(What Soros Really Wants)
“My attempts at formulating my philosophy have not been crowned by success. As a young man I tried to state my views in a short book entitled The Burden of consciousness but, by the time I had completed it, I found it wanting and so it was not published. Then came a series of attempts at reformulation, which ended only when one day I could not make head or tail of what I had written the day before. I gave up abstract philosophy and devoted myself to making money.” (George Soros)
Soros claims Popper as his mentor yet their affinity is questionable, even early on as a student at London School of Economics; Soros was hardly a Popper student as we traditionally think of Philosophers and their Socratic like students. This is not Plato studying under Socrates, Nietzsche discovering his educator, Schopenhauer, or even Neo-Hegelian idol worshipping. In fact Soros only managed to slip a thesis of his to Popper and took advantage of Poppers twilight years (Karl Popper, 1902 - 1994)
The "Open Society Prize" Awarding Ceremony: The first winner of the Prize, Sir Karl Popper is decorated by George Soros who delivers a short address on the occasion. Sir Karl was by the 92 years of age and would die several months later.
“It was while pursuing a Masters degree at LSE that George Soros first came into close contact with Popper and his ideas. While he did not study directly under the philosopher, Soros submitted several essays to Popper for his consideration and review. In 1962, well after he had finished his studies, Soros wrote a philosophical treatise entitled, "The Burden of Consciousness."
Soros sent this work to Popper, who was extremely supportive and encouraging of Soros's ideas. Their association continued, growing closer over the years. In June 1994, Popper delivered a lecture at the Central European University in Prague, which Soros had established as a intellectual center to promote the ideals of open society in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union."
What Soros Really Wants
Soros is not the first person, nor will be the last, to believe in a misconceived and complicated ideology that sounds nice but carries little relevance. When all is said and done, Soros is merely part of a new group of commercial philosophers to have made their appearance in the post-modern period. Many of these "pomosophers" ["pomo" = post modern + "sophos" = wise] are business people and popstars with nagging conscious', who like to surround themselves with a host of intellectuals and artists in order to satisfy their vanity and make themselves feel intellectually important. In Europe, for instance, a like counterpart to Soros is Burda, who incidentally has close personal ties with Stoiber, the right-wing premier of Bavaria. Thus, even pomosophers can be dichotomized between left and right variants: in this case, Soros supports the pomo left; Burda, the pomo right.
What Soros really wants, at the end of the day, is to be recognized as a major philosopher and to be granted respect for his ideas and activities. As Robert Slater, Soros' biographer, rightly pointed out: "Soros wants that respect; he didn't get it from Gorbachev, he would have loved to have become a kind of economic advisor to an American President, or to a Secretary of State, and I think it's always bothered him that a lot of the attention that he's gotten has been from the fact that he made so much money." As the story goes with most famous philosophers and prophets, if they aren't already predestined for greatness (usually signified by a miraculous birth or beginning of some sort), then they are either outcasts or successful members of society who undergo a psychological experience, or awakening, the result of which is a fundamental shift in their values. This culminates in a fortuitous and blessed change in their life and, in turn, that of the rest of humanity. In other words, they "see the light". Soros appears, or makes himself appear, to be following in this same tradition among philosophers and prophets. As Morton relates, "in his autobiography, Soros says that he underwent a psychological crisis in the early '80s. For a long time, he simply couldn't accept that he was a success, and the more money he made, the more insecure he felt. He separated from his wife and his business partner, and decided that he needed a new orientation in life." According to Soros himself, "after a great deal of thinking, I came to the conclusion that what really mattered to me was the concept of an open society." Many more examples of this ostentatious personality can be found in a full six-hour audio tape version of his autobiography.
Hidden Meanings
Along with the Soros paradox (a successful capitalist disseminating anti-capitalist views), what makes people wary of him and his activities is the vague concept of the Open Society itself. People can't help but feel suspicious when a successful businessman throws money around - and a lot of it - for not very clearly defined reasons. In Central and South America, people have already had a comparable negative experience of this when Rockefeller, under the guise of philanthropy, successfully displaced farmers from their land which, in turn, served the business needs of Standard Oil. The fact that Soros has been busy in the region with not only his philanthropic activities, but also is very much involved in media and communications infrastructure, has been worrying some that history may be.
Apart from his business interests, questions are raised as to what exactly Soros means by the Open Society. Ralf Dahrendorf, an economist and close friend of Soros, affirms that most of Soros' philanthropy is attributable to his mentor, Karl Popper. Popper's book, "The Open Society and its Enemies", does not define properly what the Open Society is, but merely points out what it is not and what it seeks to do. Along with facilitating non-violent change, "institutions" would be responsible for "piecemeal" social engineering as opposed to holistic social engineering, i.e., changing society all at once or in a big way. Aside from not properly defining the Open Society, Popper's concept has been criticized in a number of ways. The non-violence aspect to the Open Society comes under stress when put to the test, especially when confronted with the issue of nationalism. At the 1996 "Geist und Natur" (Mind and Nature) world conference in Hannover, for example, Popper observed that the outbreak of the Second World War was due in large part to the effort to avoid war in the first place. Does this cryptic observation, then, sanctify the use of violence? What is perhaps most troubling is Popper's notion of piecemeal social engineering. There are certain similarities between this and the social engineering values of Nazism and Communism, albeit the threat to personal safety is not the same.
Common to all is social engineering and population control serve as a primary focus, in which popular discontent can be suppressed or channeled so that it doesn't forcefully or violently confront the controlling mechanisms of society -- be it the State, the Party, or "institutions". Hence, wherein Nazism, Communism, and Popper/Sorosism differ is the level in which social engineering takes place: Nazism bases it values on a national level; Communism on an international level; and Popper/Sorosism on an individual level. The Open Society, therefore, appears to take on the form of a society run by a benevolent oligarchy, and in which a small-scale private life is combined with large-scale constraints that are controlled and monitored by various institutions. With the doctrine of control-throughempowerment as its focus, people would become more concerned about their own immediate environments rather than worry about the big picture, which instead would be the reserve of a technocratic elite. Reform would replace revolution, and the State would ultimately fade into insignificance. Since the State in a democratic society is theoretically made up of its citizens - in other words, we are the State - the decline of State power in favour of certain institutions (of which we are not a part) means that a citizen, in theory, loses a degree of political power. Although we may still have the right to hold dissident views, the fact that these dissident views can't be acted upon by ourselves and in our own way renders such a right almost meaningless. It may be good for the individual psychologically (to say what they have on their minds) but that is about all.
In the end, what would appear as the hallmarks of an Open Society - a general dissatisfaction and apathy toward the political process and state apparatus, coupled with an ensuing lack of social responsibility - poses as a direct threat to democracy. Whether this is how it will all operate remains yet to be seen. Still, in the absence of a properly defined concept, when Soros talks about the Open Society it invariably comes to mean both everything and nothing at the same time. |
