Comments on: Pity is not an apology. Try again.

By: :paula

:paula — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 15:14:55 +0000

Important, and moved me to tears, especially after his initial hamhanded remarks. And look at that picture – I didn’t know Victor Garber was even Irish!

By: smc

smc — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 22:43:52 +0000

It is clear from their response, that the women involved do NOT feel that apologies are “fundamentally cheap and facile.” If they were so facile it would not have taken the Teoiseach three times to finally get it right.

By: sumac

sumac — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 18:33:41 +0000

In reply to David Turoff.

I don’t agree that apologies are fundamentally cheap and facile. If that were true, we’d see a lot more of them. And we’d see a lot fewer people tying themselves in knots trying not to apologize, by resorting to cheats like sorry-if-anyone-was-offended, sorry-my-efforts-aren’t-appreciated, and sorry-you-feel-that-way. (Those are facile, if you like.)

Real apologies require that the person who is apologizing reflect, dig down, and understand what they did.

Reparations do seem to be forthcoming for the Magdalene survivors. Part of the Taoiseach’s speech was description of a reparation (compensation) scheme.

http://www.itv.com/news/update/2013-02-19/irish-government-confirms-magdalene-laundry-compensation/

By: David Turoff

David Turoff — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 16:55:32 +0000

Apologies are important symbols, and useful to the victims (when sincere) even when late, but they are just symbols, fundamentally cheap and facile. *Reparations* are deserved, expensive, difficult, and rare, and unlikely to be forthcoming in this, as in many similar situations. Thus may one judge the true remorse of the perpetrators.

By: tanita

tanita — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 16:01:32 +0000

No, no indeed, pity is not an apology. This reminds me of the orphanages run in Australia where aboriginal kids were separated from their families to be put to work and made somehow less... aboriginal, for the sake of the state. When the state finally apologized, I could only have wished it could have been received in a manner as heartfelt and fierce as this. Instead, it seemed to be too little, too late. Situations like these, when an apology comes after legislative error and people in power have essentially closed their eyes against it, these situations make me wonder if there's ever a time an apology is simply too late.