George Soros and Me

George Soros and Me

George Soros is now 92 years old. I first met him at his home in Bedford, New York, in 2007, when he was one year older than I am now, at his invitation. It came about as follows. Robert Silvers, then editor of the New York Review of Books, had asked me to comment on an article written by Soros that had some philosophical content. I did so, dashing off twelve points one morning: there was a lot wrong with the philosophy, though the rest of the article was okay. Silvers accordingly turned it down. A couple of weeks later I received a handwritten letter from Mr. Soros asking me if I would like to visit him in his home to discuss the matter. Mainly out of curiosity about the man, I agreed; it wasn’t the philosophy that intrigued me. I told his assistant that I wanted to fly first-class with my wife, on the principle that if a billionaire wants you to come to see him for his benefit, he shouldn’t just provide economy. He did so. I knew little about him except that he was a wealthy financier. Meanwhile he sent me a copy of a book he was writing which went into the philosophy in more depth. It wasn’t very good, though the central idea of reflexivity wasn’t mistaken (on this more later). I rather dreaded our conversation, because I didn’t know how such a man would react to stern criticism. The meeting was scheduled for the following afternoon, after tennis in the morning followed by lunch. He struck me immediately as welcoming and jovial (to a degree), ready for honest discussion. I remember remarking that the only other property I could see from his house, which commanded a lofty view, was a single house in the far distance. He replied that that also was his house, now occupied by his ex-wife, and was where we would be playing tennis on his indoor court (he also had an outdoor court next to his current house, which he seldom used). The present house, previously owned by Michael Crichton, had been bought by his ex-wife, probably with an eye to divorce; it was she who had acquired the paintings by Picasso, de Chirico, Chagall, and others. He observed to me at one point that he gives away five hundred million dollars a year.

We duly played tennis (I with a coach) and had lunch. The Chancellor of Austria attended with a security detail, for reasons George couldn’t explain. At one point Al Gore telephoned. The philosophical conversation went well: he was receptive to correction, easy to talk to, obviously intellectually able. I think he made notes. The rest of the weekend went swimmingly. I got to know his exemplary butler Howie (tall, Canadian, nice), who I would see a lot more of in future. We parted amicably the following day. The next time we met was in St Barts just before Christmas and soon after our first meeting, where George had rented a house. There was a lot of tennis, windsurfing for me (arranged by Howie), fancy dining with other guests, and some private philosophy talk. I remember a restaurant in which table dancing was routinely performed—all joined in, including George. It was good fun. Then in the summer following he invited us to his Long Island home in Southampton, again with other guests. I had a tennis coach to myself (Ziggy), Howie was in attendance, the food (French chef) was excellent, we went to lunch with Tom Wolfe and others. It was all exactly as you would expect. This became a regular invitation and even started to bore me a little (but I always had Ziggy). At my suggestion, Martin Amis and his wife Isobel were invited to come over for dinner one day. I played tennis with Martin on the private court. George reported that he didn’t get on too well with Martin but enjoyed talking to Isobel. On one of these visits George told us a joke: “A Hungarian and a Rumanian will both sell you their mother–but the Hungarian will deliver”. He put up some resistance to gay marriage, despite his progressive tendencies, in opposition to my urging (Obama was also slow on the point). We became friends. I also stayed at his Fifth Avenue apartment (palatial is the only word) a couple of times; he didn’t know how many rooms it had and noted that it was “too big for one man”. We also went to St Barts at Christmas a few more times, which also began to grow tedious for me, especially since the tennis was scarce and the restaurants rigorously French. In any case, life with George Soros became a fixture, a habit, part of my normal existence. I was part of his close circle. When people asked me how I knew George, I would say I was his mentor, and he didn’t demur. We had many lengthy intimate conversations. There was a good deal of mutual respect and affection.

A few years into our relationship he asked me to accompany him to Budapest and introduce the first of a series of public lectures he was giving there. He flew me and my wife over, business class, and put us up in a fine hotel. His future wife Tomiko was also there, who I already knew well. He asked me to comment after the lecture (broadcast all over the world) on his concept of reflexivity—we had talked about this a good deal, with me trying to impose clarity on his messy formulations. I discovered after a little research that the same idea, called the “Oedipus effect”, had been stated by Karl Popper in The Poverty of Historicism, who had been George’s teacher at the London School of Economics, and was an acknowledged influence on him.[1]Evidently this concept had been absorbed by Soros as a young man and its origin forgotten. Somewhat horrified, I informed George of this fact on the very morning he was due to give his lecture and I to comment on it. Crestfallen is the word I would use to describe the look on his face when he read the relevant passage from Popper’s book (he was in his dressing gown in his hotel room). It was then my solemn duty to point this out after George had proudly spoken of his “discovery” of reflexivity (his name for the same idea) in his opening lecture. The air was thick with tension. Fortunately, I had devised a face-saving way out: I asked George to explain what he had added to the original idea. He replied that he had applied it to the financial markets (with spectacular success), which Popper had not done. This reply saved the day, though the moment was pretty excruciating. I also made up an impersonation of George’s style of lecturing that greatly amused his fiancé (“At this point I was making a billion dollars a day, but this did not satisfy me, so I decided to change the world”). In any case, none of this affected our friendship, though I suppose it put a big dent in George’s intellectual aspirations. In the book that came out of the lectures he wrote in the preface, “I owe a debt of gratitude to Colin McGinn…for clarifying certain philosophical points”. I might restate this by saying that I saved him from several embarrassing philosophical errors by criticizing what he had sent to me to read and comment on. And let us note that I was never paid for any of this time-consuming work. We carried on seeing a good deal of each other. I went to his extravagant 80^th birthday party and also to his even more extravagant wedding to his current wife Tomiko. It was at this latter event that I told George’s joke to Al Franken, who unsmilingly pronounced it “a good joke”—an encounter with an eerie sequel. I also at this time became good friends with George’s youngest son Gregory, about whom I will not speak further, except to say it was a balm to me in future years.

Not long after this I faced the allegations that became public knowledge. I cannot make any comment for legal reasons on the merits of any of this; suffice it to say that none of it affected my relationship with George. He even offered to write a letter in support of me. However, six months after the initial contretemps the matter became public, even appearing on the front page of the New York Times. The annual invitation to Southampton was not forthcoming. Nor was it ever repeated. Nor have I seen or talked to George Soros since that time (2013). I was completely cut off. No reason was given. Nothing was explained. I happened to speak with Howie once, but he could offer no explanation to me (not permitted in a butler). (I was, however, still friends with Gregory.) Was this hurtful? You bet. Was it disappointing? Unquestionably. Frankly, I was amazed. I don’t really know why it happened and can only guess. But I won’t guess here, although I will say it is hard for me to believe that George thinks I did anything to deserve that kind of treatment. Was I just no more use to him after I put paid to his philosophical ambitions? Our friendship certainly had its transactional side. This was perhaps the most spectacular of the interpersonal implosions to which I have been subjected. What happened to that “debt of gratitude”?

[1] The basic idea is that prediction can influence the course of social events—not so physical events.