Comments on: Another Pseud-Apology

By: Intervening into the Intervention « matjjin-nehen

Intervening into the Intervention « matjjin-nehen — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 06:48:39 +0000

[...] so much going on in Canberra, Darwin and elsewhere, that I barely know where to begin. I apologise (taking responsibility, that is) for what may therefore be a structural mess of a [...]

By: Dissecting an Apology « matjjin-nehen

Dissecting an Apology « matjjin-nehen — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 07:49:36 +0000

[...] I wrote about it at the time under the guise of a semantic analysis of the speech act ‘to apologise’ or alternatively – one might even say synonymously – ‘to be sorry’. In the last week we’ve had another apology expression of sorry, this time pertaining to the recent rise in interest rates. [...]

By: Robert A

Robert A — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 11:47:21 +0000

Perhaps we should make no distinction between “apologize for” and “apologize that”.
If both are speech acts, then something is done, and I think that something is the one thing of admitting responsibility. (Besides, apologize that” sounds more like a propositional attitude, [incoherent at that], not a speech act).
Hell, I’m not apologizing for the prime minister, but there must be a way to show sympathy with “sorry” without going so far to apologize.

By: Jangari

Jangari — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 22:15:59 +0000

Yes, Emile, I think he carried himself pretty well, but you know what they say about counting one's chickens. Besides, Howard always loses debates, it doesn't ever seem to derail otherwise strong campaigns. Will, excellent point. We seem happy to collectively assume pride for Australia's positive history, but cannot accept a highly warranted notion of collective shame. And since you have comments turned off, great review of the Coercive Reconciliation book as well.

By: Will

Will — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 18:03:42 +0000

I have read no better statement on the whole buggered issue of “responsibility” than Raimond Gaita’s in his essay in Coercive Reconciliation. Allow me to quote selectively:

“In Austalia, reconciliation is the name given to the acknowledgement that past and present injustices comitted against the Aboriginal peoples generated for the non-Aboriginal inhabitants a sense of collective responsibility for the wrongs committed by their political ancestors. … Generally, … those who welcomed the diverse movements that came together under the head of reconciliation agreed that if contemporary Australians could speal intelligently of what ‘we did’ when ‘we’ pioneered the land or fought at Gallipoli, then appealing to that same sense of collective agency they could speak, as Paul Keating did at Redfern, of what ‘we did’ when we dispossessed the Aborginal people of their lands or took their children from their mothers.

“The collective responsibility expressed in Keating’s ‘we’ is not collective guilt. … Shame rather than guilt is the natural counterpart to the pride [Howard] so often expresses for Australia.”

By: Emile Victor

Emile Victor — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 13:49:56 +0000

Rudd absolutely steamrolled the PM tonight. I was suprised with how well he went.

However, Howard didn’t help himself with his closing questions, one of which raised the question of whether he spied on Rudd’s conversation with GWB. It certainly sounds like it.