Anger Mismanagement

Outside of the worlds of cognitive psychology and behavioral economics most of what passes for conventional wisdom in the therapy world is little more than diluted and distorted ethics.

Since these precepts pretend to be scientifically valid, journalists often pick them up and present them as objective facts.

As I occasionally mention, David Hume famously showed that science does not contain an ethical dimension. It can describe what you did, not what you should do.

Today Elizabeth Bernstein tackles an intriguing issue: how best to express anger; as the saying goes, she punts. Link here.

I was somewhat hopeful when I started reading the article. Bernstein is correct to say that we learn to express anger by watching the way our family members express theirs. My hopes were dashed when she gratuitously added that the way to overcome parental influence is to have lots of therapy.

If it happens that your parents did not present a very good example of how to express anger, then the solution is to find someone better to emulate.

From there Bernstein presents the therapeutically correct way to express anger.

It makes you-- or, I should say, me-- want to rush to open a volume of Aristotle’s ethics.

Where the therapists are clearly in over their head, the philosopher did, literally, write the book on ethics.

When he addressed the question of how to express anger, Aristotle did not think in terms of what a person who had been therapied to within an inch of his life would do. He described how a virtuous person should do it.

Given that therapeutic correctness is enmeshed in a gauzy empathy, it sees the expression of anger as a productive moment in a relationship.

Given that anger, almost by definition, is hostile and aggressive, you have to wonder how the therapists could have decided that it is going to restore loving affinity to your relationship.

According to Bernstein the therapeutically correct expression of anger should lead to a hug. I would say that if it leads to a hug you have not expressed anger effectively… if at all.

We get angry because someone has offended, insulted, or demeaned us. Having been knocked down we want to get up, to assert our dignity, and that can only be done forcefully.

Do it nicely and you are not expressing anger. You are accepting the diminished status you have just been assigned.

Aristotle would have said that the failure to respond to an offense with the right kind of anger makes you subservient, even servile.

For now, let’s examine the therapeutically correct way to express anger, as Bernstein, relying on her “experts,” presents it.

First, she says, when you feel a rush of anger, you should take a deep breath.

Here, I concur, in part. It is often a good idea to reflect on what has happened, whether you are right to feel anger, and how best to express it.

Yet, the larger issue is when and how to express your anger. If the moment is right, you would do well to get angry. As the old saying goes: carpe diem. Procrastination is not always your friend.

It is not always right to get angry on the spot, but it is also not always right to sit back and think it over.

Second, Bernstein says that you should make an appointment to express your anger. She wants you to say that you need some time to calm down, and would like to find a convenient time to discuss the matter.

This is obviously wrong. If someone has disrespected you, you should not respond with a gesture of respect. That would feel like a reward. And why would you want to telegraph your punch, thus to put him on guard? This is beginning to sound like: Anger for Eunuchs.

If you make an appointment to tell someone something that he does not want to hear, will make him more or less likely to show up?

Third, the experts believe that your first move should be to excuse and explain yourself.

By that they mean that you should begin by saying that while you would normally shut the person out or get angry, this time you are trying to do things differently.

So, now we learn that the best way to express anger is to declare, from the top, that you are not going to get angry.

When you say that you are trying out a new technique, you are saying that your anger is less serious, more theatrical… even a rehearsal.

If you follow this step, you will have told the other person not to take your anger very seriously. This means that you are afraid of his reaction, and thus, are willing to accept subservience.

Fourth, you are supposed to tell the person that it takes courage to express your anger and you already feel badly because you know that it is hard to hear that someone is angry with you.

This tells you to open with an apology, accompanied by lots of ego massage. Again, we are in the realm of subservience.

So far, not a single angry word has passed your lips. You have shown yourself to be weak and pusillanimous, afraid of your own shadow.

If the other person has not yet started to laugh at you, the only reason must be that he is having too much fun watching your squirm.

Fifth, you can now express your personal feelings. Not your angry feelings... Heaven forfend. No, you must open up about your hurt feelings, thus continuing to place yourself in a feeling of weakness.

If the insult that has occasioned your anger was intended to weaken you, then, by expressing your weakness, you are embracing the lower status that the insult was conferring on you.

Besides, when you say your feelings have been hurt, you are appealing to sympathy and pity.

Still, no anger.

Sixth, you are now supposed to excuse the other person. Therapists recommend that you say that you know that the other person did not mean to hurt your feelings, and that you would like to give him the opportunity to explain himself.

But, what gives you the right to occupy both sides of the conversation? And how can you presume to speak for someone else? Are you that afraid of hearing what he might say?

Keep in mind that if you are not acting like someone who has been insulted, then your friend will be thinking that he did not do anything wrong. He treated you as servile because you are servile.

Besides, the last thing you want to hear is an explanation. You want to hear a sincere apology.

If the apology is accompanied by an explanation-- the Devil made me do it; I was having a bad hair day-- it is, by definition, insincere.

If you get the expression right, your antagonist will apologize, accept responsibility for what he said, not try to explain it away, withdraw it, and vow not to say it again.

At that point, you do not shower him with hugs and kisses. You forgive him.

The therapeutically correct way to express anger expresses no anger. Score one for the therapy culture.

In order not to wallow in despair, let’s turn to Aristotle’s view.

The philosopher makes two essential points. These concern the way a virtuous person can express anger.

First, like all emotions, anger can be excessive, deficient, or tempered. Not too much means that the anger should be directed toward the person who caused offense, and should not, in degree, exceed the severity of the offense. Not too little means that you there are times when you cannot and should not ignore offensive behavior.

Some people are irascible; they get angry too often for reasons that do not seem to pertain to the situation at hand. Others are diffident, they do not seem to know when they are being abused, so they absorb it and wonder why they feel like they lack self-respect.

In Aristotle there is no one-size-fits-all view of anger, and there is no single formula that tells us how to express it.

How should one express anger? Aristotle’s statement is classic: “The man who is angry at the right things and with the right people, and, further, as he ought, when he ought, and as long as he ought, is praised. This will be the good-tempered man, then, since good temper is praised. For the good-tempered man tends to be unperturbed and not to be led by passion, but to be angry in the manner, at the things, and for the length of time, that the rule dictates; but he is thought to err rather in the direction of deficiency; for the good-tempered man is not revengeful, but rather tends to make allowances.”

But how do you know what is right here? That, after all, is the fundamental question.

In my view, you have gotten it wrong if you have made yourself and your emotion the center of attention. You have gotten it right when you have directed attention toward the person who has offended you.

When anger is expressed effectively it will shame the other person, causes him to apologize, quickly, directly, and sincerely.

If he fails to apologize, that can only then mean that the offense was intentional, and that he will continue to treat you as subservient.

In that case, expressing anger is fruitless. It’s best to cease contact with the person.

Do Apologies Fail?

Many years ago I wrote a book called: Saving Face: America and the Politics of Shame. Ostensibly, and actually, I wanted to clarify the distinction between two of the most important negative emotions, two emotions that involve social sanctions for bad behavior: shame and guilt.

Since most people use the terms interchangeably, as though they were just two sides of the same coin, clear distinctions seemed needed and desirable.

Differentiating guilt and shame is not that difficult. Guilt involves breaking the law. If you commit a crime or transgression, you will feel guilt.

Guilt is an anxious anticipation of punishment. Once you receive the punishment, your guilt is over and done with.

Shame is about failure. When you let the team down, do not show up for an appointment, use the wrong fork, or lead your company into bankruptcy… you feel shame. Since there are different levels of social responsibility, there are different degrees of shame.

In none of those cases have you broken any laws or committed any crime or transgressed any taboos.

Since shame involves a loss of reputation, overcoming it is far more difficulty than overcoming guilt. You can only overcome shame through several clearly defined steps.

First, you should apologize, thereby announcing in public that you take sole responsibility for your own failure. An apology must be stated with sufficient sincerity to be credible and meaningful.

Saying you are sorry is not enough. If your face is not contorted in a severe grimace, your apology will feel insincere.

Second, when you apologize you are vowing never to do it again. If you apologize for failing to show up or for failing to keep your composure, and if you should then fail to show up or lose control, your actions will have voided your apology.

If the purpose of the apology is to erase the mark of disrepute you have brought on yourself, going back on your vow will make that mark more indelible.

Third, in most, but not all cases, an apology should be accompanied by your making some amends for your failure. If you have failed your corporate or political responsibilities, you will need to resign your position and to withdraw from society for a time.

Shame involves ostracism; it’s primary sanction is isolation from the group. An apology accompanied by self-withdrawal saves the group the trouble of ostracizing you. You should not, in other words, apologize and then go back to work as though nothing had happened.

In the long run, apology will put you on the path toward restoring your reputation. It says that the failing was yours and yours alone, but that it is not the meaning of your life. It says that even though you showed yourself to be untrustworthy, you want people to overlook your failing and to trust you again.

Thus, apology erases a failure in the sense that it declares that the action was not a meaningful expression of who you are.

Often shame and guilt are confused. Under some circumstances you can feel both at the same time.

When a financial officer embezzles company funds he is committing a crime. Unless he is a sociopath he will feel some guilt. Hopefully, he will be prosecuted and incarcerated.

At the same time he has failed to uphold his responsibility to his company, his colleagues, and his family. Thus, he should also feel ashamed and owes many people an apology.

On the other hand, a neighbor who had promised to water your plants during your vacation but forgot to do it will feel shame, but not guilt. He has not broken any laws; he will not be indicted and prosecuted. He owes you an apology and should make amends.

I am reviewing these points because a reputable publication, Scientific American, recently reported on some research into the power of apology and grossly misunderstood the issue. Link here.

Worse yet, it drew conclusions that can easily mislead people.

The research in question claims that apologies fail to live up to expectations. It suggests that, as a general rule, people feel much better about an imagined apology than they do about a real one.

One might read this and conclude that apology as a tool of relationship repair is overrated, and thus, that when you offer one, you are essentially engaging in an empty ritual. Such a conclusion would not tend to encourage sincere apologies.

Since I have often argued in favor of the ritual of apology, I naturally find this all to be unacceptable.

Apology is a social ritual. It does not fail. People may fail when their actions do not conform to what the ritual requires. When that happens apology does not do what it should be doing. But that does not mean that it has failed. It means that you have failed.

There are many problems with the research.

First, it suggests that people apologize for transgressions. In the experiment the researchers invented, those who receive an apology have been cheated out of some money.

As I suggested, apology, by definition, does not focus on transgression, thus sin and crime. It involves a failure to fulfill a social obligation.

When people apologize for cheating you, they do owe you an apology, not for transgressing or cheating, but for betraying your trust and confidence.

Second, the researchers assert that our “cultural wisdom” sees apology as “the first step in mending a broken relationship.”

Actually, apology is the first step to repairing a broken reputation. Hopefully, restoring your reputation will help to repair your relationships, but the two are not the same.

Third, the research suggests that the purpose of apology is to help us to “forget about the bad things that have happened.”

Even though apology is a first step in that direction, it is not about erasing bad events, but about helping people to forget your failures, to encourage them to see you differently.

Apology is only a first step in a long process. The fact that an immediate apology does not produce the expected results in the experiment's subjects does not cast aspersions on the social ritual as much as it does on the failures of these researchers to understand the terms of their experiment.

Fourth, in the research experiment those whose trust was betrayed received written apologies.

If apology expresses shame and if shame involves the loss of face, an effective apology should be offered face-to-face. At the very least, the person’s face should be visible.

Reading facial expressions is one of the most important ways he have of telling how sincere the apology is. Sending an apology by letter, by email, or by text deprives you of that information.

Fifth, in the experiment, the subjects receive apologies for having been cheated, but they do not actually receive any recompense.

If they found this reality less satisfying than an imagined apology, good for them. They were rejecting faked apologies but maintained their belief in the effectiveness of apology.

Their imagined apologies were closer to the correct ritual than were those offered in the experiment.

As I suggested, the experimental subjects understood something that the researchers missed: apologies don’t fail. People fail. If you don’t understand that, you do not understand apology.

Should We Always Forgive and Forget?

I have written extensively about the ritual of personal apology. Being able to take responsibility and to vow never again to make the mistake is fundamental to character building.

I have not written very much about forgiveness. Surely, it was an oversight, one that reflects the fact that for most of us forgiveness is semi-automatic. When someone abases himself by offering an apology, our first instinct is to accept it and to forgive him.

Today Dr. Helen Smith reminds us that forgiveness is far more complicated than we imagine and that if we hand it our indiscriminately, we are making a mistake. Link here.

There are times, she has written in the past, when it is normal and rational to refuse to forgive people. Despite the protestations of Dr. Phil, you should feel required, by any moral imperative, to forgive the man who killed your child. Link here. 

Besides, if there were no unforgivable actions, then offering forgiveness would be meaningless.

Today, Dr. Helen was reporting on a new article about forgiveness.

Entitled, “Why You Should Hold a Grudge against your Spouse,” the article explains that when a husband is too quick to forgive an abusive wife, the wife will be more likely to repeat the abuse. If the husband holds a grudge, withholds forgiveness, then the wife is more likely to rectify her bad behavior.

How should we understand this seeming anomaly? And why do psychologists so often tell people that they must always forgive, lest they hold on to their grudges and become angry people.

The research suggests that when a husband holds a grudge, he is showing that he is expecting that his wife will be good to her word and will not repeat the offending behavior.

We can outline some different aspects of forgiveness.

In the first place, forgiveness is something you earn, not something you are entitled to. The mere expression of regret does not entitle you to forgiveness. If the apology is empty you do not deserve forgiveness.

Second, an apology must be sincere. People often go through the motions when they apologize. We do them no favor by pretending that it means something when it doesn’t.

Third, an apology implies a vow never to do it again. In the moment of the apology, you cannot know whether the person is going to keep his word. If you have your doubts, you might well be led to refrain from forgiving him.

Fourth, an apology should not lead to an immediate return to normalcy. When an executive offers a public apology, he should also resign from his position and withdraw from society.

You may recall that Bill Clinton’s Attorney General, Janet Reno, offered a public apology for incinerating the members of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. Dozens of people died in the fire; many of them children.

When Reno apologized in a Congressional hearing, her facial expressions suggested sincerity. Yet, she did not resign her position, so we have no reason to forgive her.

However sincere the words, they must be accompanied by an appropriate action.

The Apologetic Sex

When it comes to apology, the gender divide is massive.

In a culture where everyone talks the good talk about taking responsibility, the burden seems always to fall on women. Women tend to apologize all the time, regardless of the offense. Men tend never to apologize at all.

Whatever steps the culture has made toward equality, clearly, in this specific realm, the divide is larger than ever. We might even say that the efforts to deny the reality of the differences between the sexes has produced an unnecessarily great divide.

Stranger still, when it comes to apology, and probably only when it comes to apology, women are the more promiscuous sex.

Writing for Jezebel, Anna North addresses the female tendency toward excessive apologetics: “Women especially are often called upon to apologize for things that aren't actually bad — or aren't our fault — and the result can be a feeling that our needs or desires or our very beings are things we need to be ashamed of. First of all, you don't have to apologize for stating your opinion in a respectful way. It's become pretty common to start a sentence with 'I'm sorry, but’ or ‘I'm sorry if I'm stepping on anyone's toes here‘ — but as long as the pending statement isn't malicious, you have nothing to apologize for. And if it is, you probably shouldn't be saying it. Second, you don't need to apologize for taking up space. Maybe I'm the only one who says ‘sorry‘ when someone else steps on my foot, but it's a stupid habit and I'm trying to break it. It implies that I'm at fault just for having a physical body in the world, a notion I ordinarily try to work against.” Link here.

Perhaps women feel that they are called upon to take the blame for everything that goes wrong, but surely, as North says, they would do better to demur.

She notes correctly that when a woman apologizes all the time she is indulging a bad habit, one that makes apology into a meaningless verbal tic.

North suggests-- perhaps from experience- that a woman who stops apologizing for everything and nothing will discover that she is feeling more confident.

Everyone wants to feel more confident. Some mental exercises will momentarily boost your so-called self-esteem, but even if you discover a magical mental trick that gives you a rush of confidence, you can undermine it all by going out and saying you're sorry.

The more you say you're sorry, the more you're going to believe that you're sorry.

Confidence might be a state of mind, but the best way to gain it and to keep it is to behave as though you have it.

I have written about apology before (here) and will not revisit the topic in detail, except to say that if every other word out of your mouth is “sorry” then your apologies are going to sound insincere, even when they are sincere.

Apologize too often and your words will end up sounding meaningless, even when you genuinely mean them.

If you live on the other side of the great gender divide, and you can never bring yourself to say you’re sorry, then you are probably avoiding feelings of weakness or vulnerability. For a man, such feelings are seriously uncomfortable. Besides, if a man becomes too vulnerable, women and men will cease respecting him.

When a man never apologizes, he will surely gain some confidence. And yet, if he refuses to apologize when he is clearly at fault, he will lost the respect of others. Making a habit of not apologizing will cause your confidence to morph into one of its less engaging manifestations… arrogance or hubris.

When something goes wrong and everyone knows that you never admit to a fault, others will have to step up and take the blame. Most often it will be a person who is more comfortable feeling vulnerable.... a woman.

She may be compensating for his failure. She may be trying to show him how it’s done.

If you have a couple where one person is always admitting to fault while the other is never admitting to fault it not going to have a very harmonious time of it.  

Let’s see what we can do for this couple. As I say, despite our gender bending culture, or perhaps because of it, it is not uncommon to encounter a couple made up of a man who is all man and a woman who is all woman. To the point where neither can make the least accommodation for the sensibility of the other gender.

How are we going to get each of them to improve their apology skills, that is, their moral character?

It’s easier to identify a problem than to map out a solution. It is harder still to stick with a plan and solve the problem.

I think it is fair to say that a man who never apologizes will not suddenly wake up knowing how, when, and where to say he is sorry.

If he is going to develop his skill at apology, he should consider it to be something like an underutilized muscle.

His initial attempts to exercise said muscle will produce some feelings of acute pain. He will have to know that the pain comes from under-use and he should be on his guard against assuming that it is telling him that he has made a mistake.

This will be even more important because he is not going to start out getting it right. He will most likely start out by apologizing when it is not necessary to do so.

And this is going to produce uncomfortable feelings of vulnerability, accompanied by a loss of confidence.

How long do you think that he is going to stick with this program?

As I say, it is not very easy to get from here to there.

A woman who follows Anna North’s advice and stops apologizing will surely start by under-apologizing, by failing to say she is sorry for actions where she is at fault and where an apology is called for.

She will start feeling brutish, out of character, not very womanly, almost manly, but she will also feel less vulnerable and less weak.

She will have an easier time of changing her behavior, because strength and confidence will not necessarily undermine her femininity to the same extent that excessive apologies will undermine a man’s sense of being a man.

This points us toward something of a solution. When a woman refuses to take on the role of designated apologist, perhaps the man will feel that he can now apologize for the error of his ways.

This approach attacks an unhealthy interpersonal dynamic without uttering a word of condemnation or contempt. I feel confident in telling you that if this woman spends her time berating her husband, attacking his faults, and demanding an apology... their marriage will quickly turn sour.

Feeling Less Pain

What a difference a few words make. It is far from being intuitively obvious, especially when we believe that we are independent, autonomous beings, but when you are feeling the pain of an injury, the degree of your pain will depend on whether or not another person has inflicted it intentionally.

To be brief, getting hit by someone who means it hurts more than getting hit by someone who doesn't mean it.Pain inflicted intentionally hurts more than pain inflicted accidentally.

The few words that make the difference: I didn't mean it.

Let's try to make this a little more complicated, and, hopefully, a lot more interesting.

Behavioral economist Dan Ariely reported the research on his blog. Link here. Test subjects received a series of electric shocks. Some of them were told that a human being was inflicting the shocks, thus that human intention was involved. The others were told that a computer was generating the shocks, thus, that there was no human intention involved.

The first subjects were induced to believe that the shocks were meaningful, that they represented a fellow human's feeling toward them. The second group was induced to believe that the shocks were being inflicted at random, thus that they did not represent anything about another human's feelings about them.

As you can imagine, those subjects who were told that the shocks were meaningful gestures felt more pain than than did those who believed that they had been accidental and meaningless.

Let's expand and reflect on some of the possible implications of this research. First, it seems to suggest that when you have been injured, your pain will depend on whether or not the person who has injured you has or has not meant it.

How does he let you know that he hurt you accidentally, thus that he did not really mean it? By apologizing, of course.

When he apologizes he is saying that, even though he is responsible for hurting you, he did not intend it. He was flailing his arms in a dramatic gesture, not knowing how close you were, and he hit you. When he apologizes, he is not denying that they were his arms. He is telling you that his action does not mean anything about your relationship.

If someone you had thought to be a friend drops a brick on your foot and does not apologize, that tells you that he meant it, and that he is willing to do it again. Even if, in his heart of hearts he did not mean it. His unwillingness to apologize trumps whatever is happening in his heart.

If he pretends that nothing has happened or that someone else is responsible then you would be correct to conclude that he is no longer your friend. That would surely cause you a certain quantity of mental anguish, which would aggravate the pain of the injury.

A person who shifts the blame is not only missing the opportunity to relieve your pain by performing the gesture that only the responsible party can perform-- telling that his act was not intentional-- but he is also allowing you to believe that the party that is truly responsible did mean it. Thus, he will have aggravated your pain.

But what about purely psychological pain? What is the role of apology in traumatic abuse, or even in everyday rudeness?

Surely, people suffer considerable mental anguish for having been abused. They also suffer some mental anguish for being insulted or treated rudely.

If we apply our principle here, when you suffer an indignity, you will feel less pain if you hear that the person inflicting the pain did not mean it, feels sorry for it, and promises never to do it again.

Whether you are dealing with major psychic trauma or everyday minor trauma the key to reducing the pain lies in whether or not you hear an apology.

If you do not hear an apology, you are obliged to protect yourself by reducing your contacts with the offending person.

If other people have such a decisive influence on how much pain we feel from the injuries they inflict, then why do so many of us still believe that we can reduce the pain of psychological injury by working with a therapist to discover its true meaning.

Doesn't this research tell us that introspection is especially worthless as a means to reducing psychological pain?

No introspective process is going to tell you whether or not the person who abused you meant it or not. What you really need is to hear an apology. 

What does it mean to make the trauma meaningful. Most therapists will say that it means folding the experience into a coherent narrative.

But doesn't that make the trauma a meaningful experience, by definition.  Stories have their own rules, and one of those rules is that they cannot function if pain or trauma or crime is merely an accident, is simply unintentional.

Making a trauma part of a narrative would then make it more of an intentional action and would cause you more pain.

Just in case you were wondering why this form of psychotherapy does not cure what ails you.

Resourceful therapists have therefore had to find other ways to diminish pain and suffering. Among them is empathy.

As you may know, I have been slightly dubious about the value of empathy. Feeling someone else's pain might easily tell that person that the pain is meaningful.

But it would also be fair to say that when you listen to someone recounting a painful experience, you might well be reducing the stigma associated with the pain.

Trauma isolates people; it makes them feel disconnected. If a therapist connects with a patient while listening to an expression of pain, the connection itself might reduce the pain, by reducing the stigmatizing effect of trauma.

After all, when we say that traumatic pain feel worse when it feels intentional, we are also saying that intentional pain hurts because it makes you feel that you have lost a friend.

I don't think that the important point is the therapist's ability to feel the patient's pain. After all, why should the patient feel that he has accomplished something when his therapist feels his pain.

I prefer to think that what is being covered by this concept of empathy is the therapist's ability to connect with the patient despite the fact that he has heard the patient's worst.

Clearly, in Freud-influenced therapies, where therapists are strictly forbidden to connect with their  patients, empathy would be largely ineffective as balm for the soul.

Rep. Etheridge Apologized. Should We Forgive Him?

Yesterday I posted some remarks about how serious intellectuals are hard at work discrediting the Tea Party movement. Apparently, they would rather slander it than engage its ideas. Both Mark Lilla and J. M. Bernstein denounced the Tea Party as a cauldron of irrational anger, something that Lilla, for one, feared could turn into a Reign of Terror.

Within hours of my post I ran across a video of a Democratic Congressman from North Carolina, one Bob Etheridge, physically assaulting a college student because the latter had had the temerity to ask him whether he supported all of the Obama agenda.

I could not and did not resist the temptation to offer you an exhibition of real political anger, the kind you are not likely to see at Tea Party rallies... unless of course the SEIU sends some folks down to beat up on the demonstrators.

Happily enough, the Etheridge story has some legs. Upon hearing that the video of his assault had gone viral, Rep. Etheridge stepped forth and apologized. See here and here.

The question that now hangs over our ethical culture is simple: Should we accept the apology and forgive Rep. Etheridge?

Let's look at the facts. In this case, the Congressman's apologetic words: "The truth is I had a long day. I've had bad days many times. It's not a good crutch to lean on and I won't use that."

A less-than-charitable soul would remark that he did just use his long day as a crutch.

Etheridge continued: "No matter how intrusive and partisan out politics has become, this does not justify a poor response."

Is he thereby shifting the blame to our intrusive and partisan politics? Yes and no. He brings up a ready-made excuse and then says that he will not bring it up.

Both of these remarks detract from the seriousness of the apology. He is not really apologizing; he is pleading for sympathy and empathy.

He wants everyone to feel his pain; he wants everyone to feel bad for him. To some extent he has succeeded: he has elicited a somewhat understanding response from his election opponent, Renee Elmers, who said she was inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Also, last night I was watching a few talk shows, on a network that is anything but a shill for the Democratic party, and I heard most commentators express some sympathy for Rep. Etheridge. They seemed to believe that we should all put ourselves in his shoes, and empathize. Which one of us has not lost it at one time or another.

After all, it must have been a long day; Democrats are seriously worried about the upcoming elections; and Etheridge did offer an apology.

Perhaps this is the therapeutically correct response to an assault, and maybe, just maybe, we have become so fully imbued with the values of the therapy culture that our first impulse is to find a way to excuse potentially criminal behavior, but, still, apology is a formal ritual. You can get it right or you can get it wrong. In neither case is the proper response... empathy.

There are times when empathy is not called for; and this is one of those times.

Getting an apology right means that you do not ask for forgiveness; you do not ask people to forget what you have done. In a true apology you hold yourself accountable. If you do not, then others are morally obliged to hold you accountable.

Holding someone else accountable does not involve empathy or sympathy.

Apology is about shame. When you apologize you express your shame for an ethical failing. That means that you are taking responsibility for your behavior and announcing, to whom it may concern, that they need not feel shame over what went wrong.

It is not even a subtle point. When you apologize, the purpose of the exercise is to assume the emotional pain for yourself and to remove any sense of responsibility from others.

When the CEO or General apologizes for an egregious error, he is saying that the fault lies with him and not his staff or his troops. They have acted honorably; he has betrayed their trust.

When you apologize what matters is: first, the words you use; second, the sincerity of your emotion; and third, your willingness to pay a severe price for your error.

You cannot be sincere when you are trying to blame others. And, as Roger Kimball notes, a politician cannot be said to have offered a real apology if you do not pay a price by retiring from politics. Link here.

If you have brought shame on yourself, shame on your party, and shame on the Congress, then the right thing to do is to withdraw your candidacy in the next election.

If, however, you adopt the approach of the therapy culture, when someone makes a mistake, even a mistake so egregious as to constitute an assault, you should take it as an opportunity for introspection, for thinking about the times when you have lost control, and for wondering why you did what you did. After all, you would not want to be judgmental, would you.

If you want to see how a culture promotes bad behavior, you cannot have a much better example than all of those who are out there showering Bob Etheridge with empathy.

Desperate College Students

Maybe it shouldn't come as a surprise, but still I was shocked to learn that many of today's college students are suffering from an unprecedented level of despair.

Prof. Claudia Ricci has taught at SUNY Albany for a dozen or so years. Today, she is seeing something new among her students: "the number of seriously depressed and completely dysfunctional students seems to be on the rise. I was told by students this semester that the mental health clinic is so swamped and overwhelmed by desperate kids that the clinic is starting to turn students away if they have other resources available to them." Link here.

More students skip classes, more of them don't bother to hand in assignments, more of them hand in assignments that are barely passable, if that.

Admittedly, this evidence comes from only one campus. I suspect, however, that it represents a larger trend, one that ought to be studied in more depth.

I would like to know how many of these problems are specific to upstate New York, and its economic dysfunction. Do the same patterns exist in universities located in more prosperous areas, like the University of Texas, in Austin? How do students feel in Ohio and Michigan; in Georgia and Florida?

Ricci finds that many students are trying to study their way out of their despair. They are signing up for courses about happiness in record numbers. Ricci reports that the most popular course for Harvard undergrads is a course in happiness.

This is not a bad thing. If their happiness course teaches them some of the cognitive exercises that Martin Seligman has developed that will be a step in the right direction.

Ricci herself, a professor of English and journalism, wants to teach a course on happiness because, as best as I can tell, she wants to help these students. Somehow or other, as she sees it, too many are not being helped by the system that is in place.

After all the work therapy and psychopharmacology have put into treating depression, you would think that they would be doing a better job. Apparently, they are not.

Ricci suggests that students are desperate because they are too materialistic or perhaps because the economy does not hold out too much hope for their future. She emphasizes the first; I would lean toward the second.

If materialism is the problem, then, according to Ricci, mindfulness is a solution. Mindfulness derives from Buddhism and from Buddhist-inspired therapy. It teaches you how to slow down and take a moment to focus your attention on the lilac bush in the garden or even to savor that last sip of cappuccino.

No rational person can take exception to these suggestions, so I will not. Still, I do not believe that they address the larger problems.

As for the larger problems, I will offer some educated guesses.

At the risk of sounding repetitious, I would emphasize that, whatever the moral issues, a steady diet of hook ups is simply not good for your mental health. I will admit that most older people do not really understand why young people have allowed themselves to get caught up in this habit, but, the evidence seems to suggest that it is not working out very well for the young people who are practicing it.

If you act like someone who does not respect him or herself, the you are going to feel like you have no self-respect.

Another reason might be that they are simply preparing for a future in which they will have less than their parents. I doubt that the nation is being consumed by materialistic urges. I believe, on the contrary, that it is preparing to move from an age of seemingly limitless abundance to an age of scarcity and want.

College students are well aware of the fact that their job prospects are not very good, that their chances of having an opportunity to strive, to compete, and to excel in a free job market will be limited, and that their future earnings have, for all intents and purposes, already been spent.

If you were a college student today, would you be optimistic about the future? Would you be able to define a goal clearly and believe that you could achieve it?

Today in the Wall Street Journal Sue Schellenbarger reported that people who work in industries that are expanding and hiring more people have largely better moods than those who work in industries that are retrenching and laying people off. Link here.

Surely, it makes sense that America would feel more despair as unemployment stays at such a high level.

Ironically, most of these students voted for the most spendthrift administration in human history. Did they realize when they were casting their ballots for hope that they were being had? Is that the reason why their hope has turned into despair.

And then again, they also voted for a president who began his tenure by apologizing for America, by diminishing American national pride, and by trying to make us all feel guilty for the terrible things America has done.

How much does the loss of national pride influence how much pride Americans can have in themselves, in their efforts, in their daily labor?

There are many reasons why leaders never, never, never talk down their countries. One is that they do not want to lose the respect of foreign leaders. The other must be that a leader should promote the good of his people, and no one ever felt good about themselves for being part of a nation that has so much to apologize for.

Of course, this presidential attitude reflects lessons that are also taught on college campuses. If we assume that a course in happiness could help students learn some techniques for improving their mood, we can also assume that courses in critical theory, courses that criticize and demean their nation and the accomplishments of their parents, are not going to make them feel worse about themselves.

It may just be one course among many, but Prof. Ricci's new course in happiness will help counter that trend.

Shame and Apology

As many of you know by now, I rarely miss an opportunity to say something about shame and apology. These posts will attest. Link here. And here.

Today I came across an excellent article by Alina Tugend, entitled: "An Attempt to Revive the Lost Art of Apology." Link here.

While I am aware that journalists are often not responsible for the titles their articles bear, I do wish to take small exception to the title of Tugend's article.

Tugend is correct to note that there is a lot of apology talk going around. Our world is awash in public officials taking responsibility for personal failures, with greater or lesser degrees of sincerity.

And she is correct to highlight the importance of sincerity-- it's one thing to mouth the words, quite another to mean it.

I think that she would agree with me that a culture is defined and determined by how it deals with shame. Her article offers a good analysis of this idea.

I disagree, however, with the notion that apology is an art. Apology is a formal ritual. When you are standing before someone you have wronged, your proper attitude is vulnerable and abject. It is not the moment for creativity.

I would even say that anyone who tries to apologize artfully is going to get it wrong. When people fail to follow the formal wording of an apology-- point that Tugend does make in the body of her article-- they often lapse into insincerity.

For example, she notes that when you say: I'm sorry if I hurt you, the "if" undermines your sincerity.

If you hurt someone's feelings, you are responsible. You owe the person an apology. The apology should express the fact that you accept full responsibility, and that you are not going to try to make an excuse or explain your error away. If your bad behavior were excusable, then you would not need to apologize.

Nor can you apologize defiantly, as though someone were forcing you to do it against your will. When Bill Clinton famously apologized for his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky, he was defiant and hostile. The apology was politically expedient; it lacked sincerity.

If an apology is sincere, you are vowing never to make the mistake again. If your apology is insincere, you are giving yourself leave to revisit the error.

We have lost the ability to offer a sincere apology because our leaders have been setting a bad example. Far too often they offer apologies because they need to defuse a public relations problem.

Second, apology has fallen into desuetude because the therapy culture has done everything in its power to undermine it. Therapy has always wanted you to see your mistakes as meaningful reflections of something that happened in your past. It has taught people to explain away their mistakes, not to apologize for them.

Once you develop the mental habit of blaming your errors on your parents or an infantile trauma or your loveless marriage... you will no longer be capable of taking full responsibility and apologizing with sincerity.

Apology says that there is no excuse; therapy says that it can always find an excuse.

Who Should Apologize for the Financial Crisis?

Egged on by the media I shift focus from private to public apologies.

In yesterday's Wall Street Journal Elizabeth Bernstein expressed surprise that so many people had started to apologize for past offenses. Apparently, social networking sites are allowing people to get back in touch with long lost friends, recall wrongs they had inflicted on said friends, and apologize decades after the fact.

These personal apologies, often delivered in private, may or may not count for their recipients, but that does not, I asserted in my post on the topic, make them a bad idea. (If you scroll down to my previous post, you will be able to read my thoughts on the topic.)

Today the New York Times has thoughtfully contributed to the discussion by publishing an article on public apology, or on the general lack of same in the business world. Link here.

The article was occasioned by today's public hearing by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. Wall Street's leading bankers are being put on the spot for their role in the financial crisis. The Times and many others are wondering whether they will accept responsibility and apologize.

Public apology involves institutional, not personal, failure. Responsibility is allocated based on title and authority, not necessarily as a function of who made the mistakes. Public apology is normal business and political practice in Japan, but is less than common in the United States.

Several years ago I wrote a book about the issue: "Saving Face." In it I argued that the political fabric of America was not just damaged by the Vietnam War, but that the policy failure was aggravated by the fact that no one ever apologized for it.

When the person in charge refuses to take responsibility, he is effectively saying that he did nothing wrong. But if something went wrong and he is not responsible for it, then the fault must lie with others, with the underlings who failed to execute his policy effectively.

A failure to apologize shifts blame, immediately and inexorably.

This demoralizes the staff. Everyone will be less concerned with the corporate interest and more worried about their personal interest. They will be working overtime to get as much as possible for themselves, regardless of the consequences. When the question of responsibility arises they will set out in search of a scapegoat.

An institutional failure cannot be resolved with a private apology. It requires a public statement of humility and abjection. It requires that the person making the apology show real and sincere shame.

But it also requires that the responsible party pay a price for his assumed dereliction. You cannot just apologize for an institutional failure and go back to your job. Apology must be accompanied by a loss of status and of community standing.

According to the Times, such practices are rare in American business. It uses the example of Gerald Levin's recent apology for the AOL-TimeWarner merger to show that perhaps the corporate world is finding ethics.

Does the general litigiousness of American culture make it nearly impossible for corporate leaders to admit of mistakes? So we might imagine.

Yet, studies of the medical profession have shown that when physicians apologize for mistakes they are far less likely to be sued than when they do not accept responsibility.

As for the financial crisis, certainly the leaders of Wall Street's major financial institutions bear some responsibility. At the least they bear responsibility for their own companies. Surely they made mistakes in managing those companies.

Yet, Lloyd Blankfein is CEO of Goldman Sachs. He is not in charge of the financial system. Jamie Dimon runs JPMorgan Chase, not the financial system.

Great responsibility must also be borne by executives whose companies failed. James Cayne of Bear Stearns, Stanley O'Neal of Merrill Lynch, and Richard Fuld of Lehman Bros. have all disappeared from public view. Yet, none of them has apologized publicly for the spectacular failures of their institutions.

Still, none of these individuals were in charge of the financial system. But, then again, who was?

Perhaps the financial system is so large and so complex that no one individual is really in charge. But that does not mean that there are no one owes us an apology for his role in the crisis.

Given today's committee testimony, it makes sense that the times singles out bankers for special blame. Yet, what about the government officials who are directly responsible for the good order and discipline of the financial system.

Shouldn't the Chairmen of the Federal Reserve step forth to apologize for their role in flooding the banking system with money? What about the heads of regulatory and ratings agencies?

And shouldn't the heads of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bear some responsibility for the collapse of the mortgage market, along with their institutions? And what about members of Congress and the executive branch who were either not paying very close attention or were vigorously defending Fannie and Freddie?

In principle, these agencies are independent; they are supposed to be above politics. But, with independence comes both authority and responsibility. We know that politicians protected their friends at Fannie and Freddie, but we are still waiting for the heads of these agencies to come forth and apologize for the central role they played in the crisis.

So, the question remains: who should apologize for the financial crisis? That honor must go to the Maestro himself, Alan Greenspan.

About 12 Step Programs, Especially Steps 8 and 9

Everyone knows about 12 step programs. Still, these programs do not get very much respect within the psychiatric or psychological establishment.

This makes some sense. The 12 steps do not set forth a medical or paramedical treatment. They involve spiritual renewal and changes in the way people conduct their lives.

Medicine does not pay too close attention because 12 step programs are not medicine and are not based on science.

Psychology, which is part science and part philosophy, has not shown very much interest either. One reason, I have suggested, might be that the 12 step program was not the brainchild of a great European philosopher.

We favor great minds. We believe that all valuable ideas come from great minds. Therefore, we are not predisposed to write learned commentaries on a 12 step program cobbled together by a couple of drunks in Akron, Ohio.

We are wrong to allow our fascination with the great thinkers cause us to ignore the lessons of 12 step programs, but that is as it is.

The final reason why medicine and psychology have tended to downplay 12 step programs is that they are difficult to monetize. AA meetings are free. They provide an effective treatment for alcoholism. No one who charges for services wants to compete against something that is free and that works.

These were my thoughts when I finished reading Elizabeth Bernstein's article about apology in today's Wall Street Journal: "Who's Sorry Now? Nearly Everyone." Link here.

Bernstein argues that the seeming pervasiveness of apology in today's culture signals the power of the therapy culture. I would argue the contrary point, that the pervasiveness of apology signals the decline of the therapy culture's influence.

According to Bernstein, apologies are busting out all over. People are using Facebook and other networking sites to get back in touch with people they knew in the past. Once they make contact they use the new communication channel to express their regret for having harmed or wronged the person years ago.

As a sophisticated writer Bernstein maintains an ironic detachment from this phenomenon. But, she is more puzzled than dismissive.

I was surprised, however, that she did not mention the source of this practice, namely in 12 step programs, especially steps 8 and 9.

To refresh your memory, they are: "8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and become willing to make amends to them all." And, "9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others."

Surely, it is easy to dismiss this practice. An adult who apologizes for something he did when he was 10 seems to have embarked on a fool's errand. We would feel strange receiving such an apology, especially if we had long since forgotten the offending incident.

It may be that too many apologies is too much of a good thing, but that does not make it a bad thing.

The important point in these steps is simple: you need not search for the causes of your alcoholism, but recognize that you are fully responsible for what you did to other people while under the influence.

And accepting responsibility means taking an action that shows it. It does not mean that you should understand what made you make the mistake. It will not be solved by self-flagellation or penance.

These two steps are two definitive steps beyond victimhood. The 12 steps do not seek out the infantile root cause of your bad behavior; they enjoin you to take responsibility for the harm you have inflicted on others and to make amends wherever possible.

To me these represent definitive steps beyond the therapy culture.

If your alcoholism caused you to squander the family fortune, mistreat your family, and make serious mistakes on the job... you can only deal with the problem by apologizing and making amends. Doing so restores your moral compass and helps you to rebuild your character.

Let's say that you are on the receiving end of a sincere apology. It might have occurred in childhood-- a parent might have abused a child-- or it might have occurred last month.

Either way, people who receive correct apologies are most often moved by them.

Receiving an apology helps you in two important things. First, it tells you that the person who offended, insulted, or abused you is promising not to do it again. An apology removes a potential threat from your life, and this is a good thing.

Second, it tells you that you need not feel responsible for the offense, insult, or abuse. You did not provoke it and did not deserve it. When someone apologizes to you he relieves you of the guilt you might have been feeling for having been harmed.

People who have been abused often blame themselves. When your abuser apologizes he relieves you of that guilt. And that is the most effective way to deal with the guilt that we sometimes feel when we do not know why we are being abused.

We see abuse as punishment, and if we have been induced to see life through a guilt narrative, we are likely to believe that we must have done something to deserve it. When our abuser apologizes he is effectively mitigating that guilt.

The Right and Wrong Of Apology

It's nice to have an idea of what makes for a good or a bad apology-- surely I have my opinion on the subject-- but it is better to have something resembling objective data.

Thus, hats off to Michael Maslansky for convening a focus group to judge the best and the worst apologies of 2009. Better yet, he allows us to see the apologies-- via Youtube-- along with the reactions of the focus group participants. Link here.

If you're still interested in some apology theory, here are my posts on the topic. Link here.

The Unbearable Anguish of Apology

Heard enough apologies?

What happens when you take a perfectly respectable public ritual-- like apology-- and hand it over to a bunch of celebrities? They use it and overuse it, to the point where it is drained of its meaning.

Such were the observations of Eric Felten and Rabbi Irwin Kula. For Felten's article, link here. For Rabbi Kula's link here.

The term apology comes to us from the ancient Greek courtroom. There, after a defendant had been accused of a crime, he would have the opportunity to offer a defense against the prosecutor's charges. That defense was called an "apologia." Later, the term morphed into Christian apologetics, which was a branch of theology devoted to defending the faith.

Nowadays, in what must certainly count as a great intellectual reversal, apology is normally used as an admission that one's behavior has been indefensible.

This form of apology is widely used in what are called shame cultures. These cultures use the sanction of public shaming as a means to promote good behavior. Shaming was basic to the culture of early America.

As Felten explains, rather glibly: "Early colonial America was big on dealing with misbehavior through shame-- the old scarlet letter routine. And abasing oneself through the humiliation of making a public apology was a prime punishment."

Felten suggests that the practice fell out of favor because people grew cynical about the ability of apology to change behavior. He does not believe that Serena Williams will change her behavior because she apologized for her outburst at the U. S. Open.

This is a step too far. Felten is observing that once apology falls into the hands of celebrities it loses its power and its meaning.

Nevertheless, when it comes to changing behavior the practice of apology is central to twelve step programs. These programs use shaming as a means to change behavior. And they are far more effective than psychotherapies that rely on guilt-trips.

Nonetheless, Rabbi Kula offers a good observation of celebrity apologies: "As we watch these apologies, whether offered as tearful ramblings, pro forma admissions, or awkward justifications we inevitably feel that these apologies are cheap and facile."

He continues: "These celebrity apologies are eroding an already deteriorating public culture as they are turning one of the most important human virtues-- the ability to seek and grant forgiveness-- into public relations stunts."

Perhaps this slew of empty apologies brings a saving grace: we now have a better chance to understand what is involved in the ritual of apology.

Rabbi Kula refers to the 12th century sage, Maimonides, to outline the four steps that must be part of a sincere apology.

First, recognition of what we did wrong.
Second, regret for having done it, accompanied by a resolve never to do it again.
Third, repair the damage and make amends.
Fourth, reconciliation following forgiveness.

The first sign of a sincere apology is its emotional accompaniment: unbearable anguish. If you do not feel such anguish, you do not really understand your mistake. A person who is relaxed about an apology does not get it.

More importantly, an apology contains an implicit or explicit vow never to do it again. If you apologize for beating your wife, and then beat her again, your apology becomes insincere. For having gone back on your word you deserve never again to be trusted.

Serial apologizers are frauds. That is why we tend to feel discomfort when we see too many public apologies.

Repairing the damage and making amends are more difficult. When a public figure makes a grievous error, he repairs the damage, makes amends, and vows not to do it again, by resigning his position.

When you take responsibility, you voluntarily pay a very high price. If you do not pay more than an emotional price your apology becomes insincere.

For those who do not have high offices to resign from, apology should be accompanied by a temporary withdrawal from society. If you understand the meaning of apology you know that it should be accompanied by a time of self-isolation.

The simple act of apology, in and of itself, does not wipe the slate clean. It is the first step on the path to recovery.

Take an example.In 1993 Attorney General Janet Reno ordered an assault on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. The result was a holocaust that killed dozens of men, women, and children.

Clearly, Reno was not culpable in the strict legal sense of the word. She had not started the fire. Yet, she had given the order that led to the catastrophe, so she bore responsibility.

While testifying before a Congressional committee Reno later declared that she accepted full responsibility for what had happened. Anyone who remembers that statement would agree that she seemed to be suffering unbearable anguish.

But then, she did not resign. She simply went back to work. However heartfelt her apology appeared, it was insincere. It may mean that she has a character flaw, but it may also mean that she was really covering for someone else.

While I certainly agree with Felten and Rabbi Kula that celebrity apologies cheapen the exercise beyond recognition, I would also assert that the misuse of the ritual by high public officials has an even more deleterious effect.

Most people, I continue to hope, do not take their moral cues from celebrities.

And, of course, sometimes celebrities get it right. No one is going to excuse Kanye West's interruption of Taylor Swift's award acceptance speech last week, but later in the show Beyonce did her best to make amends for his rudeness by inviting Swift back on the stage to finish her speech.

Beyonce's gesture was elegant and ethical. She did not have to do it. Strictly speaking, it was not her responsibility to make amends for someone else's mistake.

And yet, because West's outrage was ostensibly committed in her name-- to her horror, we must say-- she must have felt a need to distance herself from it definitively.

Beyonce reminded us that some celebrities do have good character and do know how to do the right thing.

Clearly, reconciliation and forgiveness can only happen with time. When you apologize you are asserting that your offending action was not true to your character.

But it takes time to forget truly bad behavior. Only a series of virtuous actions can restore your good name.

Thus, reconciliation and forgiveness take time.

Of course, most celebrities do not make a living based on their good names. If they are actors their work involves pretending to be someone they are not. If they want to be noticed in the tabloids they will have to act out in public.

When someone who is far from being reputable makes a showy declaration of his good character we are right, in most cases, to look askance and to refuse to accept the apology.

Civility and Its Enemies

Free is not short for free-for-all. You cannot have a free and open debate without decorum and civility.

While we tolerate boorish behavior, it would be foolish to say that it contributes to the debate. Everyone has a constitutional right to throw tantrums, but democratic deliberation is not advanced when someone simply lets fly.

Ever since David Brooks attacked the current wave of incivility a few days ago, some of its lovers have stepped forth to defend it. To my surprise. See my previous post here.

Someone named Kerry Howley finds nothing very wrong with Kanye West's violation of Taylor Swift's moment or with Joe Wilson's outburst. Link here.

Howley is more worried that Brooks and others of his ilk are trying to lead us back to the bad old days when people showed "deference to authority." (Would you say that Kanye West was rebelling against authority?)

According to Howley, those who are rude and crude are simply expressing their individuality. She stopped short of calling it "a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings," but she clearly does not understand the difference between freedom and anarchy.

To Howley's mind we should just suck it up. If we do not, she declares, in a poorly disguised appeal to our inner machismo, we are demonstrating: "a pathetic inability to tolerate the meekest of incivilities."

But, was Kanye West merely engaging a meek incivility? Was his invasion of Taylor Swift's space, his hijacking of her moment the same as arriving late for a meeting, forgetting to send a thank-you note, or using the wrong fork?

Compare West to Rick Lazio. While debating Hillary Clinton during their Senate campaign in 2000 Lazio walked across the stage and invaded Clinton's space to hand her a sheaf of papers. His was not the meekest of incivilities; it was a threatening gesture. Everyone with any sense understood that Lazio had thereby sunk his campaign.

Beyond that, is calling someone a liar just another meek incivility? Is attacking someone's integrity and reputation merely an impolite gesture, roughly equivalent to being late for a meeting?

As Kathleen Parker reminds us, such an attack on a person's character used to be, literally, fighting words. In the early days of the Republic, such insults were often resolved through duels. Link here.

Thankfully, we have gotten beyond dueling, but we should not have gotten beyond the duty to defend our reputations.

By labeling this a meek incivility Howley is failing to recognize the importance of reputation. For someone who identifies himself as a member of a community, loss of reputation is a grievous harm.

Those who identify themselves as autonomous human units, pure individuals, do not very much care very much what other people think. Rather than glorify such an attitude, we should understand it as a symptom.

Being a perfectly autonomous individual, being perfectly disconnected from others, not caring at all about your place in a group... these will make you feel like an outcast and a pariah. Such feelings are bad for your health.

To keep things in perspective, we must note that many of those who have taken the greatest umbrage over Rep. Wilson's slur spent the better part of the last few years calling George Bush a liar. Some of those accusations were made on the floor of the House of Representatives.

In fact, the phrase "Bush lies" became a mantra for the Democratic party, to the point where everyone assumes that it expresses a basic truth.

Wasn't all the name-calling and defamation rather uncivil. It was politically effective, but it was not dissent and it did not involve anything resembling civil discourse.

So, while I consider it quite proper that Joe Wilson apologize for his outburst, I would add that those who have worked themselves into a lather because he has not apologized with sufficient sincerity should understand that a forced apology can never really be sincere.

Besides, the Democrats who think that Wilson should apologize might well look within their own ranks and consider apologizing for their own violent and vitriolic attacks on George Bush.

If they did, they would be setting a good example of civil behavior, and we would all be better for it.

Blame It On Buenos Aires: The Mark Sanford Story

Yet another erotico-political saga is unfolding before our eyes. The respectable governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford, has managed to turn his life into a Harlequin romance.

Read the emails between Mark and Maria here.

Sanford seems to have wanted to see his love affair as Biblical, but it is far more banal than that. When he talks about following his heart, when he writes erotic emails, when he drops everything to rush off to see his love... all of that comes from romance fiction. Don't ask me how I know.

Yet, Sanford was quoting Paul's disquisition on love from 1st Corinthians in an email to his mistress.

If Sanford thought that Paul was talking about romantic love, then he needs to find a new Bible studies group.

What is it that makes otherwise sensible people believe that there is a transcendent virtue in making their lives into soap operas?

It would be better if they took heed of the words of Daniela Drake that I read this morning on the Wowowow website: "Romantic love is not some utopian state of high moral rectitude; it's an emotion, and therefore fleeting. Science now shows that being in love lasts at most two years. One researcher calls 'being in love' a type of madness. Perhaps we shouldn't be making the decision to marry when we are temporarily insane."

I am sure that Drake would agree that we shouldn't make the decision to break up a marriage when we are temporarily insane either.

These words arrive too late for the hapless governor, though he could certainly have gleaned the same message from Shakespeare. Clearly, the moment he imagined that he could disappear for six days without anyone noticing was the moment when he took complete leave of his rational faculties.

Yesterday, Sanford apologized to everyone he could think of, in a discourse that seemed to be an inverse Oscar acceptance speech. But he could not keep it at that. He also managed to tell the story of how he had found true love.

An innocent conversation led to an innocent exchange of emails. That led to what he memorably called "that sparking thing."

Sanford seems to believe that it just happened, that a bolt of lightning or an errant match that found its way to the tinder box of his heart fueled a passionate conflagration. This makes it sound like he belived that his love affair with Maria Belen Shapur was God's will.

But this is simply not true. This kind of romance does not just happen. There is usually an invisible hand guilding it, even making it happen.

By all appearances, that hand was not the governor's.

Sad to have to say it, but Mark Sanford was a naif, a rube who got involved in a game he did not understand. He allowed himself to be seduced and did not even know that he was being seduced.

He is not the first powerful man to whom this happened, and will surely not be the last. The fact that a man has mastered the game of politics or business does not make him a sophisticate in the game of romance.

Whose fault was it? His, of course. A man who is husband, father, and governor should know better than to abrogate his responsibilities... no matter what the reason. Even if he succumbed to temptation-- apparently his Bible study class had never probed the subject-- his responsibilities were his and his alone to discharge or abandon.

Now, all that remains for the rest of us is to see the face that sunk Governor Sanford's political future.