"Sorry" Seems to be the Hardest Word

CW
May 21, 2016
5 min read

"I'm sorry, but..."

This has to be one of my most hated sentence starters as it makes the word "sorry" a throw-away phrase. Surely if you are genuinely sorry - as in, you know you have done wrong and, having reflected, you see the error of your ways - you should not then go on to say the thing that you are sorry for saying, even before saying it. People usually use the phrase before sharing their opinion that differs with someone else or the status quo. Why apologise for holding an opinion? Or are you not really sorry, but rather trying to protect yourself from responsibility for an angry reaction to your opinion by prefacing it with an apology?

Anyway, semantics aside, it begs the question of what "sorry" really means. I discouraged the use of the word when I was a teacher, allowing children to use it only when they truly had reflected on their actions and felt regret, and were - most importantly - prepared to make amends. That means, if one does wrong by another, "sorry" is never enough. "Sorry" must come with the caveat that the apologiser is prepared to put right their wrong (e.g. fix or replace the broken item), and where relevant, to ensure that they do no repeat the same mistake again (e.g. by not throwing stones at the windows any more.) Let's face it, if you have to apologise twice for the same mistake, clearly your first apology was empty.

But to be genuinely be sorry you must have a conscience, and that conscience should be what guides you away from making mistakes, or committing deliberate wrongs in the first place. It's the thing that stops you from stealing from a shop not for fear of being caught but because...it is simply wrong. It's the thing that stops you harming someone else, not because you don't want to get found out, or in trouble, or sued...but simply because it is just wrong. It's wrong.

Children learn what is right and wrong from our upbringing and the way "right" is modelled and "wrong" is challenged. Children learn that making the right choice has the reward of a better feeling, other people's appreciation and trust, and in fact being able to make other people feel good is ingrained in that sense of "right". For most of us, making other people feel bad strikes at our conscience because our empathy kicks in. Empathy is engaged by an inner feeling, a truth in the emotions, and real conscience of having done right or wrong (within the context I am writing, of course: it is more complex, in reality), and it is that which make a good person accept a consequence (e.g. a punishment), not what makes them FEAR it. If one fears a consequence, one is not acting with conscience and empathy: one is acting selfishly, without empathy for the other person. It is with empathy that we thrive; it is through fear we merely survive.

Cases of false allegations are perhaps one of the best examples of the conscience working. Or rather…the conscience not working. Firstly, take the liar. We now have a society that is so fickle with lying that some would as easily steal a chocolate bar from a shop as they would file a false report of rape. Both appear to trip off the tongue as if a shop keeper losing 70p is no different from the sheer life-crushing effects of a false allegation. It’s the same currency to the liar.

When you have people like that, when they lack a conscience to prevent them from telling such a lie, surely it is imperative that they are shown that such lies are not tolerated. That means a consequence. A punishment. As I said above, those with a genuine conscience don’t choose not to lie because they fear the consequences, they choose not to lie because lying is wrong, and harmful others in a way the also feel.

But the liars are not the ones I really can’t understand. The really cold, conscienceless monsters are the Police Officers, the CPS, the Jury’s and Judges who, even when faced with evidence that shows a person’s innocence, still pursue them, treat them, and ruin them as if they are guilty. The Police officer who chooses not to question the serious inconsistencies in the claimant’s allegation; or chooses not to interview a witness that could exonerate the accused; or chooses not to include a piece of evidence that clearly shows that the accuser has lied… What about when an allegation has been made where the physical details of the account of the so-called victim are impossible (even to the tune of being in a different room, or requiring the accused to have 6ft long arms, and so on?) but the officers choose not to ask those questions?

How is this possible? How can someone with a fully functioning conscience choose to prolong and exacerbate the suffering of an innocent person? How can they hand a file to the CPS knowing that they have chosen not to investigate fully? Or has their decision to work for the Police, following all the political rules that includes, meant that they have foregone their empathy for their fellow person for the sake of keeping the greasy wheels of self-servitude turning?

And what of the individual people working in the CPS? How is it possible that a case file so clearly lacking in full investigation, and so obviously an example of a biased investigative procedure that would make any conviction unsafe…? How does that individual prolong and exacerbate the suffering of an innocent person and progress the case to charge, knowing full well that doing so will taint that person’s reputation forever. (“Well, if he’s been charged then clearly they have evidence there is something weird about him…).

In both cases it can only be a sheer lack of conscience. Of course it could be argued that the problem is institutional and organisational, but I think it is high time in our society that we stopped allowing individuals to waive their personal responsibility for their own actions. It is written in our law that evidence must be reliable and credible, and in order to ensure this is the case a full investigation is required. The problem is that this doesn’t happen with any reliability. Whether you get a properly investigating case depends entirely on the individual officers who handle you case.

But if you get officers and CPS lawyers without a conscience…cross your fingers, because your entire future is held in the hands of those who are more concerned with their statistics and targets than they are with truth or justice.

And that is why you only ever hear that “lessons must be learnt”…

…and never hear a genuine: “I am sorry.”