@aubreyjones I find posts like this really problematic.
Empathy is a broad, complex topic, that is still not very well researched and has conflicting definitions.

Depending on the definition, compassion is a form of empathy, or narcissists who want to "put homeless people out of their misery" could be described as compassionate.

The purpose of this post is to make some people feel better about themself, but not to teach you anything.

Don't surrender the definition of empathy to neurotypicals.

@hauchvonstaub

I totally agree that these terms are ill-defined. I think that's what the post is talking about. Why I forwarded it.

Most autistics struggle somewhat with intuitively, automatically understanding what another person is feeling. Many of our therapists and "experts" call this activity "empathy". They say that autistic people often "lack empathy", and many autistics consequently identify their own struggle with emotion-identification as them "lacking empathy".

@hauchvonstaub

But then there's this quote, which antifascist NTs pass around, from the Nuremberg Trials by some random army captain: "Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy."

And autistics who have taken to understand they "lack empathy", and who very much feel *targeted* by fascism more than supporting it, and who identify with its historical and current victims, naturally feel very upset because this thing they cannot change means they "are evil" in some essential way.

@hauchvonstaub

And so the point of this post is to say that it isn't struggling with automatically identifying other people's emotions that makes a person evil, even *if* that quote uses the same word your therapist uses.

Rather the original quote about evil intends to convey that *not caring* about somebody else's feelings is actually what makes a person evil.

The fact that the post does this by defining "compassion" is simply Aristotelian reflex.

@hauchvonstaub

(Also, to be clear, I don't think that the original post is trying to say that "caring about someone's feelings" is necessary and sufficient for someone to be "not evil". Only that if someone really doesn't care about others' feelings even when they understand them, they're probably not good.)

@aubreyjones But without speculating on what this person probably meant, does this really look like a good statement to you?
Defining empathy vaguely as cognitive empathy, despite the "layperson definition" focusing more on emotional and affective empathy, or portraying compassion as a conscious choice, when it's typically an emotional reaction and depending on the definition, included into empathy.

This post risks worsening peoples ability to understand and communicate their experience.

@aubreyjones I don't doubt, that this post was written with good intentions, but does it really have the potential for more use than harm?

I once heard an autistic person saying, that they don't feel love.
What this person probably meant, was that they're Aro/Ace, but this belief, that they probably learnt early, that they "can't love", lead to them struggling to make connections with others.

I worry about people internalising the vague and barely defined message "I don't have empathy".

@BernieDoesIt

It was in the context of them explaining to others what autism is, so it wasn't just "this is my personal individual experience", but "this is what autistic people are like".
In the situation, it came across as not feeling affection and then struggling to explain why they even want to spend time with others and have friends.
It sounded like them trying to explain their experience within the framework of outdated autism cliches.

@aubreyjones