Join the discussion
Are expressions of remorse by public figures steps toward healing, or are they acts of cathartic self-indulgence?

Anatomy of an Apology
Reflections on the 1997 presidential apology for the syphilis study at Tuskegee

A stained-glass apology and other reconciliations
Scholars of art history, literature, and psychology offer their viewpoints on the nature and meaning of "apology."

The full text of Elizabeth Pastan's "King Philip Augustus's Stained-glass Apology at Soissons"

The full text of the interview with Frans de Waal

The stained-glass window at the cathedral of Soissons.

Academic Exchange September 1999 Contents Page

The apology is generally understood in the West (the East is another, more complex story) to be an act of communication via language in which the apologist acknowledges her complicity in making the flow of human events we call history other than it should have been, the "should" being a function of the belief framework of the apologist, his society, or both. Hence, works like Sydney's Apologie for Poetry and Newman's Apologia pro Vita Sua are regarded as justifications for why the apologists are deviant from what they perceive to be conventional beliefs of their respective societies. In instances such as these, the term apology is used with a sly, disingenuous humility and need not involve any admission of wrongdoing or expression of regret.

The more common type of apology, however, entails the apologist acknowledging and accepting responsibility for having been complicit in an act that kept history from being as it "ought" to have been ("I'm sorry I dented your car," or, "I'm sorry we killed a million Vietnamese"). The avowed purpose of the apology is to obtain the forgiveness of the person or group who has been harmed by one's actions, but even if the apology is not accepted by the victims, at least one can forgive oneself and resolve to improve. Furthermore, one's moral and ethical standing within the community can be partially ameliorated if the apology is perceived as sincere, even though punishment may still be imposed.

For example, Robert S. McNamara's In Retrospect, although it sometimes engages in self-justification, is fundamentally an apology for what many might term his complicity in the death and suffering inflicted in the course of the Vietnam War. According to McNamara, America's Vietnam policy during his tenure as Secretary of Defense was thoroughly misguided and ill-advised, everyone involved knew it, yet they elected to continue the war anyway rather than admit they were wrong. In Retrospect is an eloquent and presumably sincere apology for his role in helping determine the tragic course of America's only lost war. There is, of course, no means by which the war's many victims could collectively express a public forgiveness, even if they were so inclined, but his moral standing in the public eye can only be enhanced by the appearance of In Retrospect because it validates and affirms our cultural maxim that the acknowledgment of responsibility and expression of remorse for harmful or otherwise erroneous actions indicates courage and honor in the apologist and will probably be viewed as at least token compensation for the damage done. But only he knows the difference the apology makes in how he sees himself, just as only he can know the true extent of the apology's sincerity.

Similarly, President Clinton's largely symbolic apology for the Tuskegee syphilis study, while ostensibly directed to the eight survivors on the stage with him, was primarily a public expression of guilt and remorse for a profound moral error comparable to some of those committed by the German and Japanese medical establishments during World War II. Because Clinton is the first President since the Tuskegee study was shut down in 1972 to formally assume full responsibility for the complicity of the United States government, it was also an apology for having waited so long to apologize. Clinton was, of course, acting in his symbolic capacity as Chief of State, but the apology still says, in effect, "We did it, we're sorry, and if we had to do it over again, things would be different."

Likewise, the implied expectation of the apology is not only that neglected wounds can begin to heal but also that the moral stature of the United States will increase somewhat in the eyes of the world as a consequence of this noble and honorable act. Obviously and perhaps ironically, his much more personal apology for his affair with Monica Lewinsky follows essentially the same pattern, although many would doubt his sincerity in this particular instance. After all, there is a sense in which the apology is simply making the best of a bad situation.

Because Christianity itself can be viewed as a kind of ongoing apology to God since Adam and Eve failed to do so (he blamed her, she blamed the snake), it is no wonder that the apology has been a very privileged language act, the expression of a cultural value. Nevertheless, the very meaning of the apology is predicated on there being a way that human history "ought" to be, and postmodern theory tells us that such notions fall under the heading of "metanarratives" constituted by whoever or whatever happens to have power and almost entirely determined by the contingencies of the historical context. This postmodern juggernaut of relativism and historicism effectively undermines any semantic potential or truth value the apology might continue to have. Some evolutionary biologists, on the other hand, claim that our ideas of "how things should be" are part of our genetic hard-wiring, existing to help show us the way to maximum success and survivability as a species, and many philosophers of the neo-pragmatist stripe say that they serve as mental instruments to aid us in determining what choice "works best" in a given instance. Whatever the case, the apology remains yet another means by which we humans try to locate ourselves within a cosmic order largely of our own making.