Although the various Nobel committees usually make sensible decision about the main awards for Physics, Chemistry and Medicine, the prizes for Literature, Peace and Economics often defy logic. Whereas the first 3 areas tend to be properly measurable in terms of their achievements, the final 3 rely almost entirely on the subjective views of the committee members. Consequently, these awards have given rise to some serious eyebrow raising over the years.
In 2012, the Peace prize went to the European Union, surely one of the most undemocratic and divisive organisations in the world, despite the overt antagonism it had engendered in millions of its citizens. In 2009, when he'd only been in office for a few months and done absolutely nothing of note, Barack Obama was awarded the Peace prize, presumably in anticipation of what he 'might' do. Many previous awards were made to people who had done nothing to advance the cause of peace but had been involved in various social enterprises, approved of by the 'soft left'. Much worse have been the awards to largely ineffective 'peace campaigners' and those that included Yasser Arafat in 1994 and Menachem Begin in 1978, both men of terror and violence much more than of peace. Overall, the Peace prize has been a joke for many years.
The prize for Economics is a fairly recent invention, having been first awarded in 1969. Most intelligent people are well aware that, given any debatable question in economics, there'll be as many 'expert' opinions as there are available economists; more often than not, these expert opinions all turn out to be wrong anyway. How on earth anyone, Nobel Committee included, can possibly award a prize worth hundreds of thousands of pounds to any economist escapes me.
When it comes to Literature, the prize has often gone, particularly in more recent years, to writers from third world nations of whom almost no one in the west has ever heard; indeed, one might say that most recipients are pretty well unknown to any but the elite of world society. However, this year's award is different. Astonishingly, the 2016 Nobel prize for Literature has been awarded to Bob Dylan.
When I first heard this I assumed that there must be a writer of whom I had no knowledge who happened to share the name of an American singer, but no. The award has, indeed, gone to Bob Dylan the singer - songwriter. Really. Dylan is placed alongside the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, Anatole France, George Bernard Shaw, J B Yeats, John Galsworthy, Eugene O'Neill and many other great writers.
Has the world, or at least the Nobel Committee, truly gone mad ?
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