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There is nothing noble about the Nobel Prize Committee My contempt for the Nobel Prize for anything grew dramatically today when I read that Harold Pinter won the award for literature. The fact he is an apologist for Europe’s most prolific mass murdering socialist since Joseph Stalin, namely Slobodan Milosovic, is apparently is not something which bothers the worthies in Sweden.
A contemptible prize for a contemptible man.
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I’m not sure the Swedish worthies award their prizes on the basis of the political opinions of the recipients. I’m even less sure that they should.
Are you seriously suggesting that someone’s political views should be taken into account when awarding a prize for literature?
EG
Perry, remember, they gave Nobel Prizes to Henry Kissinger, Yasser Arafat and other worthies. Enough
said.
Euan, even on the basis of Pinter’s purely literary achievements, is he really so great? And can one really admire a man who, in his public pronouncements, has shown himself to be a thoroughly unpleasant monster?
I’m with Euan here. Consider Leni Riefenstahl or Counter Reformation Rome. Only totalitarians believe that art is reducible to politics.
I doubt there is anything you could say that would convince me you would not be outraged if a member of the Ku Klux Klan or Nazi Party was awarded such a prize.
I also look forward to you pointing me at the list of fascists (at least the ones who do not claim to be leftists) who have recieved the Nobel Prize for Literature, or are you going to tell me that no Nazi or Klansman could possibly have been a great writer?
But of course the collectivist left gets a free ride.
Yes, if a person is a apologist for a mass murdering tyrannt, I would spit in the face of anyone who honours them for anything at whatsoever.
No, art is not but highly political art prizes sure are.
The Nobel dealie is the UN writ small. It’s just another jumped up tranzi committee up on its hind legs making decisions that are ignored by the other 6bn people in the world.
Not only do I have no interest in the Swedish Nobel Committee’s views on English literature, but, on reflection, I would have been astounded if they’d chosen anyone else. Who were the semi-finalists? Harold Pinter and that person who wrote ‘My Name is Rachel Corrie’? Another tranzi yawn-o-gram.
Euan Gray writes:
“I’m not sure the Swedish worthies award their prizes on the basis of the political opinions of the recipients.”
Is that so? I’m not sure the Swedish worthies award their prizes on any other basis.
The only Klansman I can think of off the top of my head who might come close to qualifying is D. W. Giffith. I don’t think the question arises today – there are no great living Nazi artists.
Overall I agree that the literature, peace and economics prizes are heavily political. Your original comments extended your contempt to the sciences too, where I would have to disagree.
I became suspicious of this committee when they gave an award to Arafat in 1994. They never admitted they were wrong, even when overwhelming evidence showed he was behind terrorism against Israel.
I suspect that the committee have come to the view that their award is losing ‘brand value’. As a result they need to be controversial.
Given that being a ‘Green’ or ‘Anti-Nuclear’ scientist is a definate plus when it comes to Nobel time, yes, I would extend it to science too.
That is not to say every person who ever got a Nobel Prize was some leftist collectivist jackanapes, just that being one does seem to help, which is why I have no time for these tainted prizes.
“The fact that he is an apologist …..etc.”
They probably considered it a plus…….
Aleksandr Soldjenitsin was also a recipient of the Nobel Prize. Given that he is not exactly a collectivist lefty – he’s a somewhat reactionary Christian conservative and Russian nationalist – the idea that the Nobel goes automatically to the left is less defensible. And of course Churchill got one too.
I frankly don’t give a damn about an author’s political views unless he’s writing about political things. However, I don’t like the idea that political views should have any bearing on whether or not an author should be considered for a literature prize, and nor do I think it particularly useful to sneer at a prize organisation that happens to make an award decision you don’t agree with – would you still sneer if the awards committee was more libertarian in outlook and rewarded a libertarian author, or would that just be a case of applauding an obviously “correct” choice?
Liberty includes the liberty to disagree, and the defence of liberty includes defending the right of people to say things you really don’t care for. Totalitarianism starts with sneering at people who are “obviously” in ideological error. It might also be pointed out that opposition to dictatorship and oppression is not the sole preserve of the libertarian.
I should add that I don’t like Pinter’s style of literature – although I do see that it has technical merits and is innovative in several ways – and nor do I like his politics, but the two preferences are not related.
EG
Euan Gray writes:
“Aleksandr Soldjenitsin was also a recipient of the Nobel Prize. Given that he is not exactly a collectivist lefty…”
Soljenitsin is a contrarian.
As guy herbert has been trying to discuss elsewhere, there’s a lot more to this than the narrow confines of mere Left and Right.
Think of the Nobel committee as a superannuated students union and you’re not far from the truth.
G Cooper – “a superannuated students’ union”. I have nothing to add to that definition. It is perfect.
And yes, indeed, Sasha Solzenhitzen (two can play at that game, EG) is indeed a contrarian and was a protester against the status quo and nothing seems to light up those long gloomy Scandinavian winter nights like a protester.
I think the Nobel prize in anything that requires judgement has long since had its daythese past 25 years or so of fractured international politics. Science, physics, chemistry, aeronautics (Dale will sneer because I’ve got these confused), where there is something quantifiable and personal opinions don’t count is all that is left for the Nobel prize. Other than quantifiable achievement, why would the world be interested in the opinions of Swedes, for god’s sake?
Perry– it’s becoming horribly embarrassing, given that you are middle aged and should therefore have enjoyed at least a rudimentary education, to see you continually commit spelling howlers, above all in a post about litterachoor. ‘Contemptable’ indeed! You are a computer wonk, are you not? Ever hear of spellcheck? Use it if you feel the slightest qualm about your English. Bad spelling is a discourtesy to readers.
Re: Aleksandr Soljenitsyn:
They did indeed do some good choices, but that was some time ago, actually a generation ago.
The times and people at the Swedish Academy have changed. It would be nice to beleive that they aren’t influenced by politics. It seems they are now as unbiased as a NY Times or Guardian editorial.
Or the BBC’s Have Your Say editors.
Mishima Yukio was nominated for the prize three times. Definitely a far-right nationalist, that one.
That said, I do tend to agree that such cases are the exception and not the rule with the Nobel committee. They prefer lefitsts. But then, writers tend to BE leftists, so there may be a sampling theory explanation…
Mostly, I’m with Verity on this one. The Swedes annointed themselves police, judge and jury over literary quality across cultures and we care….why exactly?
I was watching the news tonight.
About this very item.
Pinter was speechless.
Or so he said in between long pauses.
I was gobsmacked!
Didn’t know he needed the money!
RAB – “In between long pauses ….”
…. Rather witty comment. …..
Thanks love,
the cheques in the post.
RAB – You stepped on my lines! It’s only been 10 minutes, dammit!
However, I don’t like the idea that political views should have any bearing on whether or not an author should be considered for a literature prize…
Tell that to Pinter:
I think “human rights” is one o’ them yoof emisms for “politics”.
Solzhenitsyn is an exception to the rule. Most Nobel Peace Prize winners have no track record of actually expanding peace. People who talk about peace (League of Nations, UN), weapons control (coauthors of Kellogg-Briand Pact, land mines outfit, antinuke outfits), dissidents who really don’t do as much for peace as they do for dissing the State (those East Timor guys, Solzhenitsyn, Lech Walesa – who won the prize nine years too early, Shirin Ebadi – who has morphed into a mullah apologist), guys who improve the human condition but not in the arena of peace (Norman Borlaug).
Matt O’Halloran: This is Perry’s blog and he can spell as he wishes. If you do not like it, then feel free to fcuk off.
Another alternative is to be polite.
Yes, and does that not apply to me disagreeing with Harold Pinter and the Nobel Prize Committee?
Please quote back where I call for the Nobel Prizes or the works of Harold Pinter to be banned with the force of law. I think the man should be shunned like a leper but I have never called for him to to thrown in jail.
Really? I rather thought it started with calling for a total state.
That is certainly true, but unlike others, libertarians do not seek to replace one tyranny that they oppose with a different tyranny that they support.
Only if you quote where I said you were calling for this.
No, it generally starts with identifying the scapegoat and vilifying them – Mein Kampf is a classic example, published 10 years before the dictatorship began. This is part of preparing the ideological ground. Calling for a total state is the “solution” suggested to the problem, but that comes rather later.
True enough, but it’s what you’d probably get. It seems unlikely, given the extreme lack of popularity of the idea, that any libertarian system could be implemented other than through diktat. Couple that with a philosophical perspective that tends to see the world in rather more black and white terms than it really is and you’re basically going to end up with an ideologically driven government that needs, paradoxically enough, to use force to prevent people going back to a more conventional system of government – forcing people to be free, as it were.
EG
By making the very obvious statement…
…clearly you are implying my remarks are directed towards denying the liberty to disagree or say things that I do not care for. Otherwise, what did you mean? Why otherwise would you make that crashingly obvious statement?
And what if someone really is to blame and vilifying them is the entirely correct things to do? If Pinter supports NOT holding to account the man who ordered the mass murder of tens of thousands of people on the basis of their ethnicity, am I not justified in assigning blame to him and vilifying him on that basis? In what way is that moral judgement a precursor to totalitarianism? To follow your logic, expressing any moral judgement on anyone’s views and actions must therefore be a precursor to totalitarianism. You are making very little sense.
Perry,
Is Pinter worse than the winner in 1920?
link
Yikes! Worse that? No, probably not.
I think you’re reading a little too much into things. I meant to imply no more than that you should be as ready to support Pinter’s ability to freely express his views (and get rewarded for them) as you would be to support your own (and ditto), and calling people contemptible just because you don’t agree with them is not perhaps the way to do this.
Who decides if they really are to blame?
Blaming him for what? For the huge moral encouragement his support must have given Milosevic, doubtless prolonging his reign? I don’t think it’s fair to blame someone for having an opinion, however eccentric that opinion might be.
Anyway, how and where was Milosevic to be held to account? In the international criminal court, perhaps? You know, the one that has no legal foundation because there’s no such thing as international law, therefore Milosevic could not lawfully be held to account in it? Or is that court acceptable for punishing foreigners but not Americans or Britons?
EG
…….how and where was Milosevic to be held to account? ……
The place should have been of course, in a court in Serbia, tried by his countrymen.
There is of course no need for an International Criminal Court to try Brits as our courts do a great job of making scapegoats out of some of our soldiers anyway.
Oh I fully support Pinter’s ability to freely express his views… however anyone who rewards him for his views is going to hear what my altogether different view are on that. Is that really so hard to understand?
Me of course. The alternative is to have no opinion at all. Do you not get to decide upon what basis you form your opinions?
Do you really understand what you are writting? So are you seriously suggesting that a person who votes for the NDSAP and voices support for Hilter in 1937 bears NO responsibility for what came later? If Pinter had argued that in 1946, rather than putting the senious Nazis on trial, they should have been released and allowed to retire to Argentina, he would in no way have been condoning the things they did when they were in power? That is a very close analogue to what he did by calling for Slobodan Milosovic to be freed rather than tried for his crimes. And it would be wrong to therefore heap approbrium on such a person?
Up what basis would it be appropriate to express a moral judgerment on what some else does?
Oh I agree that would be far better and Natalija argued for that here on Samizdata… but it is not hard to see why the Serbian government in their far from de-Nazified country decided to pass that hot potato to someone else.
The Hague may not be the best solution but what is completely unacceptable is the idea of Milosovic getting clean away.
Yes. Why can’t they reward whomsoever they please?
Yes, but I don’t say they are necessarily objectively correct opinions. You’re making the distinction between private and public morality, which I perhaps did not realise you were doing before & therefore we were talking at cross purposes. Insofar as it is a question of a private moral view I concede the point.
There is a certain vicarious liability, but I’m not sure how far you can really take that sort of thing. The analogue is with holding shareholders liable for the actions of the companies in which they invest, something not exactly uncontentious in the west. I think if you support one you must support the other, because it is precisely the same concept.
I think the Nuremberg trials could be seen as a pretty plain case of vae victis. It is noteworthy that only the losers were put on trial, despite the commission of what were undoubtedly war crimes on both sides. A further point worth noting is that at least one man was convicted and jailed for doing exactly the same thing as the victor had done (Doenitz, for unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic, when Nimitz conducted exactly the same thing in the Pacific and even sent testimony to say so), but had the lack of foresight to be on the losing side. And a final point to note is that the idea of crimes against humanity as a legal doctrine was only invented during the war itself. That in no way justifies what the Nazis did, but it does put the trial process into some sort of context.
I think it entirely possible to oppose the Nuremberg war crimes trials but still be vehemently opposed to the war crimes themselves. Churchill wasn’t bothered about the idea of trials, he just wanted the ringleaders shot. It’s hard to imagine Stalin objecting too strenuously to that. The idea for the trials seem to have come from American legalism, and it is worth noting that after the initial trial in 1946 only the Americans were interested in carrying on. It is this same legalistic view of the world that led to the creation of the UN and its various organs, up to and including the ICC.
But the only thing that would (and did) prevent him getting clean away was international law and the existence of an international court to try him. But such things apparently have no legitimacy since there can be no international law, so what to do? Or perhaps just summary execution would be acceptable?
EG
I don’t know what people have against summary execution. What on earth is the point, I ask you, of “trying” Saddam Hussein? What. is. the. point?
Johnathan Pearce:
The Swedes award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Physics, Medicine, and, of course, Literature. Both Yasser Arafat and Henry Kissinger were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize – whose laurettes were decided by the Norwegians.
The Swedes give their awards decades after a person’s contribution, the Norwegians give it on the act of potential contribution within the same year. Thus, it is quite obvious that the Peace Prize would be very political. If the Peace Prize goes through the same process as the Swedes put theirs through, it would be significantly less political.
Political views (or views in any other field other than that judged) are not taken into consideration. A neo-Nazi could with a Nobel Prize in Chemistry, a Maoist could win a Nobel Prize in Medicine, etc. – it wouldn’t matter. What matters is their contribution to the field.
“…despite the commission of what were undoubtedly war crimes on both sides. “
Oh, how open minded ! How broad minded… How fair minded this moral equivalnce !!
Such a balanced person EG! Some crimes commited on one side, some crimes on the other, all are the same !
All people are the same, no judgement is needed or possible …
Those poor devils sentenced at Nierenburg, when their only crime was losing the war !
The balance and even-handedness and broad mindedness of EG is staggering.
Sir V.S. Naipaul could be considered Rightish in his views, and he did win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Certainly lots of lefties think he is.
A crime is a crime. It doesn’t matter who commits the crime, now does it? That principle is called the rule of law. It’s usually considered fairly important.
If the Nazis destroy a town as an explicit act of terror to cow the population, that’s a crime. If the British do the same thing, that’s still a crime – it’s the SAME crime, it isn’t somehow magically made all better because one side happens to win or doesn’t wear swastika armbands.
Vae victis (literally, woe to the defeated) is what happens when the guys who win arbitrarily set the rules. It’s also called in the vernacular “victor’s justice,” and that’s just what Nuremberg was.
What rot. I say prosecute people for the crimes they committed, but prosecute ALL people who committed them, not just the losers. If the German Navy was to be punished in the person of Doenitz for unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic, then so the US Navy should have been punished in the person of Nimitz because they did EXACTLY the same thing in the Pacific. Why should one side get a free pass?
If you want vae victis, then fine, but at least be honest about it and not hide behind a fig leaf of sanctimony, pretending it’s all about law and justice.
I know you’re being sarcastic, but balance and even-handedness are much more useful in law than is ideology.
EG
The point of doing this is to make a distinction between the brute savagery of Saddam and the civilised government of the successor state. Rule of law, and so forth.
However, as I suggest above it’s a tad more convincing if your own savages are also tried.
EG
Christopher Hitchens in The Guardian, via The Daily Ablution: “The award to someone who gave up literature for politics decades ago, and whose politics are primitive and hysterically anti-American and pro-dictatorial, is part of the almost complete degradation of the Nobel racket.”
For the western white guilty filled elite there is no such thing of “rightish” thinking in yellow, black, green and pink people. They are still pure. They are defending they’re traditions against the capitalist globalist onslaught
For the western white guilty filled elite there is no such thing of “rightish” thinking in yellow, black, green and pink people. They are still pure. They are defending they’re traditions against the capitalist globalist onslaught
Actually, lucklucky, the complaint of sections of the Left against V.S. Naipaul is that his works often portray the postcolonialist governments in Third World nations as corrupt, nasty, brutish, and all the rest. The charge is that by attacking Third World governments run by Third Worlders, he gives credence to those who would say some problems in the Third World are their own fault, and not the fault of colonialization.
John Thacker, what I interpreted lucklucky to be saying is that the “western white guilty filled elite” believe Asians, Africans, environmentalists and gays would never have a ‘conservative’ thought. The Liberals believe these people “are still pure.” Therefore, they must conclude that everything wrong in those societies is because of capitalist’s attacks.
I’m not sure, but that’s what I thought it meant. I certainly think that is a good observation. Correct me if I got it wrong, lucklucky.
Yes, Midwesterner, it’s a very interesting thought. Every single gay guy I know is politically conservative. Even the flamboyant ones – vote for keeping their own money and spending it how they choose and although they don’t have children of their own (they have nephews and nieces, though) vote for conservative schoolboards and, being property owners, they vote for effective police chiefs. I have a couple of gay friends who sit are CFOs, and they are all for fiscal conservatism.
That all “minorities” must be driven by some liberal dream is a delusion.
Harold Pinter has not produced anything of artistic merit (even according to modern taste) for many years – he was awarded the prize because he hates the United States in general and George Bush in particular.
It was much like the head of the U.N. anti nuke agency – he was awarded the peace prize not because he had stopped any nation getting nukes (he had not), but because he was seen as an important antiAmerican person.
I am no fan (to put it mildly) of the Bush administration, but the poltical bias (at least at the moment) of the committee is obvious.
The United States is hated not so much for an interventist policy overseas (interventions are regarded as a good thing if they are suggested by the U.N. or the informal “international community”), but because it seen as holding out against the “international community” (resisting such things as the convention of [welfare and education] rights for the child, global gun control, world government internet control and so on).
Of course this goes back a long way, one can see an element of statism in President Wilson’s Legue of Nations (especially in the dreams of Wilson’s assistant and “other self” Colonel E.M. House – see his “Philip Dru Admistrator” a firm statement of collectivist belief).
But in the United Nations and in particular the international charter of rights the statism became open. The British reprsentatives to the committee that drafted the declaration were the Soviet (and before that the Nazi) apologist E. H. Carr and the fanatical collectivist Harold Laski (Chairman of the Labour party – but despised by then Labour Prime Minister Clement Atlee).
Like many charters (going back to the Declaration of the Right of Man produced at the time of the French Revolution) the international declaration is full of lots of nice words about freedom – but the killer is in the details. A list of welfare rights, not compatible with the Constitution of the United States or with freedom in general.
Whether the dreams of the international community (i.e. basically the Guardian and New York Times readers of all nations) are practical or not (and let us hope they are not practical), as virutally the only major nation on Earth that puts up any open resistance to these dreams the United States is an object of special hatred.
Still things could be worse, at least the committee in charge of awarding the prize in economics is not totally statist. True it no longer awards prizes to critics of the modern state (for example Milton Friedman got the prize in 1976), but at least this committee does give the prize to people on the grounds that the hate the United States or just hate freedom (and it could – there are a lot of statist “economists” out there).
I believe that this year’s prize went to a couple of fairly harmless game theory men.
Perhaps you could explain why you think welfare and education rights for children are undesirable?
EG
Although I have warned against replying to Mr Gray I will reply to his question.
A “right” as understood by, for example, the British Bill of Rights or the American Bill of Rights is a LIMITATION ON government power not an EXCUSE FOR government power.
Clearly “welfare rights” whether for children or for anyone else, are an example of the latter not the former.
The principle of benevolence (what used to be called the virtue of charity) is clearly very important and may, perhaps, even trump the virtue of justice (the non aggression principle) in certain circumstances (I will not bore you with the fantasy examples – we can all think of them), but the words should not be confused.
Nothing to do with whether nice things for children (or non children) are “desirable” or not.
Although (of course) giving someone a “right” to some nice thing, does not actually give them the nice thing.
Sadly the word “not” is missing from my statement that the committee in charge of awarding the Noble prize for economics does not just award the prize for hatred of America or hatred of freedom.
“my bad”.
I think if a person has gotton the Noble prize for literary ,which is thought of the hightest prize for a writer in the world,undoubtly, it has a believable renson itself!