define: apologetic
One pathology of power and pride is that there is no apology. Killing an innocent on a Texas’ Death Row, for instance, provokes dare and double dare, but little introspection and no apology.
Raw justification is a mistake. Bush regime torture has that color of raw in it. It’s effectiveness can be set aside. Consequences can be slapped aside. While proud of smallish policies, there is no apology.
It’s now clear that a robust marketplace need not be libertine nor hurt our population. The error of deregulation, supply-side deals, and the silly faith that wealth will trickle down is seen as a mistake, but we hear no apologies.
Instead, the rich have run to where the rich run, radio pundits remain mean and vehement, pulpits are relentlessly anew. Committee minority are repeating the spell of tax cuts and the magic of consumer pocket money, and abuzz in back rooms, trading stimulus rollouts for pork in their districts and favors to their lobby…. That’s unapologetic.
Perhaps being strident is why the Republican Party have any seats whatsoever. We Americans respect our Teddy Roosevelt or Ulysses Grant, and we salute conviction and bravado, but we make errors if we see no differences between Roosevelts and Limbaughs, or the endlessly re-elected fawning for headlines.
From Middle English, from Latin apolog?ticus, from Greek apolog?tikos, an apology is not groveling in a sorry state, but looking for a suitable fix.
The mood of apology may be sorry, contrite, penitent, but the act of apology is a thoughtful and useful truth: The error is ours, we admit, and here is our next step.
As a prosecutor hordes power in a prison and fails, an apology must be the repair of that power.
The loft of authority must be held to account, to apology, to “????????“.
Song of the Brightness of Water
From the depth—I came only to draw water
in a jug—so long ago, this brightness
still clings to my eyes—the perception I found,
and so much empty space, my own,
reflected in the well.Yet it is good. I can never take all of you
into me. Stay then as mirror in the well.
Leaves and flowers remain, and each astonished gaze
brings them down
to my eyes transfixed more by light
than by sorrow.When I think, my Country, I look for a road running upward,
like a high-voltage current cutting through slopes. This road
is in each of us, steep and upward, not allowing us to stop.The road follows the same slopes, returns to the same places,
becomes a great silence visiting the tired lungs of my land
evening after evening.The Place Within, Karol Wojtyla, Random House