It's been Nobel Prize week, when the world learns who the most influential and world-changing pathblazers have been in the fields of physics, chemistry, physiology and medicine, literature, peace, and economics. (Mathematics, sadly, is not represented.)
Many of this year's winners (link to source)did indeed lead the world through fundamental shifts in the understanding of their respective fields. The prize in physics went to researchers who developed the groundbreaking theory of the Higgs boson. The prize in chemistry went to researchers who developed a new field, computational chemistry. The prize in physiology and medicine was awarded for for discovering the mechanism by which vesicle traffic is regulated. The prize in economics went to three professors for fundamental analysis of asset prices. The prize in literature went to Alice Munro for mastering the short story. It would be an understatement to say that these researchers revolutionized their fields.
What those researchers found are both fundamentally important and interesting to anyone who enjoys those fields (and even those who don't). But the one that really piqued my interest this year is the Nobel Peace Prize.
Unlike the other prizes, this prize is not issued by Sweden, but by Norway, and in the past, the prize committee has been willing to push the envelope a little bit. This year, the prize was awarded to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, a small organization which, as the name suggests, works to prohibit chemical weapons. This group has come into the spotlight recently with the use of chemical weapons in Syria. The organization has, reports suggest, entered Syria and begun the process of destroying chemical weapons.
Of course, this is fantastic news. Nobody wants those weapons to be used again, and the group is certainly to be commended for beginning that mission so swiftly. But this prize is the most interesting because, unlike the other prize recipients, the winner did not change the world dramatically. In fact, it did quite the opposite. OPCW's greatest contribution to the world was to maintain the status quo.
Until recently, the status quo had been one in which chemical weapons were not to be used. Period. This status quo has faced some challenges, but since the Geneva Convention, it's largely held. The recent events in Syria have challenged that status quo, and OPCW has started to work on restoring that. While this is a good thing, it is hardly synchronous with the rest of the prizes awarded this year. The prizes from this year have been ones that have celebrated change at its best. And yet, the committee chose to stand away from the change in awarding the Peace Prize, choosing instead the status quo.
That's a rather strong choice to make, implying that the current situation is acceptable as is. Of course, that's oversimplifying the situation a bit, but by choosing a status-quo-maintaining organization to receive the prize for furthering the efforts of peace the most, the Nobel committee has said that maintaining the status quo is more significant than some of efforts to change the world for peace. They are excluding the efforts of others, people who don't just do their jobs for upholding a norm, albeit a very important one, but who work to further peace and understanding, even through personal danger.
Many other nominees, most notably Malala Yousafzai, would have satisfied that criterion easily. It's a little strange that when they had a chance to celebrate real progress towards greater peace, the Nobel committee chose to back away from change and celebrate the current situation.
"By choosing a status-quo-maintaining organization to receive the prize for furthering the efforts of peace the most, the Nobel committee has said that maintaining the status quo is more significant than some of efforts to change the world for peace. They are excluding the efforts of others, people who don't just do their jobs for upholding a norm, albeit a very important one, but who work to further peace and understanding, even through personal danger." What a fascinating perspective! I never considered that prize this way before.
ReplyDeleteHi Rohan, I really enjoyed reading this post. To be honest, I was also a bit shocked when I learned that the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the OPCW for working to destroy the chemical weapons stockpile in Syria—merely maintaining the status quo or international norms set over 15 years ago. Even though I believe that some other people, such as Malala Yousafzai, were perhaps more qualified for the prize, I’d like to play the devil’s advocate here. I don’t think that the OPCW’s quest to maintain the status quo should be considered inferior to, per se, another actor’s desire to effect notable change and create peace. Let’s say that a genocide suddenly broke out in some part of the world, and a coalition of organizations, governments, and other actors successfully stopped that atrocity. Didn’t they also maintain the status quo, in that genocide was condemned in 1948? Would that mean that they shouldn’t be eligible for the Peace Prize? It’s hard to understand the concept of comparing the amount of peace that different candidates for the Peace Prize made. Is there some kind of algorithm? However, I do believe that the maintenance of status quo, as long as it’s for the greater good of humanity, is always a good thing and not necessarily inferior to the implementation of change for peace.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this. Of course it is important to preserve the good we have already achieved in the world. However, as perhaps the most recognized prize in the world, the Nobel Peace Prize cannot recognize every good thing that some one is doing. In addition, there is something to be said for that fact that it is much easier to achieve a goal when a lot of people are backing you. This would be the case in your hypothetical example. I think that maybe the issue here is whether the Peace Prize should be awarded for extraordinary effort or extraordinary effects.Effects are hard to predict and thus less of an incentive for future humanitarians than effort, which is under their control, and so personally I think that the Peace Prize should consider effort a lot more than they did this year.
DeleteOh, I would absolutely agree that maintenance of the status quo is crucial in some instances, and you gave an excellent example. However, in this case, especially because the OPCW has not actually finished the process, I would argue that one of the other nominees should get the award. There's a crucial distinction between your scenario and the scenario that got the OPCW the prize. In your scenario, the coalition actually stopped the genocide. They have advanced peace, and they should get the prize for that. However, the OPCW has only begun the process of destroying the weapons, and so, this award is not for actually destroying the weapons. Rather, it's for the idea of destroying the weapons, and I think there are better nominees who have actually advanced the idea of peace.
DeleteOne thing that separates the Nobel Peace Prize from the other Nobel prizes is that the Peace Prize is often used as a "call to action" rather than a recognition. That was certainly the case when President Obama won the prize. At that time, he was deciding what to do with the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan. Of course, he did not heed this call. I won't argue whether the decision was right or wrong. I wonder if this prize was given as a "call to action" directed at Assad and the international community in general.
DeleteThe comment you made about how this years prize excluded "people who don't just do their jobs" is an important one. Besides that fact that there is nothing particularly game changing about the the OPCW, they also only went into Syria when given an ok by the UN Security Council. Though I'm sure the people in the OPCW are passionate about preventing the use of chemical weapons, in essence they just followed the initiative of others. I agree that the Nobel Peace Prize should not just suggest that this is enough to actually achieve meaningful change in the world. Of course this works in some cases, but there needs to be people to take a lone step, and as you said, the several of the candidates for this years prize definitely fit that criteria.
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