Sorry this is a bit late for the continued debate.
Maybe the US is still not an honour-shame culture but undoubtedly those with Judeo-Christian roots are going to come across an increasing number of those whose upbringing insists on zero-sum games where please and thank you are taken as submission and where admission of error is, G0d forbid, unthinkable.
As I meant, where the people involved accept honest and sincere penance for a wrong a peaceful resolution of a problem is possible, but where they are talking at cross purposes one of the parties is going to be fooled.
And where I say fooled it can be as harrowing as putting up with the “school bully” everyday.
If one is the wronged party, trying to get an apology can be dangerous.
Apologies matter but only where the people involved accept them as a daily part of the social contract.
Once upon a time in Britain it was honourable to own up for one’s mistakes or indiscretions but not so now in the multicultural world where one becomes the clown.It was therapeutic to admit one’s sins, in church for example, but now there are fewer and fewer churches for expiation of the soul.
