The Nobel Peace Prize

[poliphilo]

Here's a list of the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize

I've got to admit I draw a blank on most of these names. 

A lot of them were diplomats who were simply doing their jobs.

There are one or two real jokers in the pack. Teddy Roosevelt- who loved nothing better than charging up hills with a revolver in his fist- got the prize for brokering a deal between Russia and Japan. Henry Kissinger got it for agreeing to end a war he'd previously been pursuing with vigour.

And then there's Yasser Arafat.  His citation was probably not the only one which- with hindsight- seems slightly premature.

Several of the recipients had nothing to do with promoting world peace but got it simply for being good eggs and an example to us all- among them Albert Schweitzer, Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama.  

On several occasions the award has gone to organisations- like the Red Cross or Medecins Sans Frontiers- and quite often it hasn't been awarded at all.
 
It's a barmy prize with a barmy history. The award to Barack Obama is hardly out of keeping.

Comments

[qatsi.livejournal.com]

One thing that strikes me is that the science prizes are frequently awarded for work done, say, 20 years ago. I don't have a problem with that in itself - it's fair enough to give new ideas time to bed in and be accepted, in fact that is probably necessary to determine which are the great ideas. But it's really inconsistent with the Peace Prize, which seems to be awarded at the first sign of progress in some area, before anyone really knows whether a development will turn out to be significant.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The Science prizes are probably the ones that are most defensible. An achievement in science is usually rock solid. The prize I'm most familiar with is the one for Literature- and that has had a patchy history. People have been given the award who seemed big at the time but whose reputation has since faded. And certain big names have been ignored. The very first prize went to a very minor French poet called Sully Prudhomme when it could have gone to any number of literary giants