Extroverts Lack Empathy, Not Women

I read an occasional article claiming women lack empathy. My experience has been that a fair number of women do lack empathy, although they don't know it (Aristotle called this "double ignorance" - you're ignorant and don't know you're ignorant). However, I don't believe it's because they are women. I think it's because there are a lot more female extroverts than male extroverts.

It's extroverts who overwhelmingly lack empathy, not introverts. Do you really think destructive, murderous extroverts such as George Bush and Rahm Emmanuel are empathic?

Extroverts only appear to be empathic because they are more "social" than introverts. Superficially social, that is. Since they gain energy from being around people, they have to be around people. It doesn't matter who those people are.

The most empathic people are high-IQ, imaginative introverts. In fact, introversion and imagination go together. Without imagination, you cannot put yourself into someone else's place. If you cannot put yourself in someone else's place, you cannot empathize with them.

I'll use myself as an example. I am a high-IQ imaginative introvert. Specifically, using the MBTI, I am an INTJ, with a 60% introversion rating. I am an intuitive introvert. I knew this early, although I never articulated it.

Right before I turned 12, I ran across science fiction and was hooked. One of the first novels I read was H.G. Wells' The Time Machine and I remember vividly, even now, the great pity I felt for Weena, the female Eloi the Time Traveler encountered.

She wasn't even real.

I empathized with her because of my vivid imagination. I was so imaginative that the novels I read were more real than real life. And it was because I daydreamed my way through school that I was able to get through it.

Since men generally have higher IQs than men (there are twice as many men with IQs above 120 than women) and since there are more male introverts than women, there are going to be far more empathic men than women.

It doesn't mean women aren't empathic. You find an imaginative, high-IQ woman, and you'll find an empathic woman.

Let's take Stephen King for another example of a male introvert. How can he create such vivid characters? Because he imagines them, empathizes with them, and then creates them. I know exactly how he does it, although his talent is a quantum leap above mine. But I guarantee you he is an imaginative, high-IQ introvert.

It is the imaginative, high-IQ introverts who discover the universal principles. I can again guarantee you that Thomas Jefferson, Adam Smith, John Locke and David Hume were introverts. For that matter, Jesus and Buddha were introverts, which is why Jesus called his followers dullards because they were literal-minded men without understanding and imagination.

Introverts are the kind of people who study for fun. They're the ones who think the Deep Thoughts. (I sometimes suspect extroverts can't really think because they can't concentrate and can't bear to be alone for long, which is why they watch TV so much. Anything to fill the void.)

From an introvert's point of view it is the extroverts who are disturbing. They're the political mass murderers, the serial killers, the ones who commit almost all crimes and fill the prisons.

So it's not just low-to-moderate IQ extroverted women who lack empathy. The same lack of empathy applies to low-to-moderate IQ men. Even, unfortunately, even high-IQ men. George Bush's IQ is 126, yet he appears to be stupid because he has no imagination, which allows him to commit mass murder. He can't quite see those murdered people as human.

As far as I'm concerned, introverts should rule. It'd be a far saner, more peaceful world.