So I don’t think there is any ill-will here on his part. I think that his work suffers from a combination of poor methodology, neurotypical bias, and the absence of autistic voices. I think it’s also very much bound up with the obsession of the psychological profession with “normalcy,” and that it’s part of the project of delineating what is considered “abnormal” in order to define all the rights and privileges of normalcy away from people who don’t make the grade. I don’t think Baron-Cohen is conscious of what he’s supporting here at all, but the power issues at play in his work jump off the page for me. It’s one of the reasons that I find his work such painful reading.

He often uses ‘empathy’ for a mere *understanding* of why someone does something, or for *what someone is thinking* in ‘logical’ terms.

If you see some stranger crying in grief, and if you don’t know why they are in grief, and if you feel deeply for them, then you are empathizing with them.

If you later figure out why they were in grief, and if you feel for them then too despite that you think their reason for being grieved is selfish, then you are empathizing with them even more: you are emotionally at-one with the fact they feel grief, even if you disagree with their ‘reasons’ for being grieved.

Of course, a bully can empathize with another bully when they both love to deride a third person. This is empathy-of-derision, not empathy-of-kindness. Similarly, if you are aware that someone feels hatred for something toward which you feel hatred, then you empathize with their hatred (even in the case in which you think that your hatred is mostly just a case of your being irritable, such as, maybe, at a happy child who is so happy to try to get or hold your attention at four in the morning).

So, in not having read the book yet, I’m thinking that Baron-Cohen may just be someone who has the specifically British institutional patchwork of deficit-of-kindness and surfeit of systemizing (Ever listen to the normal goings-on of British Parliament? It overflows with the ‘duty of derision’).

I wonder if Baron-Cohen relates to debilitating stage fright. If he *doesn’t* relate to debilitating stage fright, then I wonder if he finds it a case of ‘normal empathy’ to *deride* an otherwise-normal person who *does* have debilitating stage fright.

So, I’m thinking that it may be that Baron-Cohen himself suffers from a deficit of kindness and a surfeit of systemizing. I’m going to buy the book to try to determine whether this is so. Then I’ll post my findings on my blog.

Empathy…Damn, this is a large part of why I had so much difficulty with accepting that I may have Aspergers. I would read the medical definition of Aspergers and become certain I did not fit into this category but when I would speak to other Aspies, male and female, I felt completely ‘at home’, in a way that I have never, ever experienced.

But back to the empathy. I do not naturally think or insert the logic of someone else’s life into the equation when I have an interaction with someone else, at least not in the moment. Later these thoughts may occur to me but not usually during. I am aware this may be because I am only now learning who I am and why I do things the way I do and I don’t know for sure if this aspect will change or alter, as I learn more.

I have read (and reread) the passage from Baron-Cohen’s book and I am unable to understand how this constitutes empathy. Do other people have this insight of empathy (if that is indeed what this is), while they are experiencing ‘teasing’? This does not make sense to me.

Now if the author had said that later on in the day and the boy was thinking about what had happened on the playground and was unable to figure out that the other children had ‘motives’ to be mean as entertainment, well then, I could understand that. While I am not always skilled at seeing the ‘bigger picture’ about someone else’s motives, at my age, I have begun to develop the understanding that every interaction someone has with me, is not necessarily about me.

For example, I was showing my coworker some new outfits I purchased and her reply was ‘those are nice but now we need to work on your shoes’. Initially I was very hurt and felt insulted but later I was able to think this might be an issue of her own. Maybe in her world of experiences, she now believes that her appearance must always be perfect. Maybe I am incorrect but the situation only makes rational sense that these are HER belief systems for herself and she was only projecting these onto me.

Isn’t the above story a form of empathy? I felt I was empathizing! LOL