"Confirming Authority" Prize

When Usain Bolt wins a race, it is obvious who won. It is not a subjective decision. Not so with the Nobel Prize that is highly subjective. And outrageously dumb at other times. Did you know Einstein never won a Nobel for his Theory of Relativity? (He won it for something else). Wow! So the man didn’t win a Nobel for the theory that changed our understanding of the universe?!

I feel that even more strongly in hyper-subjective fields like literature. To make things even more subjective, people win that prize for stuff written in different languages. Who exactly is qualified to compare stuff in English v/s Tamil v/s Swahili v/s Chinese? Literature is often tied to the context; so not only does the judge need to know the language, (s)he needs to know the culture. Good luck finding such people anywhere on the planet.

I woudn’t be ranting on this if it were some random prize. But this is one of those “confirming authority” prizes, as in what Calvin told Hobbes:
“They only recognize greatness when some authority confirms it.”
Or as this article says:
“A small group of Swedish critics pretend to be the voice of God, and the public pretends that the Nobel winner is Literature incarnate.”

All of which brings me to Bob Dylan’s response to winning the Nobel. Rather, his lack of response. As in that Sherlock Holmes story, it’s what the dog did not do that matters!

Jean-Paul Sartre declined the Nobel saying:
“The writer (must) refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution.”
Dylan has gone one up on Sartre, as that article said:
“Instead of declining the prize, he has simply declined to acknowledge its existence.”
His reason seems to be as per the message in one of his songs:
“If you love me for what I am, don’t make me be what I am not.”

Of course, there’s little chance that the stuffy coats in Stockholm “who are used to a lot more gratitude from their laureates” would appreciate this attitude though. The irony is lost on those dullards. One of them called Dylan “impolite and arrogant”. Really? Which century are these dinosaurs from?

Comments

  1. Ramiah KumarOctober 28, 2016 at 6:07 PM

    I would consider Dylan to be impolite and arrogant along with being "swindler" if he accepts the Nobel prize money. I don't know what is his stand as yet.
    ----
    But if he ignores Nobel prize to the point of ignoring the prize money too, then I would agree to what you say.

    -------------
    About Nobel prize, I agree with you mostly. About Einstein, I would say his photo-electric equation deserved great appreciation, because his idea not only explained a tricky question then but also identified the light quanta, the photon. Even though Max Planck's quantization of black body radiation was revolutionary, nobody including Planck himself had any clue how to take off further. In that sense both Planck and Einstein should be considered the first runners who started the relay race of quantum mechanics.

    That said, if Marie Curie was awarded two Nobel prizes, what prevented the silly Nobel committee from giving two prizes to Einstein? It was relativity and quantum mechanics which together heralding a new era in physics. As you say rightly, Einstein not getting an reward for relativity is idiotic of Nobel committee.

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