On equal and opposite advice: many more people want you to surrender to them than it is good for you to surrender to, and the world is full of people who will demand your apology (and make it seem socially mandatory) for things you do not or should not regret. Tread carefully with practicing surrender around people who will take advantage of it. Sometimes the apparent social need to apologize is due to a value/culture mismatch with your social group, and practicing minimal or non-internalized apologies is actually a good survival mechanic.
If you are high power, high status, low agreeableness, or inescapable to a certain set of people, and you often find yourself issuing non-apologies, then this may indicate blindspots (you’re doing things you don’t want to do without realizing) or that your exercise of power/disregard of social reality is hurting others.
If you are already highly agreeable, you currently have low mana (https://www.lesserwrong.com/posts/39aKPedxHYEfusDWo/mana/), or you feel like you can’t escape a certain set of people who you need to apologize to, then internalizing apologies may be pushing in the wrong direction and overwriting your values with theirs.
many more people want you to surrender to them than it is good for you to surrender to, and the world is full of people who will demand your apology (and make it seem socially mandatory) for things you do not or should not regret.
This was my first thought, too. I’m all in favor of the argument against weasel apologies, but sometimes the reason you’re giving a weasel apology is that, by your own lights, you didn’t do anything wrong.
Weasel apologies are never appropriate, but sometimes a sincere one also isn’t appropriate. Sometimes the appropriate response is “No, I did the right thing here. Sorry, but no social surrender will be forthcoming.” You’ll have to accept the probable social consequences, of course, but that’s part of the price of integrity.
On equal and opposite advice: many more people want you to surrender to them than it is good for you to surrender to, and the world is full of people who will demand your apology (and make it seem socially mandatory) for things you do not or should not regret. Tread carefully with practicing surrender around people who will take advantage of it. Sometimes the apparent social need to apologize is due to a value/culture mismatch with your social group, and practicing minimal or non-internalized apologies is actually a good survival mechanic.
If you are high power, high status, low agreeableness, or inescapable to a certain set of people, and you often find yourself issuing non-apologies, then this may indicate blindspots (you’re doing things you don’t want to do without realizing) or that your exercise of power/disregard of social reality is hurting others.
If you are already highly agreeable, you currently have low mana (https://www.lesserwrong.com/posts/39aKPedxHYEfusDWo/mana/), or you feel like you can’t escape a certain set of people who you need to apologize to, then internalizing apologies may be pushing in the wrong direction and overwriting your values with theirs.
I like this comment for cleanly encapsulating advice for different use-cases.
This was my first thought, too. I’m all in favor of the argument against weasel apologies, but sometimes the reason you’re giving a weasel apology is that, by your own lights, you didn’t do anything wrong.
Weasel apologies are never appropriate, but sometimes a sincere one also isn’t appropriate. Sometimes the appropriate response is “No, I did the right thing here. Sorry, but no social surrender will be forthcoming.” You’ll have to accept the probable social consequences, of course, but that’s part of the price of integrity.