The Nobel Prize

By Author: Gianni Truvianni
Total Articles: 32
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Once again the time of year is upon us when a committee of people decides whom will be awarded the Nobel prize in the five different categories which are literature, chemistry, medicine, physics and peace. These awards as most of us know are given out in Scandinavia as it was their where a man whose name was Alfred Bernhard Nobel (1833-96) made a fortune from his inventions which included dynamite (1867), gelignite (1876), and ballistite (1889), this being the precursor of cordite gunpowder. Of coarse the family business did not limit itself to expanding through the manufacturing of explosives as their Baku oilfields also contributed. It was through accumulated wealth from all these activities that Alfred Nobel become affluent enough to leave behind a large enough sum of money from which interest alone are capable of covering a cash reward which is constantly being increased to go along with the Nobel Prize.

As for the awards themselves they are given out every year along with a lovely check (presently in the amount of 1'500,000 dollars) to each person whose accomplishments are according to the members of a committee ...
... worthy of such a prestigious award arguably the most. In a way it is fitting that this committee has never made known the standards they use to judge the merit of the accomplishments which are being awarded for what makes greatness is a question which can not be answered as a factual one for it is a purely arbitrary matter.

Naturally there are those who question weather or not certain past and present winners (meaning this year's recipients) are deserving of such an honor which to my way of seeing things based on what my knowledge holds is an issue that is irrelevant. My reasons standing that deserving is an issue of someone's opinion and since there are no set of specified standards that need be upheld by the winners then how can anybody by right be more deserving then somebody else?

There is a second argument which increases the insignificance of this question which is, if this award belongs to this committee then should they not have the right to confer it and its monetary prize on whom ever they see fit regardless of reason or lack of which? When saying this it should be clear that we are not talking about a competition which has clear rules like a race where the winner is simply the one who crosses the finish line first. As opposed to a race here there are no parameters but opinions which turn judgment of weather these awards are rightly or wrongly given in to an impossibility.

For my own I say they do have the right to award whom they see fit given the facts that I have stated but it is another question I wish to pose and that is Is it for a committee or for any one group of people in any given year to declare for the rest of us whose accomplishments are great?. This is the question I feel should be asked by the rest of us regarding not only this prize but any other prize which is given out as opposed to being won by clear rules that determine who the winner should be.

I would like to also make clear that by writing this I do not wish to take away from the worthiness of past or present recipients of this award nor from the people whose job it is to give it out but I ask with a decided negative answer in mind that if an award given out purely as matter of opinion necessarily means the actions that supposedly earned it were great?

I reply to this question in the negative simply because I belief that true greatness if such a thing really exists in a universal meaning is not for any one man or group of people to decide upon unless they are
doing it only for themselves but for a vast majority of people to do so during the course of time. It is without doubt that I accept what I have no alternative in doing otherwise which is that these people who give out these sort of awards have the right to bestow their own certificate of greatness on whom they choose to do so but changing topics to my rights as appose to duties. Am I obliged as a man capable of self thought to have to accept their findings which are in fact arbitrary that someone's deeds are grand? It is this question that I reply to with a resounding no for not only myself but for others whom I would wish to tell that if they consider a man to be great they should do it based on their own belief and not that of anybody else.

Another factor I would like to point out is that this is not an award which one can win twice in ones lifetime at least not for the same category. It is this coupled with the fact that this prize must be issued on a yearly basis which leaves those whose job it is to decide who should get it in what I imagine would be a strange predicament. As they have to find not only a winner who has accomplished something of at least some merit but one who has not been already awarded along with several other candidates (Hitler at one time being considered for peace of all things) to give the appearance (perhaps false) that their was some sort of election process.

Another observation I have made based on what I have seen and heard is that many times it is not the person's deeds that are recognized but the ideals the person holds. An example of this might be Nelson Mandela (Nobel Prize laurite) who if facts be seen was even labeled as a terrorist and not without some proper foundation by then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as it was he who spent 27 years in prison for what any other country would have also categorized as acts of terrorism. When saying this I do not put doubt that Mandela was against apartheid but can it be stated that a man who spent so many years in prison in fact contributed in any way other then being a symbol to the fall of a system? Of coarse again if these people which to give out their award to this man it is not for me to approve or disapprove. I however for myself can not see based on reality where this man's action would have contributed to the fall of apartheid anymore then Pope John Paul 2nd's to the fall of the Soviet Union or Gandhi's to ending British rule in India. Symbols these people may have been for worthy causes but then again, is it not action which accomplishes rather then symbolic gestures which if one thinks about it can never go beyond what they are even if their doers are award a prize.

I fore my part as a final thought will say this, when it comes to greatness, it (if it does exit in a factual way) is not in need of awards of any kind to declare it as such for it stands out so far above the rest that it needs not but its own acclaim. When saying this it is the greatness of Sir Winston Churchill that I speak of which I ask those of minds capable of own thought, would his actions have been greater had they been awarded by a small group of people or are they less in greatness because they were not? The same could hold true for Shakespeare, would his poems increase in artistic value if he had lived in a time when Nobel Prizes were being handed out and had he been given one? I believe not and as for some of the winners of this award such as Mother Teresa (born Agnes Bojaxhiu) would her actions carry less credit with the many destitute she helped all over the world had this so called committee of immortality not seen fit to award her? This answer I leave to those who have understood the point I have tried to make in this article.

On a lighter side to this article and to put an end to my point I can quote what an American football player replied when asked what he felt about playing in the Super Bowl which was How super can it be? They play it every year. If this should hold true for the Nobel Prize the same thing would I repeat with a slight twist How great can it be? They hand out not one but five every year.