Some private discussion with Thomas made me understand why he felt ill-at-ease with my email, and I do think it requires a clarification, as I actually screwed up my phrasing.
I wrote Le jeudi 16 avril 2020 à 22:58:08+0200, Pierre-Elliott Bécue a écrit¬: > As you seem perfectly aware of, bringing Adolf Hitler or nazism in a > public conversation on -project as a (maybe caricatural) way of > comparison is not good. Apologizing, is a good thing, but trying to > explain oneself in such a situation is doing yourself and your apologies > wrong. >• > Not because one can't explain themselves at any time, but because it > makes your apologies look like a pretense to justify what you said instead > of making your apologies look like sincere ones. Especially when the > issue lies on a touchy thing like references to the Holocaust. The second paragraph is misphrased. While it aims at reminding that some people could believe that "apologies + explaination = no apology + explaination", and could feel that such excuses are not sincere, I personally do believe that this was not the case here and thus believe that your apologies were sincere. I'm sorry that my mistake may have led you to feel otherwise here. With best regards, -- Pierre-Elliott Bécue GPG: 9AE0 4D98 6400 E3B6 7528 F493 0D44 2664 1949 74E2 It's far easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
