"Everybody deserves some empathy"

said a rabbi on NPR, I didn't listen to what came before, I was tuned out, only noticed the radio was on when she said this,

yes, I agree, everybody deserves some empathy,

but when there are 8 billion of us, we cannot each know each other personally to afford each some of our empathy,

there's just too many of us, so we think of groups of people as abstractions,

there's just too many of us,

and power is all about manipulating the images we have of each other as groups,