{"id":44537,"date":"2023-04-06T11:19:23","date_gmt":"2023-04-06T18:19:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=44537"},"modified":"2025-05-28T08:01:58","modified_gmt":"2025-05-28T14:01:58","slug":"on-apologizing-for-others","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2023\/04\/on-apologizing-for-others\/","title":{"rendered":"On Apologizing for Others"},"content":{"rendered":"

A rhetorical practice I\u2019ve seen more and more lately is apologizing for others. This usually happens in the context of a Church leader saying something the supposed apologizer disagrees with, and often takes the form of \u201cas a Mormon, I apologize for\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I think this approach is wrongheaded, whether you agree with the apologizer or not.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Apologizing implies having been in the wrong. Being \u201cpunished for [our] own sins\u201d means we don\u2019t carry the guilt of what others have done. Full stop. There is simply no reason for you to apologize for what somebody else has done. If you feel like your involvement in the Church is itself de-facto wrong, then you can apologize for that in regards to your personal participation, but it still doesn’t make sense for you to apologize for whatever sins you feel a Church leader or the Church as an institution has committed.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. People generally understand the principles involved in #1; therefore, the act of apologizing-by-proxy doesn\u2019t actually involve any humility on the part of the apologizer. The term \u201cvirtue signaling\u201d gets overused, but I think it\u2019s use in this case is appropriate. Because people intuitively understand #1 and don\u2019t actually think that the apologizer carries any personal guilt for the issue in question, apologizing by proxy smacks more of virtue signaling on the part of the apologizer than any attempt to actually exercise humility in admitting wrongdoing.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. The person you are apologizing for probably does not think they need an apology; therefore it is presumptuous to essentially speak for someone who did not ask you to speak for them.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I don\u2019t want to exaggerate how much I see this in the wild, but it\u2019s enough to merit a brief post on why it\u2019s a wrongheaded practice.<\/span><\/p>\n



    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A rhetorical practice I\u2019ve seen more and more lately is apologizing for others. This usually happens in the context of a Church leader saying something the supposed apologizer disagrees with, and often takes the form of \u201cas a Mormon, I apologize for\u2026\u201d I think this approach is wrongheaded, whether you agree with the apologizer or not.\u00a0 Apologizing implies having been in the wrong. Being \u201cpunished for [our] own sins\u201d means we don\u2019t carry the guilt of what others have done. Full stop. There is simply no reason for you to apologize for what somebody else has done. If you feel like your involvement in the Church is itself de-facto wrong, then you can apologize for that in regards to your personal participation, but it still doesn’t make sense for you to apologize for whatever sins you feel a Church leader or the Church as an institution has committed.\u00a0 People generally understand the principles involved in #1; therefore, the act of apologizing-by-proxy doesn\u2019t actually involve any humility on the part of the apologizer. The term \u201cvirtue signaling\u201d gets overused, but I think it\u2019s use in this case is appropriate. Because people intuitively understand #1 and don\u2019t actually think that the apologizer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10403,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latter-day-saint-thought"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10403"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44537"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50187,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44537\/revisions\/50187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}