I own that it is a good deal of a mystery to me how judges, of all persons in the world, should put their faith in dicta. A brief experience on the bench was enough to reveal to me all sorts of cracks and crevices and loopholes in my own opinions when picked up a few months after delivery and reread with due contrition.
What differentiates leaders is the ability to recover following a mistake. I make mistakes all the time, but I cop to them, apologize, and move on. Contrition is powerful.
God is not looking for repayment, but repentance. What heals a broken relationship is sincere love and contrition.
Authentic apology is a tricky thing to pull off in politics, which is why it so seldom occurs. Plausible deniability must be preserved. True contrition has to be displayed. Traitors to the cause must be immediately be jettisoned. Most of all, the goal is to stop the bleeding.
Ken Livingstone appears incapable of contrition. That is why he must be thrown out of the Labour party. He is so certain he is right about everything, he won't come close to change.
After its defeat in the Second World War, Japan, unlike Germany, failed to show true contrition or give a fulsome apology, though it showered its neighbours, including China, with generous economic assistance. Only in 1995 did it finally offer an apology, but this was of the most limited and formulaic kind.
The social disease of political correctness has entered daily life, inverting good to bad and attempting to rewrite proud histories as an imposition of white supremacy for which we all should make contrition.
Three conditions are necessary for Penance: contrition, which is sorrow for sin, together with a purpose of amendment; confession of sins without any omission; and satisfaction by means of good works.