Opinion Apology-ology

Yet,for all the expertise out there,and despite the fascination and great public demand for it,the art of apology as practiced by the average American person of prominence — whether in politics,sports,religion or business — remains by most accounts pretty unsatisfying.

There was Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina: “I’ve spent the last five days of my life crying in Argentina.” Or Lloyd Blankfein,chief executive of Goldman Sachs,who offered a stinting apology for his firm’s role in the financial collapse. Some blame the lawyers,with their warnings against legally incriminating admissions. Others blame the mythology of American manhood channeled by Hollywood icons like John Wayne,whose dictum,“Never apologise and never explain — it’s a sign of weakness,” entered the language after he recited it in John Ford’s 1949 Western,She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.

Others point to character flaws that sometimes fuel success.

“A good apology has to begin with a real connection between the apologizer and the offended person or audience,” said Patrick Field,co-managing director of the Consensus Building Institute,a nonprofit organization that advises government officials. “And unfortunately a lot of people who have risen to the top of their professions are narcissistic individuals,and just not capable of that.”

Among experts in the field,the record of failed public apologies in the last few years alone has been rich enough to spawn its own shorthand. A “Mark Sanford,” for example,is the sort of rambling,confessional apology that leaves you worse off than before. A “Mark McGwire” is the self-pitying apology that shows a lack of genuine contrition,and broadcasts your resentment at being caught. The dread “John Edwards” is that apology which almost does not matter because you are for the foreseeable future beyond help. A “David Letterman” is one that works,but only if you happen to be a professional comedian with a goofy persona and late-night talk show.

In fact,late-night television may be the listening post most Americans rely on for making sense of these things. But the underlying problem represented by America’s inadequate apologisers runs pretty deep,said the Rev. Gary Dorrien,a professor of social ethics at Union Theological Seminary in Manhattan. “Public trust is built on an assumption that public officials,and respected public figures,can be believed — that you can trust that they are who they say they are,” he said.

When public figures are revealed to be other than who they claimed — and follow up with apologies that betray them as having immature personalities,unfamiliar with the rigors of honest self-assessment — the fabric of social trust suffers,he said.

It’s not as if the whole thing suddenly tears in two because an Eliot Spitzer gets caught in a prostitution sting,resigns as governor of New York,and apologises — but never mentions or admits that he broke the law. But incrementally,the accumulation of little tears in the fabric “makes it harder and harder to talk about the ethical underpinning of any public policy issues,harder to mobilise people,” Mr. Dorrien said.

Dr. Aaron Lazare,a psychiatrist,retired dean of the University of Massachusetts Medical School and author of a best seller,“On Apology,” which is about personal apologies,not public ones,said both the public and personal apology share a basic mandate. “In both situations,you have to be specific,you have to say what you did,and you have to ask the offended person not just for forgiveness — but ask them what you need to do to make things right,” he said. Every apology is a strategic act,Mr. Dorrien. “People apologize because they want to restore something that’s been broken,” he said.

In other words,it is a work of art. And while critics and experts may look at it in a certain way,everyone knows what they like.

A trenchant analysis of the issue appeared in The New Yorker last year. It was a cartoon: The woman stands over her shoulder-drooped husband. “I don’t want your apology,” she says. “I want you to be sorry.”