Apologies.

Apologies are something I am starting to find interesting. I spent many years, due to my medical condition. Not really processing a lot of how people behaved since I had too much of my own, biologically (not psychologically) created stress. I.e. due to my medical condition.

During this time, I developed a way of thinking that kind of bypassed a few elements of normal human interaction that I didn't really understand, or couldn't accommodate. I found it hard to grip the concept of 'status'.

However, now my physical health is improving. A lot of this output is to articulate my attempt to learn these lessons very quickly now. I haven't lived really. But I can observe. I can learn fast.

To codify this learning I am now looking into philosophy. 

Apologies.

Apologies are one area that really reflect a great deal of status based human interaction I think. I am also getting wise to the ways they are used, which is why I am writing this article. 

When I think of apologies I think of them in a very specific way. It might not be correct anymore, I might be becoming more neurotypical myself now that my physiology is functioning better. I might be neurodivergent in some way anyway. But when I think of apologies, I think of them in terms of how neurotypicals process the world. 

On the surface of it, it seems to me that the only reason neurotypicals engage in apologies is so that they can highlight that one person has animal power over another. Think of politics. When a group gang up on someone and insist on an apology. Usually getting it, and usually carrying on to harass the individual anyway. The entire point of that apology is that the target grovels to the social group, and that the group has then humiliated, and continues to humiliate, the individual.

Who has animalistic power matters a lot to neurotypicals (I'm not saying it doesn't matter to me I'm just working through this as an idea). It seems to me that it is the basis point of their interaction, and this happens both ways. A) It happens when one person expresses dominance over another and B) It happens when one person deliberately makes themselves out as submissive to another. 

The second is important because it is less obvious. When listening to Stefan Molyneux, he sometimes says when people are being excessively vague or have a host of other communication difficulties. That the person experienced abuse as a child and adopted behaviours to protect themselves. But now that they are an adult and speaking to him, he does not want to deal with excess vagueness because it is placing him in the position of being the abuser. If you are actually trying to get to the point of something, then excess vagueness is very annoying, and you have to constantly push the other person to be more clear... It's frustrating and pushes the questioner towards anger.

Utility

Now, this is not to say that it is not a practical method of communicating. Because there is now corruption and confusion around the issue. It is something I have been trying to get right in my own life and reflecting on. 

My model of neurotypicals is that they are always experiencing animalistic status. But perhaps, when not dealing in an abusive situation. The losing of power from one individual to another is part of what makes the apology relevant. It is a relevant currency. 'I am serious enough about this issue to take a hit to something that is very important to me, my animalistic status'. 

Personally, I naturally feel that this is, a bit of a circus act. To me, emotionally, apologies could simply be an explanation of what went wrong and why, and concrete steps to make sure the thing doesn't re-occur. But I recognise, that for the normal world. Apologies are a relevant way of communicating. I think though, that this is largely dysfunctional, as I will explain. 

I have probably apologised a few times in my life. These are always calculated. I have never meant an emotional apology once in my life. I have never felt those feelings. There are a few different things influencing this and one of the things that influences my interaction with others is a need to kind of settle a score. If someone is annoying me, I don't want to leave open any avenue for their contact in the future. This is quite paranoid, but it is nevertheless how I think. 

So, if there was an event in the past I want to explain my side of it, so if the person therapies themselves later, and I don't want to deal with them, they already have my explanation. If I am confused about some aspect of the past. I like to give the person the option to communicate even if they will likely reject it. So that no one can convince me, and I can't convince myself, that it all ended due to some disagreement and communication difficulty.

Apologies have been part of this for me. Do we have a good friendship that was pushed away by my behaviour that I can't fully perceive or recall (due to earlier health issues?) Then I will apologise now, and see how it goes. But I don't mean it. I don't have an emotional experience of regret or guilt that I did something wrong. It is only putting a different input into a coding platform to see if there are different results. 

The real world. 

I can remember one apology I made to someone in a friend group. Two that were given to me without me having requested them, but both to people that were being unpleasant and difficult and were seeking a change of behaviour from me, WITHOUT, I now realise, a change of behaviour from themselves. 

It took me by surprise because my model of neurotypicals had them not giving apologies, because of the refusal to lose status. But I realise, that is not their entire psychology. 

The function when I apologise to another that I mentioned, was to see if that person would be a potential friend in the future (I mentioned practical steps of not mentioning politics in general as my concrete behaviour change in relation to this apology). I was also owed an apology I believed, and this apology would also serve a practical purpose. The practical purpose being that the person was a rabid leftist that had gossiped about me, and I would have to walk on unbelievable eggshells to deal with them, and in order to do that I would need a bit of assurance that this would not happen again, that I could relax at least a little when interacting with them. No apology from the person was forthcoming because of course... Rabid leftist. Of course it would happen again. Those sorts of people are never wrong. 

However, of two apologies I have received. One of them was definitely, and distinctly, not a real apology and the second one I don't know for sure. But I also suspect that. 

One apology I received was a person that was actively disrespecting me and I could feel, constantly with this individual that he strongly wanted to be the 'dominant animal', and that he was willing to go to some lengths in the real world to do that. So I was saying to him I've had enough of this. He apologised, but shortly after, he ghosted me for two months. Which made a lot of sense to me. I could feel when he made the apology this would kill his own animalistic sense of himself. So when I got pushback like that, I was not surprised. 

Later in messages with this person I got down to it. I basically said to him that if we were going to interact, I needed an explanation of his stance on ethics. Since what ethical standards could I hold him to that would be dominant over his emotional preference. I.e. if his emotional preference were to behave badly again, what practical values does he hold to oppose that? No answer, so I haven't seen him since, and probably won't see him again. 

The second example was someone that apologised, then went back to precisely the same behaviour. This person often works to keep me in this kind of half relationship with them that I find annoying and utterly, utterly pointless. Potentially this is because at the moment I am ill and low status. But I might be of some value to them later on. I know others like this. I know people that if I gained in status, imagine like a stereotypical super talented musician film. Then these people would suddenly deign me worthy of communicating with them and would make contact. In my life, I am obviously high IQ, and some people might see this and act accordingly. Regardless of the merit of that idea.

The solution.

But both of these apologies have the same solution. If someone says sorry my now response is: What do you mean by that apology? What are you apologising for? What practical things are you intending to change in terms of your behaviour?

This answers both these individuals. Both the dominant, that think they can keep you around to perhaps have someone they can feel dominant to; and the submissive, who probably have abandonment anxiety, and are appeasing you but don't really mean it (because in their mind they are every bit as right as the dominant is!). The submissive will continue being vague, because that stuff is real deep in the psyche.

What precise behaviours are you actually going to change? Otherwise I'm not accepting the apology. And the danger that you are trying to avert by apologising will not be averted! This effectively takes the apology from a meaningless statement of social dominance. Truly meaningless, since there might be a revenge on part of the "apologiser" to regain their social status. It changes the apology then to something that has real world relevance. Behaviour that is not working needs to change. Are you going to change it? Then maybe, just maybe, it will become a functional way of communicating.