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The Value of Apologies
There is a modern style, almost a fashion, of demanding apologies. An apology given after a request for one is worthless, for it indicates that the person apologising did not regret his or her wrongdoing as soon as the wrongdoing became apparent. This touches the sincerity of an apology and an insincere apology is far worse than no apology at all; one might as well say that you are not sorry for your wrong doing.
There are apologies and excuses. Sometimes you can never say sorry enough times. “Will you cry? Fight? Stop eating? Cut yourself? Drink vinegar? Eat a crocodile?”’
Corporate apologies are never sincere. If the banks apologise for the fraud perpetrated on some of their customers by mis-selling personal protection insurance or swaps as some have done, then I would hold that apology insincere; it shows no sign of remorse. The makers of the drug thalidomide, Gruenenthal, have issued an elegant apology for the damage wrought by their drug. This is some fifty one years after the effects of thalidomide came to light. They coupled their apology with a statement that they did not know what the drug could have done. A criminal trial in 1971 found exactly the opposite – it held that the company could have known and should have known thalidomide was dangerous if it had implemented proper standards and procedures for checking the drug.
As usual in the affairs of corporations, greed prevents proper behaviour. There is no money in good morality. If corporations could market and sell apologies we would be swamped with salesmen ringing us up to offer to sell a particularly valuable apology.
I do not know what good will come of the apology; in the past fifty years about a quarter of the victims of thalidomide have died, and about a hundred thousand of them were never given a chance of life, having been aborted in the womb. The victims also include the parents and close family of those affected by the drug. Many of them alive today say that the apology is worthless because it does not admit wrong doing. I think that they are wrong; apologies to be worth something do not have to admit wrong doing but they have to express remorse at events, which may or may not have been intended and they should be made as soon as the wrong is discovered, not fifty one years after the event. The apology is worthless. Full stop.
Filed under: climate change Tagged: apologies, banks, Gruenenthal, PPI, thalidomide, wrong doing by corporations 
2012-09-02 00:32:37
Source: http://robertkyriakides.wordpress.com/2012/09/02/the-value-of-apologies/
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