Due to Oedipa's lack in empathy, she is able to successfully exert agency. Oedipa achieves this by managing multiple subject positions, while still simultaneously controlling her paranoia. The first and most crucial step when attempting to challenge one's cultural environment, is to eliminate all of one's empathy. Fortunately for Oedipa, she was already on the right track to begin with, as she failed to maintain any empathetic or meaningful relationships in her life. The only shred of evidence found in the book where Oedipa had possessed empathy was when she coddled the old man. However, she only provides this comfort for a brief moment before reverting back to her un-empathetic ways and telling the old man his friend will likely die, and that she cannot help him. Though Oedipa's insufficient amount of empathy most likely hurt the people close to her, it is merely possible to exert agency if you have healthy and maintained relationships. People similar to Oedipa may find the way in which she neglects her friends very impressive. Jean Baudrillard writes "Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being or a substance. It is the generation by models of real without origin or reality: a hyperreal." This quote suggest that there is indeed a hyperreal world out there, and Oedipa as well as people alike should be skeptical. According to people alike, the most beneficial tactic one can use in challenging and reverting against ideology i.e exerting agency, is by omitting empathy from one's personal traits. Due to the fact that Oedipa has a very small amount of empathy, if any, it in turn allows her to inhabit multiple subject positions, which is the second most important part in exerting agency over one's cultural environment. .
As Oedipa begins to lose the bit of empathy she had left, it allows her to shamelessly inhabit multiple subject positions, which further her journey in successfully exerting agency.
