributive justice (or a combination of the two).
| Restorative justice is important but can't fix the original debt.
|
| 4. An apology no matter how sincere can't undo the debt either,
| it is usually impossible to make it right (unlike a financial
| debt which can be repaid). Society misses this at its own peril:
| forgiveness trumps apologies every time, this is the nature of
| wrongdoing. If anything we downplay how hard it is to make things
| right! As if a few well chosen words and humiliation could undo
| Will Smith's Slap? It can't work because it doesn't go back in
| time and change history to make the thing not happen!
|
| 5. Repentance makes it easier to forgive (it enables the victim
| and the perpetrator to meet in the middle), but it's always going
| to be hard to tell if repentance is genuine. See point 2.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > An apology no matter how sincere can't undo the debt either,
| it is usually impossible to make it right (unlike a financial
| debt which can be repaid).
|
| Often illustrated as "you can't un-ring a bell"
|
| You can sincerely regret having done something harmful, but
| rarely does that undo the harm.
| tsylba wrote:
| Once a media is accepted and known by the multitude it becomes
| performative, a spectacle where authenticity vanished preempted
| by new social rules. Beaudrillard's hyperreality describes the
| situation where we don't live in reality anymore but in the image
| of the reality we build, akin to an AI learning from data
| generated by another AI. It seems our current internet culture -
| heavily centralized, and universally used - is hyperreal, a
| performative space bound by rules of how to act, how to be
| accepted, what to say and not to say. In this kind of constructs
| I believe authenticity vanishes.
|
| I wonder how we might prevent this things to happen. I suspect
| it's linked with demography and popularity, something something
| Dunbar's number related.
| user3939382 wrote:
| > hyperreality describes the situation where we don't live in
| reality anymore but in the image of the reality we build
|
| This concept is almost tautological since the only conceivable
| alternative would be universal omniscience.
| erichocean wrote:
| Eh? The Amish (for instance) don't live in hyperreality (by
| Beaudrillard's definition).
| tsylba wrote:
| I might have add "upon itself".
|
| There is much to say about what is reality, and you can bring
| researcher like Hoffmann stating that we see of reality only
| what is good for our peak survival (don't need infrared,
| don't see infrared).
|
| Hyperreality is something else altogether. First, it's a
| common theme in postmodernist to state we live in a construct
| culturally accepted and ever evolving. Hyperreality states
| that we accept for reality layers that are objectively not,
| and make it "more real than real". The flavors of energy
| drinks (with weird names and chemically cultivated), porn for
| sex, Disney land as archetypal America, tv reality (which is
| everything but reality). Transposing the sign-value for the
| thing by itself. Words does not mean the thing that they use
| to mean but are reinterpreted upon this biased view of
| reality.
|
| The map is not the territory, the word are not the reality
| behind them.
|
| Media are more problematic because they are the message (see
| McLuhan), they are a space we live in (the water the fish
| flow in), not "reality" sense by our direct organ.
|
| But yeah it's tricky, there is a philosophical conundrum, I
| get your point.
| kerblang wrote:
| I honestly don't think Beaudrillard would have tolerated
| any philosophical hairsplitting about perceived realities -
| he recognized a "real" reality, and a shallow, artificial
| replacement, and was darned cynical & bitter about it.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| An apology is useless if it is not accompanied by a change in
| behavior. Actually, worse than useless as it is an insult. I know
| what I am doing is wrong but I am not changing.
|
| Large public apologies are performance art.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| That came up in the Freakonomics episode about apologies. If
| you make a promise but fail to deliver, the result will be
| worse than just not apologizing at all.
| banannaise wrote:
| This is the actual problem. We're doing Goodhart's Law with
| self-improvement. In a lot of cases, particularly concrerning
| people with power/clout, those people are never going to
| change. But they can make a vague simulation of it that hits
| the metrics. And now we've reached the stage where they can
| simply farm that process out to paid help, so they don't even
| have to do the simulation themselves.
| hackerlight wrote:
| > Large public apologies are performance art.
|
| But this _is_ the use, and so it isn 't useless. Not everyone
| who compels a public apology actually cares whether the accused
| feels genuine remorse. They want to enforce a cultural standard
| because they think that cultural standard is a good thing.
| washadjeffmad wrote:
| Apologies don't necessarily imply wrongdoing.
|
| An apology can be issued to acknowledge inconvenience or
| understanding, or to indicate someone is being heard. You can
| apologize for not changing or for disagreeing.
| nmz wrote:
| Example: "I'm sorry to say this but" ...
|
| Means you acknowledge the hurt saying something will cause
| but you still need to say it. because it needs to be said.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| If something truly 'needs to be said', the sayer believes
| it has greater value for the hearer than not saying it, eg
| 'I'm sorry to say this but I don't want to drink with you
| any more because you're an alcoholic.' The non-apology the
| other poster is talking about is professing to be sorry
| about something while having no intention of remediating or
| changing the offensive behavior.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I don't mean to be rude, but a friend of mine used to begin
| a criticism with "I don't mean to be rude, but ...". He did
| it so much it became a meme in the office, and people would
| laugh whenever he opened with that.
|
| He finally stopped :-)
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| No it means you pretend to apologise but are really talking
| more shit. Everyone knows the part before the "but" is
| passive aggressive window dressing and means nothing.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| That's a very unusual reaction to something that simply
| reflects good manners.
|
| "I'm sorry to say this" is just a polite way to express
| real displeasure for the fact that people sometimes have
| strong opinions, but they can be wrong at the same time,
| but in some cases they get easily offended when more
| knowledgeable people or simply more thoughtful people
| point it out.
|
| So starting by saying sorry does not refer to the person
| they are answering to specifically, but to the larger
| aufince that is listening, because they'll have to hear
| something that is probably obvious to the majority, but
| not to that particular very wrong and aggressive person
|
| Simply because they are trying to be polite.
|
| Also.
|
| The part before "but" counts as much as everything else,
| or the English language would not contain the word "but".
|
| I'm sorry yo say this, but quoting GOT it's not deep.
|
| An apology doesn't mean you did something wrong, many
| times it means you're doing something that did not want
| to do, but need to do and it's gonna hurt someone.
|
| I'm sorry sir, but your parking is expired, I have to
| give you a ticket.
|
| Apologizing on a social network to your 4 million
| followed because you have a vegan channel but in reality
| you are not vegan, have no intentions to become one and
| also find them pathetic, it's not an apology, it's damage
| control and trying to control the narrative, there's no
| space for real feelings at that point.
|
| Real apologies are between people who know each other and
| love each other and do not want to lose each other over
| their ego.
|
| So in conclusion most of the time apologies are a
| formalism, an ice breaker "sorry, what's your name
| again?" you are not really sorry. You just don't rember
| who that person is, but sorry works better than "hey you
| insignificant NPC my boss said I had to do this thing,
| but I don't care and I will forget your name in... what's
| your name again?"
| nmz wrote:
| I'm sorry but I disagree.
| seydor wrote:
| Yes, and audiences love performance art. They don't even really
| hate the actor for what they did, they enjoy the vengeful
| feelings i guess. Everything is molded to please the public.
| banannaise wrote:
| It's not the public who is pleased. It's the talking heads,
| the newsroom bosses, the politicians, the corporate officers.
| The people who can spread the message that the public is
| pleased, regardless of whether the public is actually
| pleased.
|
| And as long as the public is not _incredibly_ angry, they 'll
| mostly just quietly go along with it, because it's not worth
| fighting against. But they're not the source.
|
| It's manufactured forgiveness.
| eesmith wrote:
| > Whose P.R.-purposed apology was worse? Al Franken's or Louis
| C.K.'s? ... At SorryWatch.com and @SorryWatch, Susan McCarthy and
| Marjorie Ingall have been
|
| Let's take a look at what they say about those two, at
| https://sorrywatch.com/al-and-louie/ .
|
| Franken's first apology was a not-pology. The second is described
| as, on the whole, a good apology.
|
| As for Louis C.K.'s: "People! He never says he's sorry! So many
| words, and none of them are "I'm sorry" or "I apologize"!"
|
| And from https://sorrywatch.com/a-roundup-of-good-celebrity-
| apologies... : "Look, I'm feeling kinda demoralized by people
| thinking Louis CK apologized well, what with him not actually
| saying he was sorry. (As we note repeatedly here, REGRET IS NOT
| APOLOGY, chant it with me.)
|
| I don't see how the author of this piece connects Franken's
| apology to "performed remorse". How are we to conclude it wasn't
| an expression of real remorse?
| nmz wrote:
| Weird, it seems the authors don't even know what an apology is
| or an i'm sorry is. Everyone can say "I'm Sorry" it means so
| many things that in reality it means nothing. Regret and
| admittance of wrongdoing is the point of an apology, it means
| the individual knows their actions were wrong, and they would
| take them back. That's much better than an "I'm Sorry", which
| usually means, "really wish you wouldn't feel so bad" or "lets
| move past this".
| eesmith wrote:
| The "regret is not apology" seems to refer to a specific type
| of regret. That is, https://sorrywatch.com/regret-is-not-
| apology-karl/ says:
|
| > Regret is all about you; apology is all about another
| person's feelings. Regret stands alone; apology reaches out
| to someone else. Also, shut up with the whole "regret the
| controversy" business. That phrase just means, "I'm irked at
| other people." Regret your actions, then apologize for them.
| Do not say you regret other people's responses to your being
| an asshole.
|
| Note that it contains "regret" used two different ways.
|
| Your "admittance of wrongdoing" is part of "regret your
| actions", while that chant concerns "regret other people's
| responses".
|
| You can see the book authors' "The Six Steps to a Good
| Apology" at https://sorrywatch.com/ . Your "knows their
| actions are wrong" is "2. Say specifically what you're sorry
| FOR" and your "would take them back" is likely closest to "5.
| Explain the actions you're taking to insure this won't happen
| again."
|
| (See also https://sorrywatch.com/the-parts-of-a-good-apology/
| .)
|
| Thing is, I don't think the author of the New Yorker piece
| really addresses the points of the book, but instead uses it
| as a stepping stone to a very different interpretation of the
| topic, and lumping the book into a lumpy mishmash of religion
| and Twitter mobs.
|
| Which that book ... doesn't seem to be about.
|
| The web site gives an example of a good apology that Lincoln
| gave to Grant, at https://sorrywatch.com/when-lincoln-was-
| wrong/ , and commentary on Grant's poor apology for ordering
| the expulsion of Jews from the Department of Tennessee,
| followed by his actions which help make up for that apology.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| The same can be said for things like diversity statements. You
| know exactly what you are supposed to say and any deviation will
| be punished . It's just a formality you have to perform
| correctly.
| eastbound wrote:
| In other words, we tell lies, to people who pretend to believe
| them.
|
| Everyone lies and we know it, our companies have mottos and
| everyone knows they're fluff, and we teach kids to "thrive in
| ambiguity", which is a beautiful phrase I've found on a job
| offer and which I have found symptomatic of our economy.
|
| I still wonder what it was like to live in ex-RDA. Did people
| tell lies that others pretended to believe?
| inglor_cz wrote:
| I wonder if a descent to full-blown Soviet "Vranyo" (brazen
| lying) can be prevented.
|
| As in: "They lie to us, we know they're lying, they know we
| know they're lying, but they keep lying to us, and we keep
| pretending to believe them."
|
| Pretty much the only brake pad on that machine is that
| capitalism actually requires at least _some_ efficiency from
| the players, and a web of lies like that will destroy any
| institution. But I am far from certain.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| "In other words, we tell lies, to people who pretend to
| believe them."
|
| The same happens at corporations. When you are in planning
| meetings you often know the politically correct answer
| already. If you say it will actually take five times longer
| you are out of the inner circle. That although everybody
| knows that it will take that long. Seems the whole hierarchy
| is one big circle where everybody bullshits each other and
| knows it.
| chitowneats wrote:
| ya
|
| hehe
|
| I had to be
|
| it's what reputations are made of, to some extent
|
| I feel bad for those who get f*** by it
|
| by this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all
| the right shiboleths and so everyone likes us
| Sakos wrote:
| > by this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say
| all the right shiboleths and so everyone likes us
|
| Unfortunately, the people who treat it like a game like SBF
| are the ones who make it in business and in politics.
| There's no need to have ethics if it's sufficient just to
| act like you do. Reminds me of Kyrsten Sinema who played
| the part until she had the job.
| clnq wrote:
| Related: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-
| gervais-principle-....
| uxp100 wrote:
| I gotta say that removing the context from this sort of
| changes its meaning in a misleading way for those seeing it
| for the first time. It makes perfect sense in this context
| as well but some people have interpreted this as a sort of
| nihilism, but it's actually an endorsement of pure
| utilitarianism, more or less.
|
| Which doesn't make it better, my big take away from all the
| FTX stuff is that SBF and friends were just uh, not that
| smart, just dipshits losing other peoples money and
| thinking everything in life was as easy as impressing
| brainless VCs. (With some actual on purpose fraud mixed in
| as well, who knows)
| chitowneats wrote:
| > pure utilitarianism
|
| > a sort of nihilism
|
| The SBF saga is a great example of how easily the former
| degenerates into the latter. We're talking about someone
| who graduated MIT. He clearly has some amount of smarts
| and personal drive. "He's just a dipshit" is not an
| adequate explanation.
|
| Though, yeah, he ends up a dipshit at the end of the
| story (presumably).
| jeffskiling wrote:
| Zanni wrote:
| Note to down voters: this is a (relevant) direct quote from
| SBF's interview in Vox. [0]
|
| [0] https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23462333/sam-
| bankman-frie...
| drooby wrote:
| Whoa, this guys is a straight up sociopath
| nmz wrote:
| Which would make him perfect CEO material too.
| plugin-baby wrote:
| Thanks! I had read it as poetry.
| chitowneats wrote:
| It's certainly poetic.
| tenpies wrote:
| The problem is that a non-trivial segment of the population
| does believe it with zealous devotion. They've attended the
| diversity seminaries, taken the oaths, and there is no off-ramp
| for their faith.
|
| The other problem is politicians cannot differentiate between
| performative displays and actual values. The end result is that
| you see diversity quotas elevated above all other priorities
| and criteria.
| yanderekko wrote:
| >The problem is that a non-trivial segment of the population
| does believe it with zealous devotion
|
| Yes, but the diversity statements are not meant to separate
| the ordained from the masses, it's to ensure that actual
| heretics (or just those who are not properly accultured to
| understand what constitutes a transgression of social justice
| etiquette) are filtered.
| mjburgess wrote:
| Forgiveness as a kind of mourning makes sense, but is counter-
| intuitive.
|
| I think we've come to regard "forgiveness" as inevitably ending
| with reconsiliation. But perhaps, more often, it shouldnt.
|
| That is, forgiveness is how I see the other when I see them not
| as an enemy _or_ friend, but as a tragic part of nature. _I_ have
| moved on. Our ability to forgive has, perhaps, been distorted by
| the perception that it 's an act of kindness. I think, rather,
| it's the most rutheless form of grief there is.
|
| Another insight from the article is apology as a kind of non-
| violent humilitation. And the idea that apology even as a
| cultural expectation is somewhat rare and somewhat contingent on
| the era.
|
| This, again, makes sense but feels counter-intutive.
|
| What would a society look like which forgives without apologies?
| Perhaps one much better at moving on, much better at focusing on
| outcomes rather than obsessing about status.
|
| Perhaps the "purpetrator" doesnt need to apologise, we can just
| forgive them and punish them at once. We punish not to humiliate
| as an act of vengence, but as a necessary step to a better
| outcome. Eg., firing a dangerous boss, breaking up with a
| partner, etc.
| P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote:
| I think it's easier described as a dismissal of the other as
| unimportant. I don't know that I would give it the moniker
| forgiveness, but it absolutely means you've moved on.
|
| For example, an idea I live by is giving enough trust such that
| if the other person breaks that trust you've gained more than
| you've lost. A trite example would be letting a co-worker
| borrow $20. If they never pay you back you've gained more value
| from that than the $20 loss. Or if you have cleaners come into
| your home, if they steal that $5 sitting on the desk then
| you've gained much more you've lost.
|
| From personal experience, through a bad set of circumstances, I
| once had a cat I loved very much scared up into a tree that
| hung over the privacy fence over the neighbors yard, who had a
| large dog. Long story short, the neighber was up in the tree,
| removed the cat, it fell into his yard, and the dog killed it.
| I wasn't there at the time since said neighbor was supposed to
| come and get me when he was ready (he had a friend who trimmed
| trees for a living supposed to come over). When _I_ came over,
| he had the dog chained up in a corner so I could safely walk
| into the yard.
|
| I was extremely sad over the cat, I spent over $2k in emergency
| surgery trying to save her. My gf to this day can't talk about
| her without crying and it's been years.
|
| But I never got angry with the neighbor. Was it on purpose or
| just sheer stupidity? I honestly don't care, I can engage in an
| impotent rage or completely dismiss them as unimportant. I
| chose the latter. I was able to live next to that same neighbor
| for 3-4 more years, although we never had any other
| interactions.
|
| quite frankly, they're not important enough for me to expend
| the energy on them.
| pksebben wrote:
| That story is heartbreaking, and such a good example of what
| to do with grief. Grieving about the thing that hurts has a
| terminus, emotionally; bearing a grudge 'pins' the grief to
| you, holding it in place indefinitely.
| ehnto wrote:
| That is how I see forgiveness also, a letting go of the issue
| at hand, almost a delegation of the reconciliation to the other
| party. It's their problem to think over now.
|
| I have a past business partner who more or less, stole all our
| gear and fled. I let them know how I felt, but told them I
| wouldn't be actioning it any further than that. I let them know
| the social consequences of their actions were absolute, there's
| no way I'd treat them as a friend or work with them again, but
| I understood why they felt they needed to do it and I hope they
| find themselves in a better place.
| seanhunter wrote:
| That is, forgiveness is how I see the other when I see them not
| as an enemy or friend, but as a tragic part of nature. I have
| moved on.
|
| This is an incredibly interesting observation. In this sense
| then, forgiveness _is_ an act of kindness- to oneself. Because
| I have moved on, I don 't need to carry the bad feeling around
| with me anymore.
| qikInNdOutReply wrote:
| You could put that feeling behind you by automating holding a
| grudge. Let Grumblebot take care of your anger issues.
|
| def ifPersonaNonGrataPosts(Person NonGrata):
| let ListOfSins = getListOfSins(NonGrata) for
| socialMedia in AllSocialMediaAccounts do
| socialMedia.post(ListOfSins)
| chasd00 wrote:
| I suppose that also aligns when someone seeks forgiveness,
| they want the forgiver to move on and not hold a grudge.
| broadwaylamb wrote:
| No, they want to feel better about themselves but feel like
| they can't unless the other person forgives them.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > Because I have moved on, I don't need to carry the bad
| feeling around with me anymore
|
| This is my view of forgiveness. It doesn't mean reconcile. It
| doesn't mean forget. It means releasing the hate or anger
| towards the person who has wronged you. It does not mean you
| forget whatever they did -- that's likely impossible. It does
| not mean that you will trust them again, or trust them to the
| same degree. It does not mean that you were the one who was
| wrong to have be offended or hurt by whatever it was that
| they did (though sometimes it's worth reflecting on that). It
| simply means that you have moved on, and have released
| yourself from the pain or anger that surrounds those
| memories.
|
| Edit: The framing of forgiveness as "canceling a debt" as
| f154hfds posted in another subthread is a good analogy.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| People may be slow to forgive as they may think it gives
| something to the other, a type of concession, an admission of
| something, something on one side of an equation.
|
| But forgiveness mainly gives something to oneself not the
| other. It frees oneself from that hold over oneself.
|
| Apologies, if they are expected, are expected within the frame
| of a transaction. But forgiveness which doesn't seek something
| from the other can be given without an apology.
|
| The person who is forgiven doesn't need to know they are
| forgiven. Even if they are told, the feeling of freedom and the
| actual forgiveness comes before that.
| conductr wrote:
| > The person who is forgiven doesn't need to know they are
| forgiven. Even if they are told, the feeling of freedom and
| the actual forgiveness comes before that.
|
| I was with you until this last bit. My experience is that
| people will beg for forgiveness. Even if you forgive them,
| you'll then find it's reconciliation they were after. They
| will then ignore your forgiveness, or rather continue asking
| for it until you provide them a sense of reconciliation. I
| usually cut ties by then. They typically don't really care
| how you feel and it's all to boost their own ego and right
| the wrongs they've inflicted in their own mind.
|
| Maybe not universally applicable but my experiences seem to
| follow this pattern.
| P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote:
| apologies are supposed to be an acknowledgement that they
| wronged you and letting them know you forgive them allows
| them to have closure so THEY can move on with their lives
| (emotionally).
|
| We use it as the grease between the wheels for smaller
| things because we can't know what's in each others heads.
| And for larger things, it allows both parties to move on.
|
| To forgive without letting the other person know is
| absolutely about punishment (assuming they're alive,
| available, etc).
|
| I had a brother who had a fiance that left him, when she
| went to get remarried she sent him an email basically
| apologizing for all the shitty things she did and asking
| for forgiveness. he came to me in tears asking what he
| should do and I told him not to respond. Don't give her
| that closure, she wants to start her new life "clean".
|
| I have no idea what he ended up doing, he never told me.
| Knowing him, he most likely did respond, but my point is
| that I viewed her apology as selfish and would have
| preferred she never got that closure.
| 1659447091 wrote:
| >> but my point is that I viewed her apology as selfish
| and would have preferred she never got that closure.
|
| I have never believed one could receive forgiveness from
| another. Forgiveness comes from the self. In order to
| move on - from guilt or harm - we must forgive ourselves.
| Forgive our guilt, our shame, our self-blame; whatever we
| blame ourselves for our part in it - even if that part
| was being in the wrong place at the wrong time or
| trusting the wrong person. Forgiving only the other
| person doesn't solve the real harm we do to ourselves. I
| think it's an overlooked part of healing.
|
| I understand the desire to want her to suffer for the
| hurt she caused your brother. However, in this context, I
| see it as her giving herself closure from the guilt by
| sending the apology. Acknowledgment from the other is not
| necessary (but maybe would have been nice); she had done
| all that was in her control.
|
| Instead of giving the power to another or waiting for
| them to maybe provide closure, giving it to ourselves is
| the most healing thing we can do - no matter which side
| of the offense we are on.
| milesvp wrote:
| What I find interesting is the feeling of honestly
| forgiving. whatever the other person feels, just simply
| forgiving someone of some slight or wrong they may or
| even may not have done to you can be very cathartic. It
| was only recently in my life it even occurred to me to
| actually forgive someone rather than just saying the
| words.
| eduction wrote:
| It seems like you may fundamentally agree with the person
| you are replying to. The person who is forgiven may _feel_
| they need to know they are forgiven, but that doesn 't mean
| they actually do. Your example of someone who really wants
| reconciliation, and has confused it with forgiveness, seems
| like a good case of someone not actually needing to know
| they are forgiven, because it's not what they really want
| or care about anyway.
| conductr wrote:
| Good point, this may be the case.
| mjburgess wrote:
| Yes, I think so. Half of my point may be that as, eg.,
| jealous (defensive) has been conflated with envy
| (offensive); and as social-emotional language appears to
| have somewhat degraded (where is, today, 'guilt' ?)...
| likewise, we have conflated forgiveness with
| reconsiliation.
|
| Where perhaps, in a recent past, to be forgiven was more
| obviously "to be released from the burden of mattering,
| one way or another".
|
| A few might, then, genuinely want forgiveness because
| they feel guilt that you still hate them. But many moreso
| feel no guilt, what they want is to be reconsiled. To be
| judged positive and worthwhile.
|
| If this transition has occured, it would line up with the
| guilt->shame, envy-jealousy, etc. transitions. It would
| be a co-opting of noble language (genuinely wishing
| forgiveness) for ignoble selfish reasons (wishing
| reconsiliation).
|
| I find this thesis prima fascie plausible, in that I feel
| under-educated in the nobility of guilt, the dangers of
| envy, and the purpose of forgiveness. An education, i'd
| say, my great-grandparents certainly had.
| tomek_ycomb wrote:
| <<Forgiveness is letting go of the hope for a different past>>,
| various authors or variants of that quote (Iirc I heard it from
| Andrea Gibson poet).
|
| Anyway, I thought the quote was in line with your "/I/ have
| moved on" phrasing.
|
| Not sure I really agree with the rest of your statements about
| grief and forgiveness, nor that I understood all of your
| intend. But I love this quote and think about it sometimes, and
| it seems like it would vibe for your conception of forgiveness.
| SamBam wrote:
| What a great quote, thank you.
| jlos wrote:
| Forgiveness is about your commitment to move on from the wrong
| independent on the other person's action. It is more often an
| ongoing personal effort, and one you should always aim for
| after allowing space for appropriate anger.
|
| Reconcilliation is about the other person acknowledging the
| accusation of wrong. A confession of sorts. I'd suggest in the
| face of sincere apology this is always desirable to reconcile
| (turn the other cheek and what-not).
|
| Restoration is about returning to the person trust and its
| associated privildges. Not everyone deserves to be restored
| depending on what they've done. I would argue the true mark of
| contrition is an acceptance they may be forgiven but never
| restored (depending on the nature of offense, of course).
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > That is, forgiveness is how I see the other when I see them
| not as an enemy or friend, but as a tragic part of nature.
|
| This is the Christian conception, and I think it's a very
| helpful way to think about forgiveness.
| broadwaylamb wrote:
| > That is, forgiveness is how I see the other when I see them
| not as an enemy or friend, but as a tragic part of nature. I
| have moved on. Our ability to forgive has, perhaps, been
| distorted by the perception that it's an act of kindness. I
| think, rather, it's the most rutheless form of grief there is.
|
| I don't see how forgiveness is ruthless. It takes great
| compassion to accept people and situations as they are without
| harboring bitterness, resentment, or judgment. Forgiveness is
| also a form of self-love.
|
| The non-attachment that comes with forgiveness isn't the same
| as being cold or moving on by leaving someone else behind.
| That's still looking at things from an egoic "I have been
| wronged" narrative. Forgiveness is about dropping that story
| entirely.
|
| > I think we've come to regard "forgiveness" as inevitably
| ending with reconsiliation. But perhaps, more often, it
| shouldnt.
|
| I think in general reconciliation is a good thing, but it's not
| a given. And even if you do reconcile with someone, you don't
| have to restore full trust and involvement with them. You can
| clear the air and never talk to them ever again, or just on a
| need-to basis, or whatever. It all depends.
|
| In general, our society's difficulty with forgiveness and the
| like is just another facet of not liking to confront truth. We
| struggle with truth in this era because the truth is often
| painful and demands a lot of change out of us that we feel
| unable or unwilling to give. The Twitter apology is an answer
| to the question "How do we pay lip service to the truth without
| having to actually engage with it?"
| mjburgess wrote:
| Well, from the pov of the person being "detached", to be
| treated as an object is rutheless.
|
| What we are saying, after all, is that _the other_ is "a
| mere product" of nature; a symptom, not an agent.
|
| This, I think, is the most "anti-Western" notion 'inside'
| forgiveness, and why it seems so counter-intutive.
|
| The thing we do not want to give up is that people are agents
| who bare responsibility for their actions, that people are
| our objects of concern, that people are special.
|
| When we forgive we, ineffect, dehumanise -- at least, for the
| moment of that forgiveness. We step outside of a world in
| which they matter. And that seems a more ruthless and radical
| gesture than just hating them.
| trgn wrote:
| Extending forgiveness is ruthless indeed.
|
| Thomas Hobbes makes the following observation in leviathan,
| that is thoroughly depressing and at first perhaps
| paradoxical. A person who wronged you will only ever be
| able to hate you afterwards: either because of fear for
| your vengeance, or because of distaste for your
| forgiveness.
|
| The positive action of forgiveness only applies to those
| who extend it; those who are forgiven are rendered
| impotent. it's somewhat of a manipulative act if it's not
| accompanied by magnanimity and reconciliation.
| weberer wrote:
| >We punish not to humiliate as an act of vengence
|
| No, I think that's exactly how the Twitter mob operates. These
| people treat politics as some sort of religious war.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Politics and religion aren't very far apart. In some parts of
| the world they are nearly the same thing. Elsewhere, the
| belief in deities is the main differentiator, and even there
| it can get blurry, based on how some supporters seem to
| worship their leaders almost as gods.
| tremon wrote:
| _That is, forgiveness is how I see the other when I see them
| not as an enemy or friend, but as a tragic part of nature._
|
| To me, that's more a part of the reconciliation process than of
| forgiveness. It doesn't require forgiveness to abandon the
| other and move on. I rather think that forgiveness is the first
| step to restore the mutual relationship, it's a willful act to
| salvage what was broken. I guess in my mind, reconciliation is
| a prerequisite for forgiveness, but whereas reconciliation is
| about the self, forgiveness is about the other -- or at least
| the relationship with the other.
| they4kman wrote:
| To forgive is to let go of our own disturbances about the
| situation, and we may choose to never tell the subject of the
| forgiveness. Whether we wish to continue/rebuild a
| relationship with the subject doesn't need to depend on
| whether we are undisturbed.
| thrown_22 wrote:
| Funny how the literati have discovered that twitter is bad as
| soon as their friends no longer run it.
| i_am_proteus wrote:
| Insincerity should be the expected outcome from bullying people
| via socioeconomic pressure into making public apologies.
|
| Forcing someone to make a public statement via explicit or
| implicit threat of loss of income or ostracization is playground
| politics for adults.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| When I do it to you it's free speech, when you do it to me it's
| bullying.
| jmull wrote:
| If you make your money based on how popular you are, you are
| going to lose money, one way or another, if you start pissing
| off lots of people.
|
| Bullying and playground politics just isn't the right way to
| think about this.
|
| Kyrie, e.g., put the economic pressure on himself. Nike sells
| shoes. They don't want to pay him anymore because he can't sell
| shoes nearly as well now, and might impact their ability to
| sell shoes long-term. Regarding the Nets and NBA, Kyrie's many
| million dollar contract isn't exactly for playing basketball.
| It's for his ability to get lots and lots of people to want to
| watch basketball. When he pissed off a lot of people he doesn't
| do that very well, and his value as a basketball player drops.
| yanderekko wrote:
| Yes, and? Again, this is just an explanation of why one
| should expect insincere apologies - because the apology is
| being made for financial reasons, not genuine contrition.
| jmull wrote:
| I don't disagree that insincere apologies usually don't
| work very well.
|
| My point is that the "socioeconomic pressure" in many cases
| has nothing to do "bullying," "threats," or "playground
| politics". It can be self-inflicted: If you lower your
| value to the people who give you money, they will no longer
| want to give you as much money.
| chasd00 wrote:
| the only winning move is not to play. If you find yourself at the
| receiving end of a fully motivated twitter mob the way out is
| waiting for the mob to find another target and then picking up
| the pieces.
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