It is an abstract question that just crossed my mind after Lady Butterfly’s post a few minutes ago in c/mental health.
To be clear, I do not mean whether one should apologise. I do not mean that the act of apologizing has no meaning. I’m specifically asking if the person that expects someone else to apologize is driven by their own narcissism.
I personally place very very little value on words compared to actions. The act of apologizing has a tiny value to me, but the words are nearly meaningless. One is defined by one’s actions, not words, and not intentions. I never expect an apology. I want actionable, notable change.
I was physically disabled by a man and most of my life was taken away from me, but I still have no desire to hear some apology. In fact, it would come across as his selfishness for wanting to feel better about the chaos he caused if he tried to apologize. I don’t want vengeance. The only apology I would value is some measure of ongoing restitution. Short of such an effort, I would feel insulted by the overture of an apology.
From this perspective, expecting an apology seems narcissistic to me, but I would like to know if you feel differently and are able to articulate a nuanced perspective.
I disagree that expecting an apology is narcissistic. If I were being a devil’s advocate, I would ask you how expecting “actionable, notable change” is any less narcissistic than expecting an apology? I pose this question because I’m not sure I understand why you feel that expecting an apology is narcissistic (perhaps the confusion is arising from differing understandings of the word “narcissistic” — a complex word that is used in quite diverse ways)
I agree with you that apologies are, at best, insufficient — at least on their own — because even the best apologies can be invalidated by someone continuing to cause the same kind of harm they apologised for. However, when a good apology is accompanied by meaningful change, then it can really help with closure.
I have some trauma due to the stress of an extended period of disability discrimination, and sometimes I think about how I wish they would apologise. There was legal action taken, and compensation, but no apology. I can imagine a hypothetical alternate world where part of the settlement involved an apology, but that is not the outcome I crave, because that apology would inevitably just be hollow and only intended to placate me. This feels analogous to how you describe that you wouldn’t want an apology, except in my case, the apology would be coming from an organisation, rather than an individual, which would make the flavour of hollowness somewhat different.
The apology I crave is the one I know I will never get, but I would trade away most of the compensation for. It’s a silly thought to entertain, because if they had been willing to recognise the harm that they had caused me and committed to change, then it probably wouldn’t have escalated to legal action. And even if they had apologised in a way that felt genuine, I would have no way of holding them accountable to it, because I wasn’t involved with that organisation anymore. For me, an apology is about being seen. The harm that was done to me can never be undone, but recognising that harm is a necessary first step towards preventing it from being done unto others.
I think that expecting an apology isn’t a great thing necessarily. It certainly can be reasonable to expect it as a requirement to continue engaging with a person as part of an ongoing relationship of some sort, as a first step towards meaningful change. Expecting an apology is useful in these scenarios because if someone refuses to, then it lets me know early that I should not expect them to be better in future, and I can do with that information what I will. If they do apologise, then their apology exists for a while in an odd “superposition” where I’m not sure whether to regard it as a genuine apology or a bullshit one — that will depend on their future actions.
A distinct but relevant question is that of forgiveness. I’ve found that whether I forgive a person is decoupled from whether they apologise and/or improve, and I’m much healthier for it. I think of forgiveness as something that I do for myself; there’s a Buddhist line I like that says “holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die”. I don’t like forgiveness being treated as if it is given in exchange for an apology and/or meaningful improvement, because even when that growth does happen, it feels like it devalues both the growth and the forgiveness to treat it as transactional. Based on your post, I suspect you would have interesting perspectives on how forgiveness interacts with apologies and/or actual change.
I am trying to reflect on whether there is anyone who has meaningfully grown or repaired their original wrong who I haven’t forgiven. I don’t think so. However, there are people who haven’t apologised (or did so insincerely, out of selfishness) who I have forgiven. I
In broader context here, I’m working through some issues with how I deal with my family, while also reflecting on my own biases.
My thought process is radically different from yours. Neither is some right or wrong in an oversimplified dichotomy. In real life we would likely struggle to find common ground in many instances.
I do not know how I feel without taking pause and mulling it over. I can easily tell you what comes to mind in the moment, but that has little to do with the real me. The thing is, I don’t really care all that much about how I feel. I do not care to live in that space. I’m driven by curiosity. My view of other people is more like statistics. I’m rarely ever surprised by people. Most people that hurt me in some way were expected as a potential probable outcome. The probabilities of people are a curiosity of mine.
People that are focused inward on their emotions do not make sense to me probabilistically speaking. They are whimsical and random in many respects. I’ve been hurt by people many times before, especially when I was young. I have learned to never find myself in a vulnerable position with someone that lacks independent ethics to do the right thing when it counts. My real emotions are reserved for cohabitation and no one is welcome in that space without an invitation. So apologizing to me doesn’t mean anything. Be a better person and improve themselves to be less predictably terrible, that would be an amusing curiosity. When I know someone is focused inwards on their emotions, I might placate them when needed, but that is limited to trivial misunderstandings when I am aware of them happening. I live by my independent sense of ethics that I subject myself to entirely without exception. Unless you’re off somewhere in crazy land, I will always treat you fairly and amicably, but no different than anyone else.
When it comes to irreversible wrongs. I still fall into two wrongs do not make a right. Restitution is ethically obligatory, but beyond that is pointless. If the issue could harm someone else in a preventable way, then that should be addressed, but stuff like vengeance and punishment for the sake of it is stupid to me. For stuff like companies, companies are not people and should be extremely prejudiced in an ethical society. Businesses should be easy to start and even easier to fail, and any excuse to fail should be due cause. That is real capitalism in practice.
Anyways, my sense of judgement is like a 3rd party abstract person in my head. They are not part of my emotions. That separation of judgment from emotions is my definition of the absence of narcissism at a fundamental level. I care more about doing the right thing than I care about doing what is best for me. I’m quite reliable in that respect. I keep people at a distance because that can make me vulnerable to less consistently reliable people, especially when times are hard and it really counts.