I saw a news article today where a judge ordered two people to apologize to a family for having made critical comments about the family. The family has also been ordered to accept the apologies. Of course, there is a whole lot more to this situation, but frankly the details here are not important. What is important is two people were court ordered to issue an apology, and a family was court ordered to accept; this order is completely worthless.

We are taught there are times when apologies are appropriate. We apologize when we do something that hurts others because we are truly sorry that we’ve hurt them. We offer apologies when bad things have happened to those we care about, even if it’s not our fault and there’s nothing we can do about it, because we hate that those we care about are going through a difficult situation. Often when we were youngsters, we apologized because our parents told us to.

Of all those apologies, the ones we gave because we wanted to and because we were sincere are the ones that meant something. The ones we gave because our parents made us were mostly worthless at the time because we didn’t mean it. We did it only because we were told to. They meant something as we grew older because we learned the situations where we should feel remorse and when we should be apologetic.

We were children at the time, and we learned from our mistakes. Adults, too, can learn from their mistakes. However, ordering an adult to apologize is worthless. Likewise, ordering an adult to accept an apology is worthless. It’s doubtful those apologizing will actually be sincere; after all, they’ve been ordered to do it. It’s also doubtful that those accepting will be sincere as they, too, have been ordered to do so.

When we are adults, apologies only mean something if we mean the apology. If we don’t mean it, the situation remains unresolved. The person we’re apologizing to can tell if we’re sincere or not. Even if we do a pretty good job of faking it, we know we weren’t sincere. The judge could have found the two in contempt. After that, he could have issued a short-term jail sentence or a fine. The jail term probably would have been going overboard, but a fine would not have been out of line, and would make more sense than forcing adults to issue a meaningless apology and forcing others to accept that meaningless apology.

Forcing an apology and forcing an acceptance will not resolve the issue between these folks. In fact, it could do more harm than good; it’s more likely that both of them will simply hold a grudge, and there’s little to guarantee a change in behavior. Unlike children who are still being molded and can learn appropriate patterns of behaviors, few adults will change their minds or their behaviors simply because they’re ordered to apologize or to accept the apology.

Apologies only mean something when the one apologizing is sincere. If you’re going to apologize but you aren’t going to be sincere, don’t bother. Worthless apologies only add to problems; they don’t solve them.