2015 Will Be a Year of Apologies. Maybe Yours.
(Photo: Thinkstock)
As you mull over all your virtuous resolutions for the New Year, here’s something else you might want to do with 2015 in mind: Prepare to apologize.
“But I’ve done nothing wrong!” you’re thinking. “And I would never say anything that requires an apology!”
Maybe you even believe this to be the case. The problem is, you’re using outdated parameters. We all say and do things that might be upsetting to others, if only they knew we said them.
And as we learned in 2014, pretty much everything you say and do is in fact potentially knowable.
Ever send an email to a close colleague making off-color or snide remarks? Get ready for it to be all over the Internet after the next corporate mega-hack. Brag over dinner about how you “ought to kick so-and-so’s sorry butt”? Too bad one of your tablemates is actually a BuzzFeed reporter; now your “plan to deploy retaliatory physical violence against so-and-so” has gone viral. Lose your temper with a flight attendant? Congrats: You’re trending on Vine.
Even if it doesn’t land you on the network news, a misstep could require amends within your social network. It happens to powerful executives, government diplomats, and supposedly tech-savvy celebrities. It can happen to you. So get ready to apologize.
The sorry future
OK, so maybe I’m being a bit hyperbolic about all this. But I’m serious, too: In 2015 and beyond, our future is all apologies.
The reason: The friction between technology and human nature. I’ve already noted the latter: We all say and do questionable things from time to time, even if we tend to be on our best behavior in public settings. C’mon, you’ve never complained about work in an email, snarked about a friend in a text, made a risqué joke in a bar? You’ve never “thought out loud” some idea or opinion that you quickly realized was foolish?
No less a figure than the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Samantha Power, recently described her Senate confirmation hearing as a process of being confronted with her most “cringe-worthy” remarks, “things that you’d just say out of the corner of your mouth in a church basement somewhere.”
A church basement is a weird example, but you see the point: We’re still learning how quickly what feels like a private context can turn out to be otherwise. (Power may know this better than most. She once had to apologize, and resign from Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, after being quoted by a reporter as saying that Hillary Clinton “is a monster, too — that is off the record.” Clearly “off the record” has become an unreliable concept.)
Sure, you can just be in denial about all this and hope that some new tech product will keep your embarrassing communiqués private and ephemeral. Back in February, I wrote about the burgeoning vogue for privacy-protecting products and services that has only gathered steam since:
Thus, for instance, the predictable responses after the release by hackers of Sony executives’ embarrassing internal exchanges: We should abandon email, and “jump to the ‘erasable Internet.’ ” And so on.
The truth is, no new gadget or service can completely protect any of us from our ever-metastasizing panopticon. In fact, misplaced faith in tech-protected discretion could easily result in a false sense of security.
But maybe you think you’ve heard so many cautionary tales that you’ll never say anything stupid, ever? Nothing personal, but I’d advise otherwise. We’ve all been reading cautionary tales for more than a decade. Despite our best intentions, we’ll all mumble questionable things in church basements or elsewhere, for as long as we remain human.
How to be contrite
So by all means, take all the personal and technical precautions you can. But be ready for the moment they all fail you. And the best way to avoid compounding the problem you made for yourself is to remember a few key points:
Don’t lie. The surprisingly popular tactic of lying seldom works, and is always gross. The latest example: The public information officer for the police department in Ferguson, Missouri, referred to a memorial for slain teenager Michael Brown as “a pile of trash.” People didn’t like that; he claimed he’d been misquoted. Then he admitted he hadn’t. Now he’s on unpaid leave, and generally looks like a callous fool.
Avoid the ifpology. For years, Harry Shearer’s wonderful Le Show has included “a copyrighted feature” called “The Apologies of the Week.” It’s just what it sounds like, and regular listeners know that the most squirrely and unconvincing apologizers use formulations such as, “If I offended anyone, I apologize” or “I’m sorry if my remarks were interpreted to mean X.” Shearer refers to these as ifpologies, and they’re obviously ineffective and insincere. Use this tactic and you’ll end up apologizing for your sorry apology.
It’s not about you. As my colleague Rafe Needleman once observed in a different context: “Save the soul-searching ‘This has been a bad day’ stuff for your spouse.” It’s one thing to express genuine regret, but don’t slip into coming across as the most important victim of your own mistake.
I know: None of this sounds fun. And maybe you won’t need any of this advice in 2015 after all. But, just in case, take a moment to accept the possibility that you might. I’m guessing you won’t be sorry you did.
Write to me at rwalkeryn@yahoo.com or find me on Twitter, @notrobwalker. RSS lover? Paste this URL into your reader of choice: https://www.yahoo.com/tech/author/rob-walker/rss.
