While I agree with your first point that it is important to first admit a mistake before thanking the person for helping you with new information, I would challenge the belief that because crying in front of another person is often seen as improper in certain social situations that it is something to be sorry about. Perhaps the idea that crying in front of others stems from an unhealthy society and the belief that is if improper to do so is actually harmful to people who feel they must repress themselves in this way. By not apologising, even though there is often a strong conditioned impulse to do so , we have to opportunity to stop reproducing these kind of beliefs and help to create a world in which everybody feels safe enough to not only express there own pain but to sit with the pain of others.
Yes, we have been hearing about this sort of “challenge” for several decades now. I think that, at this point, we can say that we’ve given views like what you describe a fair hearing, and can be justified in dismissing them.
Bursting into tears in a professional or academic situation is something to be sorry about. Not that sorry—it’s not like assaulting someone, or stealing, or committing fraud, or whatever else—but certainly a faux pas. A forgiveable one (if it doesn’t happen often, anyway), by all means—but a faux pas nonetheless. That is as it should be. People absolutely should repress the urge to cry in situations of this sort, just as they should repress the urge to kick the table in anger, or start yelling insults at one’s interlocutor, or shriek in glee, or have any other sort of uncontrolled emotional outburst. That is the mark of a healthy ability to control one’s emotional expression, and is not somehow problematic.
we have to opportunity to stop reproducing these kind of beliefs and help to create a world in which everybody feels safe enough to not only express there own pain but to sit with the pain of others.
But we should “reproduce” those beliefs (that such emotional outbursts out to be suppressed). We should not yield to uncontrolled expressions of pain in professional/academic/similar situations.
And it is absolutely not appropriate to expect, or force, people to “sit with the pain of others”. Rely on your family, your friends, your therapist, for such things—but not your coworkers, or your colleagues, or casual acquaintances; that is inconsiderate and selfish.
While I agree with your first point that it is important to first admit a mistake before thanking the person for helping you with new information, I would challenge the belief that because crying in front of another person is often seen as improper in certain social situations that it is something to be sorry about. Perhaps the idea that crying in front of others stems from an unhealthy society and the belief that is if improper to do so is actually harmful to people who feel they must repress themselves in this way. By not apologising, even though there is often a strong conditioned impulse to do so , we have to opportunity to stop reproducing these kind of beliefs and help to create a world in which everybody feels safe enough to not only express there own pain but to sit with the pain of others.
Yes, we have been hearing about this sort of “challenge” for several decades now. I think that, at this point, we can say that we’ve given views like what you describe a fair hearing, and can be justified in dismissing them.
Bursting into tears in a professional or academic situation is something to be sorry about. Not that sorry—it’s not like assaulting someone, or stealing, or committing fraud, or whatever else—but certainly a faux pas. A forgiveable one (if it doesn’t happen often, anyway), by all means—but a faux pas nonetheless. That is as it should be. People absolutely should repress the urge to cry in situations of this sort, just as they should repress the urge to kick the table in anger, or start yelling insults at one’s interlocutor, or shriek in glee, or have any other sort of uncontrolled emotional outburst. That is the mark of a healthy ability to control one’s emotional expression, and is not somehow problematic.
But we should “reproduce” those beliefs (that such emotional outbursts out to be suppressed). We should not yield to uncontrolled expressions of pain in professional/academic/similar situations.
And it is absolutely not appropriate to expect, or force, people to “sit with the pain of others”. Rely on your family, your friends, your therapist, for such things—but not your coworkers, or your colleagues, or casual acquaintances; that is inconsiderate and selfish.