dagblog - Comments for "Why Obama Won the Nobel, Part I"

Ugh, this explanation is

Anonymous — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 03:25:11 +0000

In reply to Why Obama Won the Nobel, Part I

Ugh, this explanation is unsatisfying. The Dalai Lama fled invasion, re-settled thousands of refugees & laid out a concrete proposal for peaceful reconciliation with China. He didn't finish the process, but he had been working on it for years & his goal was clear. Lech Walesa built a peaceful underground civil society, forcing the government to finally acknowledge basic human rights for people outside of the elite political class. He didn't finish the process, but he had been working on it for years & his goal was clear. Despite being under arrest, Aung San Suu Kyi unified warring Burmese parties into a wildly successful, peaceful democratic opposition to the ruling junta. She didn't finish the process, but she had been working on it for years & her goal was clear. No one claims that Obama should be finished with his work. We just want to know what his "work" is. Is it his call for eliminating nuclear weapons? His preference for multi-lateral diplomacy? Every president talks about that stuff at this point in their presidency. What really frosts me is your 2nd point: that the Nobel gives prestige to the winner. Obama has plenty of prestige. That prestige could do a lot of good elsewhere. Only thing more retarded than the decision is the Obama sycophants pretending that it somehow makes sense.

personally, i think giving

Deadman — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 20:51:11 +0000

In reply to Why Obama Won the Nobel, Part I

personally, i think giving obama the nobel peace prize makes a mockery of the award. seriously. and im sure there have been plenty of others who havent deserved it either, but i dont understand this at all.

To his credit, and as one

DF — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 20:00:24 +0000

In reply to Why Obama Won the Nobel, Part I

To his credit, and as one might have expected if one does not spend much time watching Fox News, Obama's acceptance speech was humble in tone and used as an opportunity to highlight some of the major problems that the world faces, like nuclear proliferation and climate change, as well as clearly stating his belief that these issues demand of us a level of global cooperation that the world has never really known.

Also, it's reported that he's dropping the $1.4m on charity. Again, not terribly surprising.

Absolutely. My second post

Doctor Cleveland — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:14:57 +0000

In reply to I'd add that the bestowal of

Absolutely. My second post will be about how the Prize works as an intervention, and what influence it lends to the winners.

But part of the stature question is about how the different winners lend credibility to each other. Some winners are political leaders, some spirtiual leaders, some activists with little material backing. The Prize lends the ascetics and resistance leaders some of the powerful winners' aura of stature, and lends the power-brokers some of the others' aura of purity and self-sacrifice.

Big prizes operate, oddly, like a big mutual fund for different kindsof symbolic or cultural capital. It's very clear with the Nobel Prizes for Literature, where very different writers lend each other their peculiar glamor through the Prize. (The revoluntionaries and the national treasures and the unsung prophets all lend each other a little cred.) Same deal with the Peace Prize.

I'd add that the bestowal of

Orlando — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:50:55 +0000

In reply to Why Obama Won the Nobel, Part I

I'd add that the bestowal of the prize on influential world leaders in some years raises the stature of the recipients who are less well known. In 2006, Muhammad Yunus of the Grameen Bank won the prize. His decades-long work in microlending is, in some respects, revolutionary. The prize raised awareness of his work and the work being done all over the world based on the Grameen Bank model.

This is the best argument

Nebton — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:37:19 +0000

In reply to Why Obama Won the Nobel, Part I

This is the best argument I've heard so far for why it makes sense for Obama to get the award. I'm not sure I completely buy it, but perhaps that's because I'm thinking more of what I think the award should be for than what the Nobel Prize committee thinks the award should be for. Well, what I think as well as what Nobel's will stipulated.