The Art of Apologizing: When Umberto Eco “Amused Himself” with Our Belated Inflation of Apologies.

When Umberto Eco “amused himself” with the belated inflation of public apologies.

Few people could observe, turn into a subject, and write so sharply about the signs of absurdity in society, politics and culture as Umberto Eco.

Today, in the climate we are experiencing, it sometimes feels as though Eco is calling to us from beyond, reminding us of things that will continue to have consequences for our society.

Eco serves up on a tray the mechanisms of brainwashing, the extraordinary stupefaction of human beings, social artificiality, pseudo-politically-correct behaviour and, of course, the blowing of reason’s fuse — replacing it with digital virtuality and media hysteria.

Today I was rereading Eco’s Papa Satàn [1], and in particular the essay about apologies.

Eco’s semiotics begins, with humour, to narrate the signs of the art and fashion of apologizing — because today, when you apologize for small things in relation to large sins, you may soon have the chance to issue another standardized apology for monumental historical wrongs.

But what about consequences?

“The Pope has apologized for the persecution of Galileo Galilei,” Eco writes.

What, in fact, is the meaning and purpose of apologizing publicly?

“Why does Pope John Paul II apologize to Galileo? What appears absolutely necessary is a meticulous investigation of the files of every more or less distinguished person — one never knows when they may become useful.”

That is Eco’s joke.

“And who should apologize for Vietnam? Obama? Kerry? One of the Kennedys? And who for the execution of the Romanovs in 1917? There can be little doubt, since the only faithful and legitimate heir to Leninism and Stalinism would be Putin.

But there are even more awkward cases.

Who should apologize for Ptolemy, who is after all responsible for Galileo’s condemnation?

If he really was born, as is said, in Ptolemais Hermii, in the Libyan province of Cyrenaica, then perhaps Gaddafi should have apologized.

But if he was born in Alexandria, then it would fall to the Egyptian government — to Mubarak.

And who apologizes for the concentration camps?

The only living heirs of Nazism are the various neo-Nazi movements, and they are not exactly inclined to apologize. In fact, they would do it all again if they had the opportunity.”

— Papa Satàn

“To apologize is not synonymous with weakness, but with control and strength; it means an immediate return to reason, disarming the other person enough to make them listen,” Eco writes in L’Espresso.

Precisely in passages of this kind — essayistic and satirical — one wonders why Eco ever needed the novel form in order to contain all these remarkable observations.

It is not by accident that Eco wrote columns, articles and essays for L’Espresso. A selection appeared in German under the title Derrick oder die Leidenschaft für das Mittelmaß.

It turns out that Eco was right about everything.

Indeed, reality today can appear even worse.

Brainwashing, social stupefaction, media hysteria and artificial correctness are now public phenomena — and yet no one takes them seriously anymore.

Why would we need truth when we have horoscopes?

© Eda Zari, 4 March 2022.

[1] Eco’s questions and answers in Papa Satàn, subtitled here as The Art of Understanding the World and published in Milan in 2016, form an x-ray image of modern society. The book consists of essays and chronicles that animate valuable and provocative conversations and remain strikingly current. Personally, I also see the book as a declaration of love for the art of reading.

[2] Few things seem more German than Inspector Derrick. In Eco’s satire he becomes a figure of perfected mediocrity and careerist civil-service culture. This collection is full of parody and intelligent sarcasm — the kind of book to keep close in a bag on a plane or train.

© Eda Zari, 2022. All rights reserved.