Status Updates From The Dark Sides of Empathy

"The new empathy is not so much a form of humanitarian compassion as it is an attitude of extending the self and finding it mirrored elsewhere. ..it is all too easy to shed a tear and then climb into our limousine.

"Self-loss contains within it the kernel of self-expansion.

Sadism is not the product of a lack of empathy but rather emerges from the wish for its intensification. Horrible fantasies (and perhaps actions) are possible because of empathy..such aberrations are not limited to a few problematic individuals...there is a “normal” or “tolerated” form of sadism that takes the form of pressuring, exposing, or embarrassing others in order to predict and understand their feelings