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On Apologies
Jul. 25th, 2013 09:21 amA few days ago ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
asakiyume posted an excellent report about Readercon, particularly a section about not apologizing for your work when you perform it or post it - that apologizing is asking the audience to give you a gift of their acceptance, rather than giving them a gift of your work.
And it does make the story feel like a demand rather than a gift: as if it’s being shared for the sake of getting "No really, this is actually great!" feedback. But couching art in those terms in effect spoils the feedback: one has to wonder how sincere the feedback is when the work is presented in terms that suggest the author needs an ego boost.
Feedback is an expression of love and, like all expressions of love, maybe it loses something if you have to ask for it.
***
Clearly there are times when it appropriate to say, “I need you to tell me you love me; I need you to support me.” And being able to ask that - to have confidence that such a request will be fulfilled - can show the strength of a relationship.
But if someone offers these things only when asked, then I do think that’s a sign that something is wrong: that, probably, your love (not necessarily romantic love) is unrequited. A relationship is supposed to go both ways.
***
asakiyume pointed out that, though we rarely think of it that way, an apology is often a social demand: a particularly abject apology often ends with the injured party comforting the person apologizing - because the apology has focused attention on how terribly guilty the apologizer feels, not on the suffering of the person they wrong.
I've been thinking about guilt recently, and the way that people can use their own feeling of guilt to shield themselves from the consequences of the way they act to other people. They dwell on how guilty they feel, rather than how bad they made the other person feel - “You can't possibly accuse me of anything that I haven't accused myself of a thousand times.”
But often the point is not that you (general you) have never thought something and need to be told it, but that the other person needs to say it and to have you acknowledged that their pain is more important than your guilt.
Guilt is such a painful emotion that it's hard to think of it as something that we might indulge in. But wallowing in feelings of guilt allows us to get out of the hard part of actually making amends. Guilt is just a feeling, and simply feeling it does no good for the people we have hurt. Making amends requires action; and action is scary, because it can be rejected.
asakiyume posted an excellent report about Readercon, particularly a section about not apologizing for your work when you perform it or post it - that apologizing is asking the audience to give you a gift of their acceptance, rather than giving them a gift of your work. And it does make the story feel like a demand rather than a gift: as if it’s being shared for the sake of getting "No really, this is actually great!" feedback. But couching art in those terms in effect spoils the feedback: one has to wonder how sincere the feedback is when the work is presented in terms that suggest the author needs an ego boost.
Feedback is an expression of love and, like all expressions of love, maybe it loses something if you have to ask for it.
***
Clearly there are times when it appropriate to say, “I need you to tell me you love me; I need you to support me.” And being able to ask that - to have confidence that such a request will be fulfilled - can show the strength of a relationship.
But if someone offers these things only when asked, then I do think that’s a sign that something is wrong: that, probably, your love (not necessarily romantic love) is unrequited. A relationship is supposed to go both ways.
***
asakiyume pointed out that, though we rarely think of it that way, an apology is often a social demand: a particularly abject apology often ends with the injured party comforting the person apologizing - because the apology has focused attention on how terribly guilty the apologizer feels, not on the suffering of the person they wrong. I've been thinking about guilt recently, and the way that people can use their own feeling of guilt to shield themselves from the consequences of the way they act to other people. They dwell on how guilty they feel, rather than how bad they made the other person feel - “You can't possibly accuse me of anything that I haven't accused myself of a thousand times.”
But often the point is not that you (general you) have never thought something and need to be told it, but that the other person needs to say it and to have you acknowledged that their pain is more important than your guilt.
Guilt is such a painful emotion that it's hard to think of it as something that we might indulge in. But wallowing in feelings of guilt allows us to get out of the hard part of actually making amends. Guilt is just a feeling, and simply feeling it does no good for the people we have hurt. Making amends requires action; and action is scary, because it can be rejected.
