Guest Column
You know how you are sometimes compelled to apologize when you don’t mean it? So you just say something like “I’m sorry your feelings were hurt” or “I’m sorry you took it that way.” This is the art of the non-apology. You lead off with something like “I’m sorry” in order to appease your audience. Then you follow up with something that still blames them (e.g., for overly sensitive feelings, for misinterpreting, for being too demanding, etc.). It’s really their own fault that they are upset, after all. You certainly did nothing wrong. When carefully constructed, you can hope they don’t even notice that it was actually a non-apology. You can hope they don’t even notice that you doubled down on blaming them. You hope they get the message that the mistake was all theirs. You hope you get points for being such a noble soul as to show sympathy to the tragedy of being them. It must be tough being them: overly sensitive, regularly misinterpreting things, not knowing how much to expect from other people, etc. You understand their plight. You sympathize with their misfortune. You’re that good a person.
Not all non-apologies lead off with “I’m sorry.” Some are more subtle, phrased perhaps as simple clarifications. You can still recognize them by watching for their three basic elements: 1) the speaker did nothing wrong, 2) the mistake was all yours, and 3) the speaker is sensitive enough about your distress to take the trouble to express 1) and 2) to you.
See if you can spot each of those elements in the clarification the Ozark School Board recently wrote to its 29 June censure of one its own board members for having the audacity to invite the public to share with her their feelings about the school district (https://simbli.eboardsolutions.com/Meetings/Attachment.aspx?S=99&AID=303065&MID=13009). The board received enough flak from the public over this that a non-apology was in order. Here goes:
Dear Members of the Ozark R-VI School Community,
The Board understands there are multiple interpretations of the letter regarding board liability and individual member sessions. The purpose of the letter was to inform the public that no one board member speaks for the whole and should not be misconstrued as to any board member acting illegally.
(https://simbli.eboardsolutions.com/Meetings/Attachment.aspx?S=99&AID=306088&MID=13381)
Did you see that? They simply ignored all of the concerns about the gross impropriety of their censure letter. (See https://christiancountytrumpet.com/ozark-school-board-censures-one-of-their-own/ for an overview of what was so wrong with this letter.) They deny that it was ever a censure to begin with. “How could you silly members of the public be so confused?” At least they care enough about our concerns to try to help alleviate them by letting us know that the fault was all ours. It was just a misunderstanding. If only we were as noble and enlightened as they, we wouldn’t be so troubled by what they did.