One of the biggest signs of weakness you can display in today’s world is the common apology. As a friend of mine recently noted, one of the biggest casualties of modern society is the mea culpa.

Not long ago, an apology used to be a form of expressing regret for something one did wrong and a form of asking of forgiveness from those who were wronged against. The person who apologized was forgiven if the apology was sincere, and provided there was no need for compensation, everyone forgave the wrongdoer and moved on a little wiser.

Today, an apology isn’t taken as someone being sorry for the wrong they did, but as an admission of guilt for a crime as if in a courtroom. It’s effectively the green light to hand down a sentence, and the sentence is always the same; banishment and/or social death. There is very rarely an exception.

Thus, in today’s society, one is encouraged not to apologize about anything. Oddly, it’s still very much encouraged that people act like decent, moral individuals, but not to apologize for what they do. It’s confusing until you understand that the apologies being sought are being sought in bad faith.

The “wrongdoing” that is being called out and the apology demanded over is often not wrongdoing at all, or even a simple misunderstanding. Attempting to add context to the situation only results in those demanding the apology proclaiming that you’re trying to make excuses for the egregious behavior you allegedly committed. They will continue to pile on the pressure with more and more demands, more and more examples of wrongdoing, and crush you under the weight of their relentless onslaught of public shaming until you cave and issue an apology.

But issuing an apology is the same as cutting yourself in shark-infested waters. It just drives the predators into a frenzy and before you know it, you’ve effectively lost everything.

It’s sad, but despite the fact that it’s not the radical left and social justice-driven woke mobs demanding an end to apologies, it’s not an apology they want, it’s the scalp they can claim by getting an apology out of you. It’s the self-satisfaction of ruining a life they believe perceive to be evil either out of ignorance, malice, or a perverted sense of virtue.

The solution is pretty clear; don’t ever apologize.

To be sure, apologizing to your friends and family is still necessary for a healthy relationship, but in the realm of public discourse, especially in the digital version of this realm, apologies are suicide.

We no longer live in a polite society where the civilized have discourse in good faith. There is no longer an agreed-upon set of rules we all play by. We live in a time when the most emotional person is the one that wears the fattest crown and an accusation is the same as guilt.

However, it’s hard to take down someone who won’t be taken down. Refusing to issue an apology, especially for something that could hardly be considered actual wrongdoing, is the same as not handing over the sword the bandit wants to stab you with. It’s refusing to play their game by their rules, effectively robbing them of power over you.

To be sure, cancel culture is a game that people have to choose to take part in from the top down. America needs to learn that the cancel culture mob is an illusion, and can’t actually hurt anyone if you don’t let it. Issuing apologies to them needs to stop, and if we do stop as a culture, we’ll begin to see their power wane more and more until they come into focus for what they really are; a bunch of tantrum-throwing fools with nothing real to offer society.