Atonement, Magic Words, the UN, and Riskgaming
Yesterday was Yom Kippur, the holiest day for Jews, and if this newsletter comes across as grumpy it’s because I wrote it while fasting.
An odd thing about Yom Kippur: a normal and nice thing to say to someone observing the holiday is “have an easy fast.” But if the fast is easy, you haven’t done it right.
The point is to suffer a little, to forgo earthly pleasures for one day as you focus on all you’ve done wrong. The phrase where the injunction comes from in Leviticus translates to “self-denial.” You try to deny yourself in order to look deeper into yourself. It's a basic idea you can find across many religions and spiritual disciplines, from Buddhist meditation to Christian lent to zuhd and Ramadan in Islam to anattā in Hinduism.
There’s a lot you can say about Yom Kippur in particular and apologies. Here’s a simple one: like fasting, apologizing for something you’ve done wrong shouldn’t be easy. As someone who has done a lot of research recently into books published on apology, almost all of them are self-help. People seem to be saying, through the marketplace, that they want to learn how to apologize better.
But I suspect that’s actually not true, or at least not quite right. The truth is most people know how to apologize well, almost instinctually. I have a whole column, newsletter, and hopefully book (still accepting agent leads if you’ve got ‘em!) analyzing apologies, so I’m not saying they are simple. Rather, I’m saying the best apologies often don’t come from knowing the “top five tips for giving a meaningful apology.” You likely know how to apologize because you know what you’d want to hear if you were wronged.
The hard part, or one of the hard parts, is that it’s hard to say those things. And that’s the way it should be.
The difficulty of an apology ought to feel like it matches the offense. We apologize easily for little mistakes. Being fifteen minutes late to pick you up from the airport calls for a little “sorry I’m late” or “thanks for your patience.” It doesn’t require much effort because the offense was minimal. Being two hours late might call for more work. Apologizing for ghosting someone for several years should feel far more difficult and evince that effort. It’s a simple principle of proportionately.
I’ve been reading Ursula K LeGuin’s outstanding oeuvre for the past month, and right now I’m on the Earthsea series, her fantasy novels. In this world, knowing the “true name” of something gives you power over it. And yet, the wizards don’t just go around saying the magic words with abandon. There’s a surprising amount of resting and recooperating in the Earthsea books because big spells require a lot of energy, even if you know precisely what to say.
The same seems true for apologies. In some ways, they are magic — you say the right words, and the wrongs of the past dissipate. But in practice, the right words aren’t enough. The effort you put into saying them has to feel proportional too.
In the Jewish tradition, in the period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, you are supposed determine whom you owe recompense and attempt to apologize to them directly. In fact, in some practices, you are supposed to attempt three times, to demonstrate your efforts were not casual. And in some synagogues, you physically pound on your chest during Yom Kippur services. Interpretations differ as to why, but a common and obvious one is self-flagellation in line with self-denial. Atonement should be hard. It should hurt. A bit of sacrifice helps prove you understand the harm you’ve done.
Perhaps it’s this hurt and this difficulty that elevates apology into atonement. Apology encompasses all forms of saying sorry, the good the bad and the ugly. You apologize for being late or for an offensive remark. You atone for inhumanity.
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Speaking of the inhumane, it’s impossible for me this year to think about atonement and what’s broken without spending some time on the horrific wars I experience now only through the news: the war in Ukraine, the war in Gaza, and in particular the too often ignored war in Sudan, which likely has more civilian casualties than Ukraine and Gaza combined.
I’ve been thinking about these wars in conjunction with my time at the UN. I’ve seen a lot of criticism of the UN for failing to prevent and end these wars, which I understand and sympathize with completely. What’s the point in the institution, these reasonable critics might ask, if it can’t save the world from, as the UN Charter’s opening line states, the scourge of war?
I sympathize, but also believe this criticism misses what the UN can do and what it does do that’s so important. I wrote up that defense in a different newsletter, the Riskgaming newsletter, which you can read here: https://www.luxcapital.com/content/introducing-laurence-pevsner
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As that link reveals, I have a new job! Last month I started at Lux Capital as the Director of Programming for Riskgaming. (Don’t worry, I will continue to be affiliated with the Moynihan Center as I conduct my apology research.)
What is Riskgaming? Think of it like what the Pentagon does with war games, but for all manner of important topics at the intersection of policy, economics, science, and technology. Essentially my job is to help produce and lead games with interesting people that simulate real world problems and involve difficult tradeoffs, tests of trust, and lessons in strategy.
I’ve also described it as murder mystery parties or DnD campaigns meets cutting-edge policy, business, and political questions, if that helps you get the picture.
I’m co-hosting two riskgames for the first time on October 29 (NYC, 6-8pm) and October 30 (DC, 5-7pm). We’ll be running through a timely game (given the election) that tests participant’s ability to sort through deepfakes, synthetic media, and all kinds of AI and disinformation threats to securing a presidential election. There will be free food and drinks and a wide variety of fascinating people. It looks like a Senator will stop by the one in DC. You can read more about the games and express interest in attending here:
Riskgaming: DeepFaked and DeepSixed
Thanks for reading, and hope to see many of you there!