a Nobel? really?

[cellio]

I'm neither an Obama fan nor an Obama detractor -- not an extremist on either side. From some things I've heard today, it seems important to state that.

I'm mystified by his receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize. It's possible that he could earn that someday, but now? He'd been in office for ten days when nominations closed, and since then he really hasn't done anything on the peace front yet. I don't understand what's going on in the heads of the folks on the Nobel committee.

Al Gore's prize doesn't seem to have anything to do with peace either, so this isn't the first time they've done something to prompt "WTF?"s. Have they changed the charter of the Peace Prize? It would be sad if it became meaningless.

Comments

[dvarin.livejournal.com]

I suspect Gore comes in under a broader reading of the peace prize as a reward for those working to benefit society. The Red Cross has received it several times, and their efforts seem less aimed specifically at the promotion of peace than they do at the general relief and prevention of suffering--accepting that disasters (war, but also famine, earthquakes, fires, &c) will happen and working to mitigate their impact. Working to prevent/ameliorate global warming and its disastrous consequences could be considered to be in the same vein, though certainly Gore has not done as much in his area as the RC has in theirs.

But even under that broader reading, Obama's award still makes no sense.

[cellio]

Hmm, ok. If the peace prize is really a "making life better for people" award, then I can see how Gore might have gotten it. (I don't agree with the choice but I can at least understand it, cast in that light.)

[dvarin.livejournal.com]

Hm, other non-strictly-peacemaking recipients include Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International, Lech Walesa while he was still an underground unionist rather than an official politician, the International Labor Organization, and I stopped scanning the list in the 60s. It really does seem to be awarded for humanitarian purposes fairly often.