"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 recogn...