Matthew Wright of "The Wright Stuff" made joke about a boy's murder that wouldn't be out of place on Sickipedia. The Daily Mail reports that he has been "forced to apologise".
It's a phrase I see a lot in the media. I wonder if they use it knowing how ridiculous it sounds, verging on the oxymoronic. You cannot force someone to apologise. If they have to be forced, then they don't mean it.
Perhaps the phrase is meant to convey the subject was blissfully unaware of the hurt they were causing, and an outcry made them see things differently (in which case, it hardly seems forced - more an awakening), or (more likely) this is the media pointing out this person has realised that, unless they go through the motions, they face ruin in whatever fragile bubble of fame, fortune and/or power they find themselves in.
We say to very young children, "Say you're sorry," in what is perhaps an understandable attempt to teach those still stuck at the selfish level of development about the ways of the larger society. But I've also seen pupils in secondary school "forced to apologise": they are sent to the teacher they have allegedly offended to issue a verbal or written apology. It's never worth it.
Melanie Phillips has written about, "a teenage burglar who, asked to write a letter of apology to his victims, wrote instead that he wasn't bothered or sorry at all, and that the burglary was all their fault for leaving their window open. Such incidents suggest that we are dealing with something beyond merely ruthless acquisitiveness and contempt for the law. They suggest a total absence of empathy for another person, which is the basic requirement of morality and, in turn, of a civilised society. They illustrate a brutalisation of humanity."
While I agree with her larger comment, at the very least the burglar was being honest. If you have to ask someone to write a letter of apology, the result will be pointless, regardless of its content. The victims didn't need an apology anyway - they needed financial reparations. "You can stuff your sorries in a sack, mister."
