Lack of Empathy?

A recent post on Jesse Osborne got me thinking, in the article that was posted, which by the way is an interesting read, there is a mention of Eric and his lack of empathy.

This seems to be a common thing we hear time and time again, Eric's lack of empathy. When this is discussed they don't really give examples of Eric not being empathetic. Where do the researchers get this from? Most importantly, we don't get examples of Dylan being empathetic. In general Dylan is said to be considerate and caring about his friends. Well, Eric has those examples too. Eric loved his dog Sparky and his brother...

If they are talking about the massacre itself, neither of them showed restraint or mercy. We can argue about why certain people were "let go" but I would say telling John or Brooks to leave doesn't make up for the malicious way they killed people and the things they said.

I think they get the idea because he talked about being a liar and deceiving people:

"you know what, I feel like telling about lies. I lie a lot. Almost constant, and to everybody, just to keep my own ass out of the water. "
"I could convince them that I'm going to climb Mount Everest, or I have a twin brother growing out of my back," "I can make you believe anything."

My assumption is statements like that. Most people at least feel somewhat bad about lying.
That and the lack of remorse for the van incident. Though it’s a lot of lack of remorse, having little to no empathy might make that lack of remorse easier.

I can get behind that. Dylan did seem to feel bad about it. Though Dylan was good at hiding things too.

He also found the whole diversion program to be a waste.

I’d love to know why we never got to see his apology letter!

I agree that Dylan seemed to have more empathy. He talked more about people in a good way in his journal. He appeared to be much more sensitive than Eric. Eric’s whole I don’t give a f*ck attitude is probably the result of losing close friends every time he had to move.
Dylan was definitely good at hiding things but Eric’s hiding things seemed more to just mess with people. Dylan’s seemed like it was because of their plans and friendship.
The complexity of human nature...

I think they both were somewhat empathetic based on some of the things they said.
Eric shed tears in his car and talked about how sorry he was for the chaos his family would ensue from his actions.
Dylan said "I'm sorry for all the crap this is going to instigate" in his goodbye portion of the BT's.
I believe there were other portions of the tapes where they apologize to their friends and family again.

This is why the question of if they were true psychopaths is so hard to answer.
On one hand, it seems like they were brutal killers with no feelings, but on the other, it seems they did have empathetic feelings about what they were going to do.
The fact that you can't diagnose a dead person only adds to the allure.

They were very self aware of all the repercussions that their family's would go though, and seemed genuinely sorry.

We will never know just how sorry they really felt, or if they were even being genuine, but I personally think they were being honest when it came to apologies to their family's.

I believe both had a lot of emotions and were very receptive to them. Both wrote very emotion filled journals, Eric shedding tears and saying how he was going to miss his family. And Dylan being very family oriented earlier on to his family and friends. Even going to the prom with Robyn (even if it just was a favor gesture to her).

Usually people with the most emotions are the ones that lash out. I believe people with strong emotions can also get good at hiding them and both boys did very well, both before and during the massacre.