The Art of Public Penitence: Groveling Without Guilt?
Nowadays everybody seems to be apologizing for everything, especially about things that happened a long, long time ago.
Here is an interesting editorial about this. Here is a piece of it:
| Tony Blair has apologised for Britain’s failure to relieve the Irish Potato Famine a century and a half ago, the Pope has half-apologised for offending Muslims after quoting a 14th-century Byzantine emperor and now John Prescott is preparing to apologise for the slave trade, abolished 200 years ago next year. There is, of course, no limit to how retrospectively repentant we could all be. The Pope could apologise for the Crusades, we could say sorry for roasting Joan of Arc and the Italians could ask our forgiveness for the way their ancestors marched in here in AD43, and then built all those unimaginatively straight roads that invite people to drive too fast. Politics and celebrity culture have infected history with the mea culpa fashion . . . How easy it is to pluck an unpleasant event from history, offer an apology when no real contrition or consequence is involved, and then bathe in the reflected moral glow. Mr Blair has proved marvellously adept at apologising for events that took place before he was born or before he came to power, but has yet to make a personal apology for anything he has done during nearly a decade in government. |
I see the old British wit is intact!
Blogging professor Norm Geras has a comment on the story too. It's interesting too, though I still think blanket group-guilt has become both trendy and dangerous. (Plus it usually grossly oversimplifies history!)
Well, "white man's guilt" is as popular as ever. On a related note, here is former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar's recent acerbic comment about a lack of apology about one case of conquest, invasion, and occupation. Hm.