Apologies Under Compulsion

[Scoutfish]

Like I said..it depends on the particulars of the situation. And I'll bet they are never the same.

 

Supposemy son is horsing around, not paying attention and knocks down a younger cub scout. Maybe bump a table and spills adrink or something.

 

I'll point out to my son, what he did, and tell him he needs to apologize to the younger scout. Actually, younger/older doesn't matter here. Not sure what that part was about.

Anyways, it's pretty obvious that my son didn't INTENTIONALLy knock the scout or drinjk over. The apology is more of a good manners thing/Falls along the lines of opps, sorry,thank you, etc....

 

 

But at the same time, reversing the situation, I don't expect an apology from another person if I know it was an accident. Obviously, if it was an accident, then it wasn't meant to be malicious or mean spirited.

 

If it was done with malace...I won't put any merit to the apology.

 

 

Now, as a side note, I mayself have a different view on this kind of stuff. I have always felt that people who are so offended and will stop to no end to demand an apology - actually are not wanting an apology . In fact,it is as was said earlier - a power trip.

 

My view on it is this: Being offended is a matter of choice and self imporeance.

 

So what if you say whatever you say? The sun will still rise tomorrow. I will still have a job, my family will still love me and the dogs will still want me to pet them.

 

You can only offend me if I let you or your words have power over me. I am not that weak. If I get offended everytime somebody says somthing..It is because I choose to be offended, which is a waste of time.

 

But that's just me. I do not hold others to that ideal.

[Proud Eagle]

If you say to someone, "I am sorry" but you are not, you have lied, thus owing them an honest apology for the first offense and an honest one for the second offense of lying.

 

If you say, "I appeciate this gift" and you in fact think it is useless junk and are insulted by it, then again you have lied and owe an apology.

 

In polite society why lie to each other constantly as part of social convention and think it is virtuous because of those social conventions. These polite lies, or polite fictions, are in fact part of what greases the skids of civil society. None the less these things remain false.

 

Basic Christian moral theology holds that you may not do evil that good may come of it. The ends do not justify the means. At all. Ever. Rather the means and the ends must both be good.

 

From a Catholic point of view, the reminds me of confession and contrition. We distinguish two type of contrition, perfect and imperfect. Perfect contrition is motivated purely by love of God. Imperfect contrition may be motivated by lessers things such as fear of hell. At the minimum imperfect contrition is a requirement to be absolved in confession. In either case a person must acknowledge their sin, have contrition, and have the intent to amend their life and not sin again.

 

In a similar way, you might say that some sort of contrition is required to make a true apology. No contrition, no real apology. However, I don't think we need to hold out for an ideal form of contrition, rather even contrition motivated by loss of friendship or such other natural consequences could be enough. Perhaps more important still, is to acknowledge that some wrong was done and offer restitution if needed (this having to do with satisfying justice) and also to promise not to do it again. In my mind "I am sorry I got caught" is not good enough, but "I am sorry I have wrecked our friendship" very well could be.

 

In any case, I would not just let someone off the apology hook because their conscience is clear. If they have done what is objectively wrong, and they yet have a clear conscience, then clearly their conscience is either not well informed or has been misformed. In this case working to correct this would seem a necessary thing. How to go about that is a matter far deeper and more complex than just the question of apologies.

[SeattlePioneer]

Scoutfish,

 

 

In the example you gave of a boy engaging in horseplay and injuring another person, the fact that the injury wasn't intentional doesn't mean the action wasn't wrong.

 

Had he intentionally injured someone, it might be a crime.

 

The unintentional injury due to horseplay was an act of negligence ---- a wrongful act. Has an injury occurred, the negligent person would owe for the damages he caused, and an honest person would, at a minimum, apologize for their bad behavior even if it didn't cause injury.

[moosetracker]

Seattle, I doubt Scoutfish's imaginary example of horseplay, was with serious injury.. More likely a sore bum, or bruise.. But, I know what you are saying.

 

So would my example of asking council for an apology to my son, over a refund of campfees be considered a "power-trip"? Just curious. Because when we offered the choice we thought it was being very generous..

 

It was like telling a roofer.. "I paid for you to install new roof, but with the first rain storm still leaks.. Rather then refund the money or fix the roof, all I will ask for is an apology, and we will let it slide"

 

Personnally, I thought the option was very generous, and something we only chose to do because it was the BSA organization..

 

So is asking for an apology under these circumstances also really considered a power trip? Obviously I guess our Council thought so, because they refused to apologize. Even though I heard from other in the inner circle, that they knew they screwed up.

[SeattlePioneer]

Hello moosetracker,

 

 

Oh, it sounds like the horseplay incident produced trivial actual harm. Still, horseplay that results in an univolved person being knocked down is wrong and deserves an apology.

 

And I'm sure we all recognize the potential of horseplay to get out of hand and produce genuine harm.

 

 

Frankly I thought it was VERY poor judgment for the council to change the advertized program your son participated in, and appalling for them to refuse him the ability to call home for parental counsel and advice.

 

In my view, refunding the fees paid by anyone who complained or might claim some harm AND a sincerely apology would be in order.

 

It's easy to make a poor judgement ---- I did that by posting an email by someone with their name and phone number a day or two ago. I'm surprised a council program wasn't reviewed more carefully to catch the poor practices you described.

 

We do our best. Sometimes it isn't very good....

[Scoutfish]

Well, it is one of those situations where, in my mind, I was thinking of a certain scenerios, but somehow..forgot that you can't see into my mind.

 

In my example, I was thinking of free time during Cub Scout camp out. You know: 65 kids running around ablivious to therest of the world around them - typical kid stuff.

 

So a couple of boys are only focussing on themselves and nothing else. They are running around and one of them plows into another scout who is also unaware of anything not connected to him. They crash and it's just a case of bumping into each other.

 

Although my son is no more at fault than the other scout and it wasn't intentional. I'd expect him to say "Sorry about that." if for no other reason that to just be courteous and show that there was no hard feelings.

 

But say, if another scout was horseplaying to a harsher degree and was having fun PURPOSELY tripping other scouts, I would not realistically expect my son ( or any other scout)to apologize if my son inadvertently knocked him over while being tripped.If my son was that instigator, I wouldn't expect anybody to apologize to him.

 

Why? Because same situation with me or you..damned if we would apologize to the guy who tripped us purposely! So I would not expect my son to feel any different than me.

 

And while the subject is brought up.....Am I the only one who has noticed an incredible amount of kids who run around while looking in any direction except the one in which they are running? It's like they are looking at where they were instead of where they are going!