@Cycloptichorn,
Cycloptichorn wrote:
I'll ask again: do you understand what he means, when he says an 'open society?' Please be specific, not some random muttering about how you don't like Socialism.
Cycloptichorn
Cyclops, I read carefully the Soros article in the Feb. 1997 Atlantic Monthly, link shown below, and it is fascinating to say the least. Also read an interesting article on "Open Society" from Wikipedia, link shown below. In regard to the meaning of "open society," I think the Wiki article helps explain it, but as to how Soros would interpret it, I am still not sure, maybe he would consider anything open to him if he has his way on things, both financially and politically?
In regard to the Soros article, he apparently now thinks capitalism is as big or bigger threat to society as communism was. I found little if any real evidence in his article to support this belief. I continue to think he has a guilt complex over all of his money and how he attained it, thus he needs to soothe his conscience by looking for something that will supposedly be better than capitalism.
Soros lost me when he claims in his article that as a supposed student of Karl Popper, the advocate of an open society, that "sophisticated use of powerful techniques of deception borrowed from modern advertising and congnitive science by political operatives such as Frank Luntz and Karl Rove casts doubt on Popper's original conception of open society." Is Soros claiming somehow that there is another path to ultimate truth that he may know about, perhaps government has it or something? Or perhaps Soros has it?
Interesting also, Soros acknowledges a commonality between communism and Nazism, that each claimed to have the ultimate truth and therefore justified the use of dictatorships to enforce their beliefs upon everyone for the common good, at the expense of individual freedom and responsibility. So it seems that Soros was inadvertantly equating both communism and Nazism to a leftist direction even though at one point he claimed Nazism was extreme right, but he cited no evidence for it. Does the term "social justice" here become pertinent, cyclops? And even though Soros admits to the virtues of free market capitalism, he seems to push the idea that nobody has the ultimate truth and so mankind must continue to stumble along in search of it. So, I interpret his article to be saying that the ultimate truth is somewhere beyond communism, fascism, and capitalism as well, maybe a combination of them? That is not a comforting thought, because it gets us back to some leftist dogma of borrowing the good points from communism and capitalism to come up with some form of his ultimate truth. Interestingly, this is what you, cyclops, say that you favor, which is also not a very comforting thought. If I were you, I would be trying to re-examine my beliefs for something solid to stand on, something right and true and based upon common sense.
So where does that leave us, cyclops, in terms of what Soros believes? I think pretty much nowhere, as it seems he doesn't know what he believes himself, or he never actually confesses his real beliefs. The best analysis I can draw from the article is that he believes mankind should continue to stumble along in confusion in open societies, perhaps on a world scale, maybe with him in charge for all I know? I get the impression he believes in some kind of world government to work all of this out, but I am not sure.
If you can help explain it, be my guest, cyclops. I think this is important because the man has a huge stake in where the Democratic Party is going. In fact, I find it remarkably interesting that Obama's philosophy seems to mirror that of Soros in many ways. I go back to Obama's book, Audacity of Hope, which in my opinion expressed many of the same ideas and philosophies that Soros expressed in his article. There is of course speculation that Soros handpicked Obama to do his bidding, and after reading more of this stuff, I frankly do wonder if that is indeed true. There does seem to be a pretty good correlation between the two of them.
