Racism is Collective Solipsism

Civilizations that deny the worth of the Other can only spiral inward

Racism is Collective Solipsism, Civilizations that Deny the Worth of the Other Can Only Spiral Inward: The Collapse of Empathy & Progress- Racism is fundamentally a form of collective solipsism, where a society refuses to extend its empathy & recognition beyond a narrow circle of acceptable individuals. This refusal to acknowledge the worth of the Other creates an environment where compassion, cooperation, & innovation are stifled. Instead of flourishing in an atmosphere of mutual respect & exchange, civilizations that embrace racism turn inward, creating walls that isolate them from the benefits of cultural & intellectual diversity. As these societies spiral inward, they lose the capacity to adapt to changing realities, whether in Technology, economics, or social cohesion. The failure to acknowledge the value of others leads to a collapse in progress, as such societies become intellectually & economically stagnant, unable to keep pace with those that embrace diversity & inclusion. In the end, civilizations that deny the worth of the other are condemning themselves to a future of decline & irrelevance, trapped in a cycle of self-imposed isolation.

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A rot is at the heart of all empires, but it rarely begins with cruelty.

It starts with unreality.

The simplest way to understand racism is as hatred.

A more honest way is as a hierarchy.

But perhaps the most accurate way — the deepest, most disturbing — is to see it as solipsism.

Collective solipsism.

The delusion that only one’s kind is real & that all others are props or threats in a world constructed for the Self.

This isn’t just bigotry.

It’s ontology. It’s metaphysics. It’s a civilizational disorder, not a cultural quirk. & like all metaphysical pathologies, it has a lifecycle.

It starts with confidence.

Then comes conquest.

Then comes decay.

Then collapse.

Every civilization begins with a story of the Self.

The gods chose us.

The land was ours.

We were first, best, selected, right.

This isn’t new.

The Babylonians said it.

The Romans inscribed it.

The Americans still whisper it.

However, unlike identity, which is about who we are, solipsism is about who we refuse to acknowledge.

The solipsists don’t just elevate themselves — they erase the Other.

Not always violently, not even consciously. Just consistently.

The racist doesn’t just hate the Other.

He doubts their reality.

He doesn’t believe they feel pain in the same way, dream in the same way, or die in the same way.

They are shadows, simulations, & stand-ins for archetypes.

If they suffer, it’s incidental.

If they resist, it’s treason.

If they exist, it’s a problem.

This is not always expressed in slurs or lynchings.

More often, it’s in institutional silences, algorithmic biases, border regimes, & polite dehumanizations wrapped in policy or data.

It’s in the flattening gaze of the colonial census.

It’s in the AI model trained on white faces.

It’s in the funding forms that don’t include your language, trauma, or community.

You are not supposed to be here.

Racism as collective solipsism eventually becomes a trap — not just for the Other, but for the Self.

A civilization that denies the whole reality of others begins to shrink inward.

Not geographically — it may still conquer — but spiritually, culturally, intellectually.

It stops learning.

It stops listening.

It builds institutions that echo only its own voice.

Soon, it becomes incapable of perceiving the world outside its mythos.

It misreads rebellion as madness.

Migration as an invasion.

Justice as a grievance.

History as noise.

This solipsistic worldview breeds not supremacy but fragility. The dominant culture becomes so convinced of its centrality that the slightest deviation feels like collapse.

A film with too many brown people.

A school curriculum with uncomfortable truths.

A neighbourhood that no longer looks like a “home.”

& so the spiral tightens.

Not because others are encroaching, but because the solipsist can no longer share space with the Other.

The empire begins to hallucinate enemies within.

The nation-state calls difference a threat.

The ruling class calls it division.

& so, inevitably, they begin to eat themselves.

The modern iteration of this disorder is peculiarly ironic: it speaks the language of inclusion while practicing the logic of exclusion.

It drafts statements of equity.

It funds diversity programs.

It uses the correct pronouns.

But under the surface, the same metaphysical solipsism hums: We are the only fully real. Others are invited — but only on our terms.

This is why racism doesn’t die when empires fall.

It lingers.

It migrates.

It adapts.

The British Empire collapsed, but its gaze lives on in immigration policy.

The American South lost, but its logic lives in prisons, zoning laws, & the algorithmic scaffolding of the 21st century.

The apartheid regime is gone, but its ghosts remain — in maps, in names, in water rights.

For all its promise of globalism, even Technology has become a mirror.

Social media filters us into echo chambers.

AI reproduces historical biases with chilling precision.

The digital world was supposed to flatten hierarchies. Instead, it’s creating solipsistic tribes at scale.

You no longer need to deny the Other out loud. The machine will do it for you.

Here is the civilizational cost: a society that denies the Other loses the ability to see itself.

You need contrast to define contour.

You need friction to make meaning.

You need other people to remind you that you’re not a god.

When this breaks down, meaning decays.

Culture becomes kitsch.

Philosophy becomes branding.

Politics becomes ritual combat between factions who all believe they are the only ones left.

The collapse comes not as a bang but as a suffocation.

A narrowing.

A silence.

Sparta imploded not because it was conquered but because it killed off too many of its potential citizens.

The Khmer Rouge destroyed its intellectual class to build a peasant utopia — & collapsed into famine.

America today is building walls on its borders & in its imagination.

That, too, is collapse.

Racism doesn’t just hurt those it targets.

It hollows out those who practice it.

A solipsistic civilization becomes incapable of empathy, reform, & truth.

Eventually, it becomes incapable of survival.

The signs are all around us, not in the obvious flare-ups but in the background noise.

The shrinking syllabi.

The moral panic about demographic change.

The fantasy of monoculture.

They retreat into “Western values” without understanding their contradictions.

Civilizations that fall into collective solipsism do not just die.

They vanish inward.

They consume themselves in rituals of purity.

They replace shared institutions with tribal proxies.

They trade real power for symbolic dominance.

In the end, there is no Other left to blame.

Only mirrors.

Only myths.

Racism is not just a vice. It is a civilizational suicide note — written in the language of certainty, folded into the archive, waiting to be found by future archaeologists who will wonder how a society could believe in its reflection more than in the world.

There is no redemption in solipsism, only recursion. Racist societies cannot course-correct because they cannot perceive the world they wound.

They bleed from self-inflicted wounds that they are incapable of naming.