You mean using our empathy against us, don't you? The sociopaths certainly do that. They have indeed studied us thoroughly, whereas we have hardly studied them at all, since most of us are unaware of their existence!
You were speaking of the "opposite of empathy" in the paragraph where you lost me, which I imagined as ruthlessness, callousness, or indifference. That's why I wasn't following what you wrote.
Yes, I come from an empathic perspective, as do many of us. It is important for us to be aware of how sociopaths will use our empathy against us, precisely because we have been so thoroughly studied by sociopaths. An example of using our empathy against us is the so-called journalist beheadings in the news recently. Normal people are appalled by this, are distraught for the victim, and feel anger at the injustice. The sociopaths do this to rouse us to war, which is an even worse state of affairs than a beheading or two.
But most of the time, they don't use our empathy against us. They short-circuit it instead. By keeping us afraid and in fear, feelings of empathy are pushed aside by emotions more involved in survival. Or by keeping us focused on entertainment, they distract us away from more disturbing events that might evoke empathy.
They are very wily, these sociopaths.
Chip Tatum says of his long-time black-ops boss George H. W. Bush, "He's a
brilliant man, but he's the most evil man I've ever encountered."