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rejecting apologies

07 Jun 2025

here is an increasingly frequent experience you may have around me:

you: “i’m sorry” OR “i’m so sorry for [insert thing that just happened].”

me: apology rejected!

why? honestly, because i am EXTREMELY literal. and being literal makes me want to be really precise in my language. i really do believe language can create or destory worlds/possibilities. so when people say “i’m sorry,” i really take it seriously.

and i also take it seriously that an apology is up to the receiver to accept or not. a shitty apology is not actually useful; it doesn’t achieve the purpose. the receiver knows it and often anyone observing knows it, too.

for example, if you ever see two children in a situation when one does something wrong to the other and the offers a trashy apology, an adult nearby usually steps in and calls it out. and the kid who was wronged also usually demonstrates in some way that they know the apology was BS.

to be a giver of good apology is a real skill and, often, it takes real emotional effort. it takes the effort of working through the feelings you have of doing something wrong or making a mistake. and then it takes work to offer some repair in a meaningful way.

so i believe that, if the apology isn’t good enough, the receiver has the right (dare i even say the responsibility?) to reject it if it doesn’t do the trick.

now, several friends of mine (most notably dave jenkins, but also others) are of the belief that saying “i’m sorry” isn’t an apology. it’s more of a colloquial term that means something like “i have [insert feelings] about the thing you just said or the thing that just happened to/around you.”

now, my counter to that is: “well, if what you mean is you have feelings about what i just said, you should just say that and not say this other things you don’t mean.” and the counter to that is “but in any culture, we say lots of things that actually mean something else.”

and to that i have no counter.

but the reason i am rejecting more apologies these days is because i increasingly believe that apologizing is a critical part of being an abolitionist. that might sound nuts but the i really do believe that being abolitionist means creating ways of being with each other beyond harm and punishment (from the state and from each other). and in order to do that, we have to know how to repair. and, many times, when something wrong has happened, regardless of how big or small, an apology is needed. someone(s) needs to say (and have accepted by the receiver) “wow. i fucked up. my bad.”

so, this isn’t a full process of developing that capacity in our society or even in my friend group. but rejecting apologies that don’t need to be in definitely something i am doing more and more. and it creates the opportunity to hvae this whole (see above) conversation which i really appreciate and often enjoy.

ok. there’s more to share here that i don’t have time to share right now:

but for now, imma just leave this here.

#doneisbetterthanperject! ;p

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