A couple of weeks ago The Journal of Experimental Psychology published a paper by Karina Schumann, a scholar at Stanford University. It has the snappy title "An affirmed self and a better apology: The effect of self-affirmation on transgressors' responses to victims." It argues that we're awful at saying sorry because we hate feeling bad about ourselves. Therefore, if we spend a few minutes before apologising, reminding ourselves how great we are, our apology will be more heartfelt.
Certainly, there's no shortage of people who could use the advice. In the past few weeks the American vice-president, Joe Biden, has had to apologise to the Turkish Prime Minister for questioning his commitment to challenging the threat posed by Isis. The police chief of Fergusson, Missouri, has had to say sorry for the way he dealt with the aftermath of the police shooting of Michael Brown, which led to riots. The Police Service of Northern Ireland has apologised for delays to criminal record checks, Facebook has apologised for forcing drag queens to register under their real names, and actor Danny Dyer has apologised to baking queen Mary Berry for sticking his tongue in her ear during an awards ceremony. Dark days indeed.
There's nothing extraordinary about this list. Every week brings another tsunami of remorse; indeed, saying sorry is the new shaking hands. I can't pretend to be entirely surprised. After all, in many ways, I predicted it. Ten years ago, I published a foodie novel called The Apologist, about a restaurant critic who decides to apologise for everything he's ever done wrong.
He becomes so good at it he's appointed Chief Apologist to the United Nations, employed to travel the world apologising for the sins of slavery, colonialism and so on.
The novel invented an academic discipline around international apology, of which Ms Schumann's latest paper would have been a worthy part. In fact, there is now a sizeable body of scholarship on saying sorry, much of which references my novel. The Apologist was meant to be satire; it appears to have become historical record, albeit with gags and food porn. As a result, we're celebrating the book's 10th birthday by publishing it in eBook for the first time.
We live in an age that demands apologies
But why has public apology become such a significant part of modern life? I think we can blame social media, itself standing on the shoulders of developments in television.
In the old days, politicians could make big airy speeches and trust their rhetoric would go down well at the back of the hall. The rise of rolling news TV made a series of new wave politicians - especially Bill Clinton and Tony Blair - recognise that politics was now in close-up. And in close-up you have to come across as a fully emoting human being. How better to do that than by saying sorry, the thing our mothers teach us? Witness Bill Clinton apologising for failing to act over the Rwandan genocide or, better still, Tony Blair apologising for Britain's role in the Irish potato famine.
Social media has merely intensified that. Rolling TV news put the remorseful close-up in the corner of your living room. YouTube, Twitter and Facebook put it on your desk-top or even in the palm of your hand. What's more, social media has not merely created a vehicle for apologies; it's intensified the demand for them. In the old days, people with complaints had to write to the newspapers. Now a dozen furious tweets demanding an outpouring of remorse looks like a civil uprising. All this can create apology fatigue. On the upside, all this penitence offers a perfect marketing opportunity for a chap with a novel about apologies to sell. I know. It's shameless. And for that I really am just so bloody sorry.
