More on the effects of approval seeking

 I got some well-argued pushback in the comments to my post "The insidious effects of approval seeking." I can't do the argument against my claim full justice here so please read the original comment thread for more context. For the time being, I will focus on this remark:

If we recognise that we have inadvertently caused suffering, then it is possible to offer a sincere and unreserved apology without engaging in approval-seeking.

When is it reasonable to apologize for having inadvertently caused suffering.

Apologies should be sincere. If someone keeps attacking me and I want them to stop I can reasonably take steps to make them stop. If, for example, my sister starts huge fights every time I visit her I might stop visiting. That will stop the fighting but may also cause her pain. Do I apologize for that? I might, especially if I later decide my response inflicted more suffering than was warranted. Maybe I will think that, because I love my sister, I should endure her ongoing rudeness for the sake of family unity. Then again, maybe not. I may decide that her behaviour is simply unacceptable and that I'm justified ion no longer seeing her. It's a complex decision. The important thing is that it is a decision we can make and I should feel free to make according to my best judgment, right or wrong, and not according to her feelings.

Something odd happens when we conclude that we should not make such decisions because someone might get hurt. There is a difference between A) apologizing for making a decision that caused pain because we later decide that decision was unwarranted and B) apologizing for making a decision simply because that decision caused pain and no other reason. If Sharon elects not to get married and that causes her mother severe pain because she had placed a lot of hope in her daughter getting married and having grandchildren it does not necessarily follow that she should apologize. If she later decides that her mother was right and that it was only rebelliousness that led her to take this stand she now regrets then she should apologize. She should not apologize simply because her mother is hurt. To do so would be to submit to a tyranny of feelings where little fascist bullies could stop anything they didn't like by simply failing to learn how to manage their feelings. (And something like that is happening on some university campuses now.)

It seems to me that we might apologize for inadvertently causing suffering when two conditions are met: 1. I could and reasonably should have anticipated that my actions would cause others pain and 2. my actions were not justified. There might also be cases where I am going to do something that I believe justified that I know or should know will cause others pain and where I could reasonably help them prepare for this so as to lessen their pain. But merely apologizing because others are upset seems wrong to me.

A further thought. My interlocutor also said,

That's excluding the nervous tic ersatz apologies I issue when I catch someone's gaze in the street or have to engage in any negotiation of personal space.

Sometimes it's useful to use apologetic language out of decency and respect or others. Someone might say, "I'm terribly sorry but I'm going to have to ask you to move," in order to smooth over a potentially tense situation. The person who is saying this is sort of apologizing but not really as signified by the words "I'm going to have to," meaning "you're moving whether it causes you distress or not". We also say, I'm sorry it has to be this way." That's related to other kinds of apologies the way a soother is related to a mother's breast; it calms and comforts without providing any real substance.

That said, there is something odd but important about what my interlocutor perceptively describes as "nervous tic ersatz apologies". I must admit I am guilty of these. These may sometimes smooth things over but more often it strikes me as unnecessary. By issuing such apologies we train ourselves to walk on eggshells worrying about other peoples' feelings rather than expecting those people to grow up and learn to control their feelings.

Final thought: It is impossible to live without making some decisions that will cause others pain.

The insidious effects of approval seeking

I was listening to a podcast on the Art of Manliness in which Brett McKay interviewed another favourite of mine, Jordan Harbinger of the Art of Charm.  The whole podcast is worth a listen but I was particularly struck with an issue that came up starting around 45:44.

The discussion is going to go to a really interesting observation about setting boundaries but it begins with giving generously. Jordan* has been pushing the notion of always be giving generously". What he means by that is that when you're networking you should simply give without establishing a covert contract whereby you expect a return for what you give. I'm pretty sure he gets this from Robert Glover's No More Mr. Nice Guy although he has done some development. Bret agrees with this but wonders about setting boundaries. He raises the issue of what he calls give-a-mouse-a-cookie syndrome.

"If you give a mouse a cookie, he's going to ask for glass of milk. If you give him a glass a milk, he's going to ask for a napkin."

Jordan takes that and uses it to zero in on something really important: the challenge of saying "no". He says it's about setting boundaries and not about saying no. We feel guilty about setting a boundary because we worry that other people are going to have a temper tantrum when they don't get what they want. Again, we're back to a principle originally set by Robert Glover: don't seek approval.

Think of what Jordan has said here. I've set a boundary. Is it a fair boundary? The honest answer to that is, "I think so but I also know I've set boundaries before that I realized were unworkable or unfair but seemed fair to me at the time." Certainty, in this context, is an emotion and not an epistemological statement. I need to be open to other people's arguments that my boundaries are unjust. What I don't need to be open to is other people's feelings about my boundaries.

This is even more complicated because we typically don't lay out our boundaries to people at the start of a relationship. Some people do but it ain't good reckoning. For example, a woman I knew in university used to break the flow of conversation with men as soon as it started to get flirtatious to run down a list of what she wouldn't do sexually. The effect of this was that normal men, the ones who would have treated her in the respectful way she sought, would quietly back away and the type of creeps she was hoping to avoid were the only ones who stuck around. Normal, healthy people rely on existing social conventions to get us by. At the same time, we should have boundaries that we don't normally tell others about but should spell out to ourselves. So what happens when it's time to enforce one of these boundaries and someone responds by having a temper tantrum?

If I am all about getting approval from others what is going to happen is that I'm going to cave completely. And I won't cave because they have advanced a convincing argument that my boundary is unwarranted but because I need their approval.

This is also important when people seek apologies or when you seek forgiveness. If I think that the measure of whether I've responded adequately is the other person's emotional state I'm not seeking to apologize and make redress so much as I am seeking their approval. And that (another insight of Robert Glover's) that is to give away my power. What I should be doing is deciding what is right and doing it. What I am actually doing is giving another person the power to decide what is enough.


* I listen to these guys so often I feel like I'm on a first-name basis even though I don't know them.