WASHINGTON—I would like to apologize in advance for not apologizing when people demand an apology.
Of course, when I don’t apologize, many people believe that my refusal to apologize means that I haven’t properly realized the depths of my evil, because the refusal itself is prima facie evidence that I’m even more depraved and clueless than originally believed, because surely all these repeated demands for me to apologize, increasing in volume and intensity, should have made me understand that I am wrong. The world took a vote and I lost, don’t I get that?
Furthermore, since I have persisted in refusing to apologize even after a third and fourth demand for my repentance goes unheeded, I must be forced to resign, paraded through the public stocks of social media, forever branded an unfeeling infidel Neanderthal who Just Doesn’t Get It when it comes to the business of offending people, and wiped off the face of the earth for not being willing to assuage feelings in the court of public opinion.
But it’s even worse. I also hold the view that, if you haven’t done or said anything wrong, or if you have simply misspoken, or if you have followed a policy that is proper to follow and yet people don’t like it, then an apology is the absolute worst thing you can do, because it is a lie.
I could cite a thousand examples of people apologizing, turning themselves into rank liars because they fear this or that rabid mob seeking their humiliation, but I’m going to deal with the three most recent and celebrated cases.
Numero Uno: The Pepsi Commercial.
The official legend: An ad agency hired by Pepsi creates a shallow, offensive commercial in which the Black Lives Matter movement is trivialized by implying that a professional model can bring peace and harmony to the world by offering a soft drink to an otherwise hard-hearted police officer at a protest march. The ad is pulled and Pepsi is forced to admit that they are insensitive, clueless corporate racists.
The actual facts of the matter: The commercial is an elaborate variation on a specific type of feel-good multicultural “world peace” message pioneered in 1971 when Pepsi rival Coca-Cola released a 60-second ad featuring people of all the races in the world standing on a mountaintop in Italy and singing “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony),” with the opening line alternating with “I’d like to buy the world a Coke.” The song was used periodically by Coke for the next four decades, was recorded by several singers (minus the Coke references), and was tolerated, if not admired, as a way for a soft-drink company to glamorize the idea that all the people of the world are united, if not by their politics, then at least by their taste buds.
The Pepsi commercial strives for the exact same message. What do the protesters, the man playing a cello, Kendall Jenner, the Muslim female photographer, the guitarist, the Jamaican singer Skip Marley (“We are the lions/We are the chosen/We gonna shine out the dark”), the dancers, the transsexuals, and the dancing models all have in common?
Pepsi, of course.
