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Comment by cbsmith | Hacker News Reader

I actually think there are lots of cases where it is perfectly warranted.

It's a big world; if you are on the world stage, it is quite difficult not to offend somebody no matter what you do. There are experts in the fields of diplomacy and etiquette who devote their careers to getting this stuff right, and usually even then there is someone offended about efforts to be so "proper". ;-)

So, I think it is a perfectly valid apology if basically the only thing you regretted about your actions was that it made someone upset. Most people don't get off on pissing other people off, but they do want to live their life and go about their business. That apology is perfect for that context.

What's freaky is when it is used for cases where you'd think there'd be a lot more that someone ought to be sorry for. What's even freakier is when someone everyone pretends it is apologizing for more than it is.

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I don't understand this viewpoint. What is an apology? An apology, at least to me, is a statement that you regret an action you performed, and hence are saying that if you were transported back in time and could relive that moment, you would have acted differently. Saying you are "sorry people were offended" does not imply that you would have acted differently.

If you do not wish you would have acted differently, do not apologize. If you do, then perform a real apology saying you made a mistake and wish to correct it. If you simply say that you regret others being offended, all you are really saying is you lament the fact there are people that exist that were offended by your statement. Ie, it is a shame that people disagree with you or are offended by your words, much like it's a shame that a stranger got a flat tire or that science has yet to cure the common cold. Ie, it's their problem, or at the very least, an existential observation of how you think things ought to be, not something that is your problem or responsibility to correct.

Well, for me personally, if I've offended someone seriously then that itself is reason enough for me to regret the action under most circumstances. I might regret it more if I am able to emphasize with their offense, but just offending them is enough.

But if you're attempting to apologize in public, it doesn't make sense to try to explain that. You can say what you did was wrong, if you think so. If you do not then just apologize simply without dressing it up with qualifications. It doesn't mean the apology is necessarily insincere.

Some information is too delicate to transmit reliably in a public forum.

> You can say what you did was wrong, if you think so. If you do not then just apologize simply without dressing it up with qualifications. It doesn't mean the apology is necessarily insincere.

If you don't specify what you are apologizing for, it leaves it to each listener to interpret what you feel sorry about. If you kill someone, and then say "I'm sorry", that could mean any number of things, "I am so sorry that I murdered him in his sleep so that I could take all his money", "I am sorry that while I was trying to take all his money, he caught me, so I killed him to stay out of jail", "I am sorry that I brought a gun with me to a robbery, because once he caught me, I had to either kill him or let him kill me", "I am sorry I was robbing him in the first place, I shouldn't steal, and killing him only made it so much worse", "that guy stole from me, and I was just trying to get the money back, but when he pulled a gun on me and said he'd kill me rather than let me take it back, I felt I had to kill him; in retrospect, I wish I had thought of another way to get the money back", "that guy was going to kill me then take my money, and I'm sorry that this was the case, but the only way I was going live was to kill him right then and there"....

While some of those examples do offer an explanation, one can be specific about what one is apologizing for without offering an explanation (indeed, I think that's exactly what Dell did, and in their case I believe that is shameful, because they ought to be sorry for a lot more).

I didn't mean that you don't say what you're sorry for, just that it may not pay to be too specific in some cases.

Ideally we'd all say exactly what was on our mind all the time and no one would ever get hurt, but sometimes tact is important.

Also, in the case of something like killing someone you might well place a higher value on exonerating yourself to the maximum extent possible than on potentially (re)offending someone.

>I don't understand this viewpoint. What is an apology? An apology, at least to me, is a statement that you regret an action you performed, and hence are saying that if you were transported back in time and could relive that moment, you would have acted differently. Saying you are "sorry people were offended" does not imply that you would have acted differently.

Yes, but the world does not owe us to deserve apologies every time that we are offended.

Sometimes we are offended, but we shouldn't be (because we are wrong), other times we are offended and it is arguable if we should or should not be (because it's a complex issue that can be seen either way).

So people can both be sorry that you were offended and _still_ feel like they have the right to say what they said. I.e they don't like offending people, but they feel that what they did was right and you should not feel offended.

Here's an extreme example:

I might say in a conversation that "Republicans are creeps". This might offend someone. Now, I could truly feel sorry for making that other person feel bad, but that does n't mean that I also regret my opinion.

The key here is that other people are not summed entirely in that one _thing_ that I might have offended them on (ie. my friend is not described entirely by the fact that he is a card-carrying republican). So, I might like them as people, as friends, as colleagues, etc, and feel sorry if I made them feel bad, but still dislike that _thing_ about them.

Your comment is contradictory. You start by saying that an apology implies regret. Then, you say that Dell's apology does not imply regret. Why not? If they're apologizing for offending people, then according to your first claim they must regret offending people, which means they would choose to not offend people if they were transported back in time. I'm not sure what more you want from Dell.

> An apology, at least to me, is a statement that you regret an action you performed, and hence are saying that if you were transported back in time and could relive that moment, you would have acted differently.

I've been trying to think of how to express a response to this which is clear. Here's my best shot.

One can regret actions one performed, or actions one didn't perform. If you were to express such regret for either, it'd be deemed an apology.

Strictly speaking, "regret" doesn't imply that could you relive the moment, you would have acted differently. As per the dictionary definition: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/regret

1. To feel sorry, disappointed, or distressed about.

The negative consequences of an action or inaction is apparent only in hindsight. You might do something differently if transported back in time, if you somehow had that hindsight, but feel absent that impossible scenario, you acted as could be expected by anyone, including yourself.

Finally, you may have faced what amounts to a no-win situation, where there was no way to choose outcomes that would avoid negative consequences for someone else without betraying some defining principle by which you choose to live your life. You may regret your actions (or lack thereof) and their consequences for others, without feeling there was a way to do better.

Really, there is a lot more nuance and variation available on this.

So, I think it is a perfectly valid apology if basically the only thing you regretted about your actions was that it made someone upset

This is what makes it a non-apology.

No, it doesn't. If you say something that offends somebody, what else is there to be sorry about? It's not like you killed somebody and offended somebody else, and are only apologizing the offending part. When you offend someone, that's the only bad thing that happens. Or, as comedian Steve Hughes puts it, nothing happens when you're offended.

Uhm, no, that’s not what apologies are about. When you apologize for something, you are also expressing regret for doing something. If you could decide again you would decide differently.

In this case, a honest apology would be one where Dell apologizes for hiring that moderator: if we could go back in time and hire a moderator again, we wouldn’t hire that person.

Maybe their apology for the offense is supposed to imply that (presumably, since they are apologizing, they want people to not be offended, one option for them to prevent that is to not hire people like that in the future), but why not say that directly?

(I think the view that offense doesn’t matter and can be safely ignored is extremely damaging. And besides, it’s not as though offense is the worst thing about this. Dell gave someone the stage who legitimizes very weird views that would be disastrous if they became – even more – widespread in society or even the basis for policy. That’s why people are offended. And that’s a very good reason to be offended. Yes, words do matter.)

I don't understand what you're saying. You say that an apology is an expression of regret, but then you say that Dell's apology isn't an expression of regret. Are you just saying that the Dell statement should have been more explicit?

I'm not sure he agrees that it is an apology.

I think it is more fair to say is that they expressed regret, but the only regret they expressed is that other people were offended by what they did. The conclusion is that if they had it to do over again, and they could find a way to do it without offending those people (keeping it secret perhaps?), they'd do it.

But finding a way to do it without offending people is a perfectly fine solution, since the only bad thing that happened was that people were offended. I made that point in a previous comment.

>> So, I think it is a perfectly valid apology if basically the only thing you regretted about your actions was that it made someone upset > This is what makes it a non-apology. reply

This issue is one that my views have changed on over the years, and I've spent some time thinking about it. I currently do sometimes give that "non-apology", if you will. What else do I say when A) someone was hurt by something I said, but B) I don't know what I should have said differently? I genuinely feel bad for someone who is hurt by my actions, even if I feel that I couldn't have predicted/avoided it.

It's kind of like when two people start talking at once--there's no real fault there; you can apologize without feeling "man, I really should have not started talking", assuming there were no cues.

There's nothing wrong with giving non-apologies in some circumstances. All it does is indicate in a diplomatic way that you weren't really sorry for what you did. If there was actually a really good reason for you to be sorry (ie. inviting an outspoken sexist radical to moderate at your event), that's a good reason for others to be pissed at your unapologetic response though!

This has nothing to do with being "upset" or "offended" or "proper" or "etiquette".

It has to do with little girls growing up thinking there are entire categories of things they can't do. And it has to do with grown women being unable to do their jobs because too much of their time is spend dealing with the fact that their coworkers can't handle working with a woman. I'm not "offended" that Dell is contributing to that, I'm sad.

> it is quite difficult not to offend somebody no matter what you do.

Avoiding having a guy that is blatantly sexist and misogynistic is not exactly hard nowadays.

Can you give evidence for what you believe in?

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