# Annual Nobel Peace Prize outrage **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 12, 2012, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-nobel-peace-prize-outrage/637524 "2012-10-12T15:23:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2012, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-nobel-peace-prize-outrage/637524/81 "2012-10-14T14:49:25Z")
I’m still wrapping my head around the idea of being “outraged” at what someone who isn’t you chooses to do with their prize. The Nobel Prize never made any claims that it would find the absolute most objective contribution to peace, and they have no particular obligation to use the prize in any given way. Don’t like it? Make your own prize. China did. If your picks are that much better, it’ll get respect. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2012, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-nobel-peace-prize-outrage/637524/82 "2012-10-14T15:01:58Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > The one thing I hope comes out of this is some modern realization of just how bad Europe has been historically and why even baby steps are to be encouraged. European history is like an episode of COPS, Trailer Park Addition. That is the epitome of white people gone bad and I say that a direct descendant of them. > > I have no idea why the American left idealizes Europe so much given that context. The vast majority of the white people in the U.S., Canada, and Australia exists only because their ancestors had it so bad they had to risk everything they had and flee. > > I am glad they are starting get it to together and starting to develop mature government systems like the U.S. has had for over 200 years but I still don’t think anyone should get an award for going through puberty. > > Maybe if the Middle East can hold it together for the next few months, they can be a serious contender in 2013. Unfortunately in the areas of the world where scientific progress has been rapid, exploration and trade are prime movers, the wars tend to be that much on a larger and more efficient scale. From the European perspective the American system is not only not more mature, but is in many respects rather archaic and is slipping backwards. America is where Europe was governmentally over a hundred years ago. And I say this as a frequent and well travelled visitor to the U.S. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2012, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-nobel-peace-prize-outrage/637524/83 "2012-10-14T15:20:56Z")
> [@Simple\_Linctus](#): > > If you’re going to bring up the Balkans, contrast the utter failure of the European Union there to do anything about its back yard, to the intervention by NATO that stopped the slaughter (eventually). > > If anyone deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for the last sixty years of European peace, it’s NATO. Not the descendant of a coal and steel cartel. You do realize that most of NATO is European, right? Granted that there was pressure from the US to get/allow NATO to act, but the EU doesn’t (or didn’t anyway, not sure about now) have a military structure to respond with. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2012, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-nobel-peace-prize-outrage/637524/84 "2012-10-14T15:29:42Z")
Anyone know where the prize money is going to? Maybe if the Nobel Committee awards more group awards they can grow the size of the endowment by not giving away millions of bucks all the time 🙂 I predict next years Nobel in Economics will be given to the country of Venezuela. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2012, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-nobel-peace-prize-outrage/637524/85 "2012-10-14T15:31:34Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > I’m still wrapping my head around the idea of being “outraged” at what someone who isn’t you chooses to do with their prize. The Nobel Prize never made any claims that it would find the absolute most objective contribution to peace, and they have no particular obligation to use the prize in any given way. > > Don’t like it? Make your own prize. China did. If your picks are that much better, it’ll get respect. I’m not sure any one is “outraged” by it. I’m certainly not. 1973 Tom Lehrer declared that “satire was dead” when Henry Kissenger was awarded the peace prize. Arafat? Mother Theresa? No, the prize has “previous” as we would say in the UK. It sometimes gets it right, sometimes horrendously wrong, a lot of the time it is merely “meh!” and causes much eye-rolling with it’s fairly clumsy attempts at political point scoring. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2012, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-nobel-peace-prize-outrage/637524/86 "2012-10-14T17:16:52Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > That’s cool. When we start awarding prizes for being cool cats in 400 AD, they can throw their hats in the ring. Er… most of the turmoil dates back to the early 20th Century when the Europeans ripped up the Ottoman Empire. Even then, during the 20th Century, Middle Easterners didn’t rack up nearly the body count of their European counterparts. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2012, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-nobel-peace-prize-outrage/637524/87 "2012-10-14T17:19:56Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > From the European perspective the American system is not only not more mature, but is in many respects rather archaic and is slipping backwards. > > America is where Europe was governmentally over a hundred years ago. What makes you say that? Can you give some examples? ---
**Author:** ![Simple\_Linctus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Simple\_Linctus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simple_Linctus)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2012, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-nobel-peace-prize-outrage/637524/88 "2012-10-14T19:55:19Z")
> [@Folacin](#): > > You do realize that most of NATO is European, right? > > Granted that there was pressure from the US to get/allow NATO to act, but the EU doesn’t (or didn’t anyway, not sure about now) have a military structure to respond with. What’s your point? The Council of Europe is European mostly too, as is Eurovision (but not entirely), and both of them have much better claims to the peace prize than the EU too. Meanwhile the EU contains things that are not in Europe, and much of Europe is not in the EU. My point is that giving the peace prize to the EU for sixty years of peace on the continent (which didn’t exist anyway) is crazy. If any one organization could be said to deserve that, and by the way I don’t think any one organization could, then it would have to be NATO. ---
**Author:** ![Simple\_Linctus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Simple\_Linctus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simple_Linctus)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2012, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-nobel-peace-prize-outrage/637524/89 "2012-10-14T19:58:26Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Anyone know where the prize money is going to? Maybe if the Nobel Committee awards more group awards they can grow the size of the endowment by not giving away millions of bucks all the time 🙂 > > I predict next years Nobel in Economics will be given to the country of Venezuela. To be fair there is no such thing as the Nobel in Economics. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2012, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-nobel-peace-prize-outrage/637524/90 "2012-10-14T21:16:47Z")
> [@Simple\_Linctus](#): > > To be fair there is no such thing as the Nobel in Economics. Yes, there is. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2012, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-nobel-peace-prize-outrage/637524/91 "2012-10-14T21:26:50Z")
> [@Simple\_Linctus](#): > > To be fair there is no such thing as the Nobel in Economics. > [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Yes, there is. [Depends on what you mean](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_in_Economics). > [@wikipedia](#): > > The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics,[1][2] but officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (Swedish: Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), is an award for outstanding contributions to the field of economics, I’d say you could call it a Nobel, although you could quibble if someone called it a Nobel _Prize_. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-nobel-peace-prize-outrage/637524/92 "2012-10-15T06:08:33Z")
The prize is fully deserved and long overdue. Free trade advances prosperity which advances peace. When industry has plants on multiple sides of the border, it’s harder to form the sort of nationalist/capitalist coalitions that tend to be warmongering. Just look at US politics. Lessons can be applied elsewhere. There are no guarantees in international politics but greater trade, cross-border asset purchases and migration between China and Taiwan would be a good thing. Finally, the EU provides a forum for cross-national conflict resolution. As Churchill may have said: “Better jaw-jaw than war-war.” I say all this as an opponent of a single currency encompassing countries with vastly different per capita incomes and macroeconomic shocks. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-nobel-peace-prize-outrage/637524/93 "2012-10-15T08:33:42Z")
Five reasons why the EU deserves the Nobel Peace Prize: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/12/five-reasons-why-the-e-u-deserved-the-nobel-peace-prize/](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/12/five-reasons-why-the-e-u-deserved-the-nobel-peace-prize/) 1. No Western European country has gone to war with another since World War II, and the Balkans wars were the only wars on the continent as a whole in that period. 2. It made the continent — especially poor countries — richer. And that stopped war. 3. It has spread democracy, and democracies don’t fight each other. 4. It started a process that will keep hurtling toward more integration. 5. It makes people think of themselves as Europeans. All have caveats, which are discussed in the article. But none of these ideas are mutually exclusive. And all advance peace and prosperity. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-nobel-peace-prize-outrage/637524/94 "2012-10-15T08:39:05Z")
European politicians hand political prize over to European politician’s wetdream. [Thorbjorn Jagland](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorbj%C3%B8rn_Jagland) is a very busy man, seeing as he is both Chairan of the Norwegian Nobel Committee and Secretary General of the Council of Europe. Does anybody actually care about the Nobel Peace Prize? ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-nobel-peace-prize-outrage/637524/95 "2012-10-15T09:21:58Z")
> [@mozchron](#): > > Does this mean that every citizen of the EU can now call themselves a Nobel Prize winner? > > Because I would so do that if I could. I am. It’s about time my daily struggle to not shoot stupid people in the face was recognised. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-nobel-peace-prize-outrage/637524/96 "2012-10-15T12:55:35Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I would have given the Prize to the United Federation of Planets. They’ve got nothing on the Democratic Order of Planets. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-nobel-peace-prize-outrage/637524/97 "2012-10-16T04:14:39Z")
Measure for Measure: > [@](#): > > and the Balkans wars were the only wars on the continent as a whole in that period. Hungary, 1956? Czechoslovakia, 1977? Is it not war when it’s just over that quickly? ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-nobel-peace-prize-outrage/637524/98 "2012-10-16T04:29:58Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > Measure for Measure: > Hungary, 1956? Czechoslovakia, 1977? Is it not war when it’s just over that quickly? 1. It’s a quote from the article. 2. The first part of the quote is accurate. The Soviet Union invaded both Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The Soviet Union is not a Western European Country. In fact neither are Hungary or Czechoslovakia: they are Central European countries. I agree though that the 2nd clause could have been better worded, though I’m not sure that the Soviet Unions’ stomping in Hungary and Czechoslovakia constitutes a war: I generally hear it referred to as an invasion. The Czech army gave no resistance. The Hungarian case is more dicey as it led to 200,000 refugees and 2500 Hungarian fatalities. 3. Substantively, none of the parties above were members of the European Union. Nobody is claiming that the EU is a force for worldwide or intergalactic peace, only that it’s a helpful mechanism among its members and those aspiring to become members. Again, such aspirations did not apply in Central Europe during the 1950s - 1970s. It was unfortunate for the author to imply that it did. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-nobel-peace-prize-outrage/637524/99 "2012-10-16T14:34:23Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I would have given the Prize to the United Federation of Planets. They would speak English anyway…like the EU. ---
**Author:** ![yelimS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/54ee81/32.png) [@yelimS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yelimS)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-nobel-peace-prize-outrage/637524/100 "2012-10-17T14:17:07Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > And it is absurd to try to find a causal link. Wars have a cause - lack of wars don’t. When there’s deviation from the norm, there’s a cause, whether you see the result as a ‘thing’ or a lack of one. There were constant warring in Europe up until not too long before the [predecessor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Coal_and_Steel_Community) to the European Union. Your mileage may vary, but I hardly find it absurd to suggest that there’s some union causing this peace. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-nobel-peace-prize-outrage/637524.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-nobel-peace-prize-outrage/637524.md?page=6)