The Long Apology: Beast (Michael Pearce, 2018)

I have been guilty, at several points in my life, of what I call the Wittgenstein Apology. It’s named after philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, and more specifically, named after an anecdote that I learned from Maggie Nelson’s The Art of Cruelty. Wittgenstein, as Nelson tells us, 

saw his lapses in honesty, however small, as his greatest defect, and in the 1930s went so far as to undertake a sort of world tour to rectify remembered instances of bad or duplicitous behavior. Like someone locked in a particularly grandiose version of the ninth step of Alcoholics Anonymous, Wittgenstein penned a long confession, then showed up on the doorsteps of friends, family, former pupils, and acquaintances to read it. He told his listeners that their attention to the matter was urgently required, and demanded a rapt audience. 

Of course, many of the people subjected to a Wittgenstein Apology were angrier about having to stand still and listen to his monologues than they were about the original offenses. “If ever a thing could wait,” thought one friend, whomst Wittgenstein had ambushed by whipping out the bill of repentances in the middle of a meal. 

Thus, it was the apologies, not the lies, that ruined many of these relationships, and Wittgenstein concluded his apology tour feeling worse than he had before he began it. This is what defines the Wittgenstein Apology: Wittgenstein was so preoccupied with his own guilt, and his own need for absolution, that he failed to factor in the feelings or needs of the people to whom he was apologizing. 

Another instance of the Wittgenstein Apology comes from psychologist James Hollis, who once treated a man who considered monogamy very important. He considered it so important, in fact, that every time he had a sexual thought about a woman other than his wife — every time, even if he just saw someone attractive walking by on the street — he would call up his wife and tell her about it, often in the middle of the day, while she was at work herself, so that he could plead for her forgiveness. By the time this man arrived in Hollis’ office, he did so under ultimatum: If he didn’t stop apologizing, his wife said, she would file for a divorce. 

This man never actually acted on any of his fantasies. Yet he was constantly providing his wife with proof that he was attracted to other women, and he could not understand why that hurt her. He did not stay monogamous out of respect for his wife, but out of his own desire to see himself as a monogamous person; his goodness was selfish, and thus, not good. 

People tend to judge themselves not just on what they do, but on what they feel and think, and — since most of us have unkind thoughts and feelings — people who never act on their worst impulses still very often believe they are bad people. Meanwhile, people who need to see themselves as “good” will stick to their self-designated “good” behavior even when it’s hurting others, and thus stay in denial about their own capacity to do harm. Even worse, both of these processes are often happening within the same person: We hate ourselves for our most harmless impulses, and remain blind to the actual harm we do every day.