[We] Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
[We] Made a list…
Once again, literacy as an issue is avoided. “We made a list….” Not specifically wrote, engraved, typed, drew up, or anything similar. A colloquial American phrase goes, “made a mental note.” This means nothing at all was written, but something was observed to be remembered. While it is often assumed that a written list is made and, indeed often is, the wording makes clear that illiteracy is no bar to this Step.
[We] Made a list of all persons….
What strikes the contemporary ear about this phrase is “persons.” Although persons is, indeed, the proper and original plural of “person,” its use in everyday conversation is nearly nil. Fellowship members may be asked, occasionally, “How many people were at the meeting?” but almost never, “How many persons were at the meeting?” Persons is reserved, today, for legal or other formal use, and its casual use sounds stilted and strange. Thus, the use of persons, in one aspect, lends this sentence—and perhaps, by extension, all the Steps—an air of formality, if not legality.
Another aspect of the use of persons, here, is to grant individuality and subsequent countability to “all.” The use of “all people” opens the door to a nuanced meaning of faceless, numberless mass, like “all people in town,” “all people who voted,” “all people entering the park.” Persons lends itself to a distinction of name-able individuals.
[We] Made a list of all persons we had harmed….
This certainly begs the question, as one sanctioned AA book puts it: “What kinds of ‘harm’ do people do one another, anyway?” This volume goes on to define harm in a unique way: “the result of instincts in collision….” Those results lead to the more common definition of harm: “hurt, damage, or injury,” which may be mental, as well as physical.
Physical harm is far more obectively quantifiable than mental harm. Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions takes pains to elucidate what mental harm can look like.
It is normally impossible to deal with the realm of harm without stepping into the quagmire of intention. An entire world of consideration exists regarding intent: the law. Step Eight, however, makes no distinction between harms done accidentally or willfully. The verdict of harm done and culpability is autonomic: each decides for himself or herself who is listed and who is not.
[We] Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing….
Unlike Step Six, become is the verb choice, rather than be. Here, the distinction is once again made between change from a former state (to become) and remaining in the same state (to be). This Step indicates we were not willing (in our former state), but became willing, through change (to our new state).
English speakers may even employ idiomatic phrasing which displays this “statehood:”
“He finally reached a state of willingness to talk.”
In current usage, willing most often means “done, borne, or accepted by choice or without reluctance.” A person willing to do something most likely is asked to do the thing, first, or is in a situation where the request is implicit, but does not offer unprompted. Willing implies consent or acceptance, not “the will” to do something born of unilateral volition or desire.
“At the staff meeting, the supervisor said no one wanted to clean the chandelier, so I told her I was willing.”
The legal construct, “ready, willing, and able” has been addressed previously. In colloquial use, willing is synonymous with ready and is very rarely used in conjunction with inability. Someone willing is assumed to be ready and able in the non-legal sense.
[We] Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends….
To make amends is the second idiomatic phrase of the Steps. Amends is rarely used outside this idiom. Amends can be used as singular or plural and, taken by itself, means “compensation or recompense.” In rare instances, amends is used as the object of other verbs, verbs which often connote a transaction:
“Did John go to give amends?”
“Yes, he took his amends to them.”
“Did they accept the amends?”
“No, they rejected all amends.”
Amends is not the plural of “amend.” “Amend” is not a noun, but a verb meaning, “to put right, to change or modify (something) for the better.” From it comes the term, “amendment,” as in Constitutional. Interestingly, the intransitive use of “amend,” which is exceedingly rare today, means “to grow or become better by reforming oneself.”
“Those people are amending through the Twelve Steps.”
When one compensates another, goods, services—things of monetary value—are offered as an equitable equivalent; compensation is often an outright synonym in business for salary, wages, or payment package; although it certainly can be, damage or injury is not necessarily involved.
If one recompenses another, again something of equivalent monetary value is usually offered, and it is for a loss of some kind, often due to damage or injury, for which one assumes culpability.
While make amends has the meaning “to recompense, to compensate for loss or injury,” a much softer, non-material nuance comes with it in modern parlance: one may make amends for purely psychological injury—for insult, hurt feelings, betrayal of trust, slander, etc.—through contrite apology with nothing of physical value offered.
Had compensate or recompense been used, one could avoid the psychological aspects of harm and restitution might be solely material for material harm. The use of make amends continues to include the psychological aspect of harm, along with the physical.
[We] Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
All is used twice in this Step, the only time in any Step that the same adjective is repeated (though it may be argued that the final all is pronominal). In both instances, all refers to persons we had harmed.