empathy can lead to understanding, but also judgment/condemnation, and that's OK!

It's been said that one should not judge where one has no compassion, and that's valid to a point, I suppose. But let's just say, for the sake of argument, that my judgement comes from having compassion for the victim(s) of the person I'm judging.

It's a common trait for abusers, sociopaths, narcissists, cult leaders, and conmen to only think of themselves as human beings, and their victims are merely objects to be used. The concept of having empathy or sympathy for 'objects' is completely foreign to them.  So when they find themselves being judged and criticized for their behavior, they turn on the victim juice and cry about how everyone's so mean to them and don't people understand how haaard their lives have been, bla bla bla....Ok, fine, but other people with difficult lives haven't turn around and become abusive dickbags. So my judgement stands