On solipsism

Solipsism is "The belief that only oneself and one's experience exists."

That sentence from the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy captures the gist of solipsism, but barely scratches the surface of an exceedingly complex subject. Nonetheless, with apologies to true philosophers, I'm going to discuss it using only that brief description as a basis.

A great many commentators have discussed narcissism as a major trait of the Great Pretender. Rather than cite any I simply suggest you search "Trump narcissism." You will see that "many commentators" is not an overstatement.

Narcissistic he certainly is, but to such an extreme degree that specialists should be asking what underlies it. I have been of the opinion for some time that Donald Trump is afflicted with a pathological form of solipsism.

Consider his behavior:

• He cannot endure difference of opinion, so he has fitted most major administrative offices with a revolving door. Solipsism does not recognize or even admit the existence of the thoughts of others, so when a contrary thought comes his way, out goes the offending person.

• He seemingly has no control of his vocal responses. He answers questions with a flood of words, repeated phrases and unrelated comments in strings of words that are impossible to parse intelligibly. Here's a recent response to a question about reducing oil production:

"We have a tremendous energy business with hundreds of thousands of jobs. We’re doing great. Number one in the world. So they all got together and they said we’re going to cut it because we have to get rid of this tremendous supply. Now the good news is gasoline prices, I’m seeing 90 cents, 85 cents in different parts of the country, a gallon. Nobody’s ever seen that. I guess you have to go back to the 1950s for that. The big large dollar bills. Remember? You don’t remember, you’re too young. But the fact that you have to go back a long ways to see it."*

There is no direct answer about oil reduction strategy there at all. Because solipsists listen only to their own thoughts, they are limited in the kinds of things they can say and how they say them.

• He lies. Throughout the press conference cited above he repeated several times that COVID-19 case numbers were declining. In point of fact, on the day he spoke the number of new cases in the U. S. reached 33,752, the second-highest number since the pandemic began** 

He almost always reverts to magical thinking when discussing the virus. He can discount the thoughts of other people because he considers them unreal. But here he is faced with an entity that has no visible presence, no thoughts and no arguments. It simply exists. He can't fight it, insult it or fire it, so he goes back to trying to wish it away. I am not sure that behavior fits in the solipsism frame, but it must be noted.
That is all I, a layman, will say about Trump and solipsism. I urge those with knowledge and wisdom greater than mine to investigate the hypothesis.

--Diogenes


*https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-coronavirus-task force       press-conference-transcript-april-10
**https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/