Until today, I missed this piece last Friday (Oct 11th) by Tunku Varadarajan for the Wall Street Journal, on the need for a Nobel Non-Science Anti-Prize that could really make sense and do some good. I believe you need to register to make the link work, so here are two of the key paragraphs:
This will not be a joke prize, as the peace prize is; it will be something that Saddam Hussein would get right now, a species of anathema, or international pillory. Apart from being cathartic, a negative award would have a genuine effect on the international order, a real bite in the form of a profound disincentive. Such an award would carry some of the odium of a war-crimes tribunal. No country – or, at least, no civilized country – would allow the winner to visit; and those that do would be tainted. The winner would become a pariah.
Now, that is a deterrent. That kind of award has reason to exist. And it would require some real agonizing over. Imagine the debate: Will it be Robert Mugabe or Kim Jong Il?
Indeed. Several blog-years ago I did a piece on how stupid the Nobel Peace Prize is, on the grounds mostly that peace takes decades to identify, yet they persistently grant it to people who signed alleged peace treaties last Wednesday. Evil, in contrast, can often be identified right now, just as some forms of scientific progress can be. (The cracking of DNA by Watson and Crick springs to mind. As I understand that triumph, they were getting joyously drunk the evening of the day they cracked it.) Likewise, if almost an enitire nation is being systematically starved (as in North Korea right now) you don’t need thirty years to realise how evil that was. So yes, I’m for it.
Seriously, if the blogosphere got behind this notion we could really make it happen. Let nominations commence.
Boring I know, and boringly topical, but I think I’d go with whoever is most in charge of North Korea these days. But if you can suggest someone nastier and make your mud stick, go ahead and good luck to you. That’s the whole point.
Robert Mugabe?
Hugo Chávez?
Yasser Arafat?
Robert Fisk?
This would certainly be vastly superior to the peace prize. This year’s peace prize was especially moronic (though Kissinger and Arafat are what really turned the prize into a joke, as opposed to just being lame). Not only has Carter done little more than try for peace (and usually failed at it), but his adminstration orchestrated and funded the Afghan war against the Soviets. Boy did that ever make peace!
Just a note about the scientific prizes: there was at least one time when the scientific community didn’t wait to give out the nobel prize in physics. This was when two physicists thought they had discovered the Grand Unified Theory (which asserted that SU(5) was the guage group of the universe, if you care). Their theory agreed with all known experiment, but later turned out to be wrong. A lesson: wait and see…
Lucas: Thanks for that. I think the science thing is illuminated by Thomas Kuhn’s distinction between normal and revolutionary science. Normal science, of which the Watson/Crick DNA solution was a classic example, means fitting all the pieces of a puzzle together, in such a way that no fundamental ideas have to be revised, and is usually quite easy to judge quickly, much as you can say that when you have completed an actual puzzle, you can see at once that you’ve got it right. Revolutionary science, where major ways of thinking are changed, often takes far longer to establish its merit, and of course what seems major can later be judged wrong.
I think I’m right in saying that when Einstein got his Nobel, it was for what is now regarded as the least significant piece of work he’d done, among several. The point was (a) he was obviously a huge talent, but (b) the “great” – the revolutionary stuff – was still controversial, so they gave it to him for the more “normal” stuff.
And as to the matter of the Nobel Evil Prize (Sasha), I personally wouldn’t score Fisk very highly. How many deaths has he actually ordered? How many people has he personally starved to death? His only crime has been to interpret the crimes of others in a controversial fashion. I wouldn’t have him on the panel, but I wouldn’t give him the prize either.
Isn’t the Nobel Prize the aetheists version of Catholic deification and sainthood?
Isn’t the Nobel Prize the aetheists version of Catholic deification and sainthood?
random thought:
Don’t know them at all personally, but I’ve been reading the Economist for a long time, and this sounds like an idea they would take a liking to, and have the guts to follow through with… and that would lend a good deal of credibility and publicity.
Brian,
Fisk was supposed to be a joke. The first three were serious nominations.
Another example of the Anglo-American humor divide…
Brian: It’s interesting that last generation’s paradigm shifts are todays accepted building blocks in science, but not so in politics and philosophy. There have been a number of revolutionary ideas in politics (Marxism, capitalism, the welfare state, classical liberalism, faschism, etc.), yet the world is little closer to agreeing on these things than it was 100 years ago.
Einstein was awarded the nobel prize for his work on the photoelectric effect, which was a fairly revolutionary idea at the time. It was the foundation for quantum theory, but it was far from his most significant work. That was general relativity, which was dramatically confirmed two years prior to the awarding of the prize. Your analysis of why he didn’t get the prize for relativity is probably correct.
Themic: That sounds like a great idea, and you’re probably right. The Economist is the only news magazine I’ve found with a genuine sense of humor. You should write them a letter.
Does anyone else have a foreboding feeling about this, like if such an award did exist, it would be turned into a political statement against the West. Who says Bush wouldn’t be the first recipient? Certainly if Fisk, et al were choosing, he would be in the running.
Lucas:
Good idea. Sent them a quick letter.
I’d say the obvious choices of recent times lie in Rwanda, the Congo, Idi Amin’s Uganda, North Korea, Yugoslavia and East Timor. In all cases, there are conveniently live participants to accuse. Remember: the Nobel Peace Prize often goes to individuals on both sides of a conflict. There’s plenty of opprobrium for a Nobel Prize for Evil to dispense.
The problem with this concept is that the Nobel Committee would be inclined to distribute the Evil Prize to conservative / free market politicians, business leaders and anyone who defends Israel. Mugabe, Castro, et al. would never actually win it.
Does anyone except the writer of the original piece (in this case me) read comments on stuff several days old? Well anyway here goes.
Christopher and Steven: They’d give it to “our” people? Well, maybe, but personally I’d be happy to witness a public row about just how many people President Bush, say, starved to death or incinerated or tortured last year, compared to such people as the North Korean monster. My understanding of Afghanistan in the last year, for example, is that a lot of lives have been saved, and surprisingly few have been ended, compared eg to 9/11, and even fewer innocent lives.
But, if “our” people are actually murdering thousands of innocents also, wouldn’t it be good to criticise them too?
Sasha, if you’re still in on this, or anyone come to that:
Glad Fisk was only a joke, but: who’s Hugo Chavez? Terrible ignorance on my part I’m sure, but I’ve just never heard of this person.
Hugo Chavez is the President of Venezuala. Here’s a link to today’s news about Chavez.