Lack of empathy is insanity

The lack of empathy, ie the lack of Emotional IQ, is a symptom of pathological behavior. Someone can have a high intellectual IQ, but if they have a low emotional IQ, ie cannot feel the pain of others, then they are mentally ill. As Annovagrl pointed out --

'Lack of empathy is at the core of character pathology (aka, psychopathy or sociopathy). Some argue that empathy is what raises humanity from its baser, bestial insincts. The lack of capacity for empathy is what prevents Karen from understanding the harm she has caused or the full extent of her criminal behavior.'

Anovagrl, this is very true. I think you've hit on a subject here very worthy of discussion. I've read GNs or MLs I'm not sure which, where people reported their first meeting with Maria & someone gushed at how 'thoughtful' she was, because when she arrived cold at the airport & met Maria, Maria took off her coat & gave it to her. The Family then turns around & uses such 'coat incidents' as proof of how thoughtful & sensitive to others Maria is.

IMO, Maria was just trying to make a good impression, like a potential batterer/wife abuser who knows how to bring on the flowers & chocolates at the beginning of the relationship but lapses back into base nature when the props have done the trick.

The coat incident is uncannily like Adolf Hitler's 'coat incident' come to think of it. When Chamberlain the British Prime Minister went to meet Hitler before WW2, he came back to England totally hoodwinked that Hitler was a good man because he said that when he went to leave the discussions, that Hitler picked up his coat & put it on for him. This incident made Chamberlain claim that Hitler was a gentleman who could not possibly be an aggressor or war-monger.

It's a pretty sick pathology that also knows how to put on a good act to cover up what it must also know is evil intentions.