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Meghan Daum and Rob Walker

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from: Meghan Daum

A Sorry State

Posted Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2001, at 2:51 PM ET

Rob,

Not annoyed! Not annoyed with you at all! I'm sorry for sounding that way. I have become, as you can probably tell, a tad defensive lately. Not an attractive quality. I have a friend who, every time I talk to her, threatens to stage an intervention to get me to leave here and nags me about moving to Los Angeles where, she says, I could give up this piecemeal free-lance life and get a respectable job writing for Titus.

I think one of the more troubling facets of Adm. Fallon's apology to the Japanese people, and of apologies in general, is that they tend to do little more than assuage the guilt of the apologist. Just as Clinton's apology for slavery and the Vatican's apology for complacency during the Holocaust were little more than public relations stunts, apologizing to the Japanese for what may turn out to be a case of letting a drunken Mr. Howell take the helm of the Minnow is painfully moot. Of course we're sorry. The question is, "Now what?" I find it remarkable that Fallon's exact words, according to the Times, were, "I'm here to request in the most humble and sincere manner that you accept the apology of the people of the United States and the U.S. Navy, as a personal representative of President Bush." Who is he to make a request? It seems it would have been better to say something like, "A terrible error resulted in a terrible tragedy, and while there is nothing we can say that will even begin to compensate you for your loss, please know that we are investigating the situation and will do all we can to see that those responsible are brought to justice."

In other words, "sorry" isn't good enough. Neither, for that matter, is the Navy Court of Inquiry's promise to "potentially" punish those responsible. I'm sure it's heartening to the Japanese that there's some potential there.

It's a funny thing, this "sorry" concept. In my mind, "sorry" is something you say when nothing more can be done about the situation. When someone dies, you say, "I'm so sorry." When you break your mother's antique vase, you tell her you're sorry. When you make a big, big mistake that causes pain to others, you make an apology without expecting that it will be accepted, and then you work hard to make amends, knowing that nothing you do will "make up" for the mistake--only, if you're lucky, demonstrate your remorse.

As for Brad Pitt, I don't think he owes his wife an apology. I think he's showing a great deal of sophistication. Like the concept of "sorry," the whole concept of marriage and happily ever after has been so sentimentalized in this country that it's no wonder our divorce rate is what it is. Everyone from talk show hosts to religious leaders to those statistics-spinners who, every few years, release data showing that married people live longer, eat better, earn more money, and drink less tequila than their cat-owning unmarried counterparts, views marriage as a panacea for all neuroses and anxieties. I think that's dangerous and naive. While marriage is a positive and satisfying institution for many people, it's not a formula for good health or even good morals. We have so many expectations surrounding marriage in this country, many of them so unrealistic that divorce sometimes results not just from irreconcilable differences but failure to live up to the fairy tale standards set by the billion dollar wedding industry and the onscreen chemistry of Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. Andrew Sullivan, in a characteristically incendiary and lucid piece in the Times Magazine on Feb. 11, wrote about the "absurd hype of romanticism," articulating my own long-held view that "the real culprit [of divorce] isn't some kind of moral collapse. It's excessive expectations, driven and fueled by the civic religion of romance." I expect the letters page will be brimming with sanctimonious rebuttals in the next few weeks. But I think his point was valid and subtle. (Though subtlety, unlike romance, is very often out of style.)

Apropos of this (sort of), I'd like to add two more points: 1) Ellen Fein, co-author of the guerrilla husband-finding guide The Rules, has just filed for divorce; and 2) the finale of Temptation Island is tonight, so it's only a matter of hours before eight hard bodies on the rebound will infiltrate the talk show circuit.

I realized I've opened a supersized can of worms (available in the sporting goods department of the Lincoln Wal-Mart.) We can discuss this further if you'd like. Or we can drop it and go back to livestock.

Unapologetically,
Meghan

the breakfast table
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from: Meghan Daum

A Sorry State

Posted Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2001, at 2:51 PM ET
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Meghan Daum's essay collection, My Misspent Youth, will be published in March. Rob Walker, a journalist living in New Orleans, writes Slate's "Moneybox" column.
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Reader Comment From The Fray:


I have a suggestion for some 'reality based' TV programs. How about Refugee Boat? We could take contestants and put them in a third world, war torn country and give them thirty days to figure out how to make a raft, find food and get set afloat before despotic soldiers order them to dig their own graves.

Or, how about Street Survival? In this one, the contestants must survive three months on the street with only the clothes on their backs and no identification. They would be required to jump trains, sleep outdoors in alleyways and in shelters, and generally try to survive their new found compatriots, welfare rolls and dumpster diving.

And, how about this beauty? Prison Guards would be a reality based show where one would become a prison guard in one of the most feared prisons in the United States. In this show contestants get thirty days training and then must work as a prison guard in the most violence-prone sectors of the prison for at least two months. Talk about ratings! I know that I would personally be glued to the screen.

Let's give vanity and greed a real price. Instead of paying people to play the mind games most of us have to wade through in our regular work week, let's up the ante a little. I can't wait until the spotlights burn and we get to see one of these numbnuts have to face a freight train's worth of trouble rushing headlong into them.

--Rogue

(To reply, click here.)

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