@KatyElphinstone@mas.to . Sorry, a bit of a rant. . empathy is automatic when you understand the situation, when your life is similar enough to theirs that you know the problem, so there’s a lot of empathy locally, for your people, people in your neighborhood, in your sort of work, etc., . That’s good among our own group, our own people, but it’s not as good as conscious, directed sympathy for others. One could say that an isolationist, xenophobic group has too much empathy for one another, that Nazis are far too understanding of each other, this is how the automatic, “natural,” felt empathy goes wrong. . It’s less automatic with less familiar people, and then there’s “group dynamics,” the fact that (spanked) people want and need an out group - and then keeping unfamiliar people away, making a point of not learning and not understanding them is way to disable their own natural empathy. . This is what’s so maddening to me, the projection that Autistics lack empathy when everything about how they raise children and punish everyone is designed to destroy their own empathy, I mean, it does destroy empathy whether it’s by design or not. . Punishment turns everything upside down. Really, it’s the lack of empathy we can’t learn - EDIT TO ADD: for the out group, because we think big picture, as others are saying here, we want the everybody empathy, not the group dynamics empathy, END EDIT: that’s what is frustrating them. . @autistics@fedigroups.social #ActuallyAutistic