Apology lust

Do you know when to say "I'm sorry?" Do you know when not to say it? Stanley Bing writes at Fortune,

We live in a culture of gotcha and sorry, and Twitter TWTR -0.05% drives the hostile, accusatory, triumphant conversation. And even when Twitter doesn’t initiate the apology-generation ritual, it’s the enormous echo chamber in which every offense, from large to small, is amplified and played out until the inevitable outcome—the career death of the apologizer.

...The fact is, very, very few individuals or business entities can stand up to the kind of relentless professional scrutiny kicked off by a professionally conducted witch hunt driven by apology lust.

...Now, I’m not saying there aren’t some actions that require an apology. You falsify emission results. You ignore all warnings and your oil rig explodes. You steal billions of dollars from unwary grandmothers. You are caught on video running over a puppy. In such cases, yeah, you’ve got to say you’re sorry. And then expect to reap the well-earned consequences.

Otherwise? Ride it out, baby. Play dead. Wait for the angry badger to get tired of sniffing you and depart to look for something tasty in a nearby garbage can. They always do. Badgers are hungry, but they’re not that smart, and as for attention span, forget about it.