Fjolle
Member
Yes! Going on my CV along with Times person of the year 2006!
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Announcements of the 2012 Nobel Prizes
- Thread starter CiSTM
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Yes! Going on my CV along with Times person of the year 2006!
Norweigans...
Diprosalic
Banned
fuck, i missed out on the peace price.
UN, its agencies or staff has already won the peace prize 10 times and why shouldn't they?
No, I know (I'm German). And I love Europe and the way it's getting more and more open. In some moments I feel more 'European' than German.
And yes, that's partly due to the EU.
But it's not like the EU was created for unselfish reasons by the stronger countries. We Germans benefitted a lot. I'm not sure such an organization as a whole should be awarded this prize. But I think the committee over the past years has cared more about the implications of giving the prize than the actual track record of the candidates (same with Gore and Obama). It's about the message. And I'm fine with it, I guess.
But it was. That's what Robert Schumann did in 1950 when he created the ECSC. The coal part of it was just an excuse to create an institution that would force Germany and France to work hand in hand.
And when you consider the centuries of war Europe lived through prior to the ECSC, I'd say the UE is one of the most succesful act of ingeneered peace in human history.
Actually one of the core ideas behind the foundation of ECSC (which later transformed into EU) was to create such strong economical bonds between the member countries that there would be no sense in going into war again. The reasons weren't ENTIRELY unselfish but it has worked and there has been no war.
Tim the Wiz
Banned
The EU? :lol There had be a deadlock on some real actual people, right? How ridiculous: a bureaucratic institution whose sole tangible achievement - unified currency - is on paper-thin ice because they forgot to include the sane element of a federal monetary authority at launch gets the golden tiara of peace? Prestige by itself won't keeping the credit lanes of the euro zone stable, but I suppose the Nobel committee did their bit.
There's definitely some noble symbolic and perceptional juice in the EU project but surely that's praising the symptom as the cause? I don't think the EU can claim the large-scale trend of economic interdependence within the neoliberal era as a thing of its own conception. Yes, it's made those bonds clearer and aided the export of liberal hegemony to Eastern and Southern Europe, but the award of the Nobel Peace Prize feels a bit obnoxious considering the worth of the recipients that have come before.
There's definitely some noble symbolic and perceptional juice in the EU project but surely that's praising the symptom as the cause? I don't think the EU can claim the large-scale trend of economic interdependence within the neoliberal era as a thing of its own conception. Yes, it's made those bonds clearer and aided the export of liberal hegemony to Eastern and Southern Europe, but the award of the Nobel Peace Prize feels a bit obnoxious considering the worth of the recipients that have come before.
You clearly know nothing about EU if you think Euro is its sole tangible achievement.
Here are two hints: Free market and open borders.
I'd say the governments and finance sectors - I certainly didn't ask my government to spend money building stadiums that barely get any use nowadays (I don't even like football, and here in Portugal "sports" and "football" are almost interchangeable terms) or making ruinous investments that would indebt whole generations. Everytime I voted it was for guys that didn't make it to the government, doesn't seem reasonable to be punished for that...
If the Nobel prize money is used to patch up some debts that'd be nice, even if it's a drop in the ocean.
Obama was a shoe-in. The fact that Europe is where it is today when you consider its history is beyond belief. If certain populations started to wake up to themselves and stopped pointing fingers in the wrong direction then a united European federation would not be unheard of and escape hushed lips. The contrast is huge when you consider the past 100 years of European history, let alone 400-500 years.
I'm sure if I was born in Brest or Helsinki or Frankfurt or Malaga or Ancona then I'd be proud as fuck to be "European" right now considering the stupidly novel and extremely hostile nature of my nation's history - let alone my continent's history.
Most of the problems were their own. Greece has been a mess, for instance. But some stuff, like the Euro, certainly didn't make it easier for them to get out of their hole. Or forcing them to fulfill their arms contracts with German companies.
Tim the Wiz
Banned
Touche. On a certain level, currency itself is no tangible item. You wily fox.
Again, praising a symptom of the cause. I'm confident free trade agreements would have sprung up even without the apparatus of the treaty-based EU federation over the past few decades. It seems to me like most of the key decisions in Europe don't originate within the legislative bodies of the EU but rather through the deliberation of an unofficial inter-governmental federation of Western European nations (i.e. Germany, France) anyway. I'm not quibbling about the symbolic power or the merit of the EU project at all, but this award just seems misplaced, given the Peace Prize usually seeks to recognize direct actors of peace. Perhaps I'm being didactic but the EU is a bit too indirect for my taste.
The hilarity of it all has to be the fact that Norway isn't even in the EU.
although the leader of the committee is a very outspoken EU supporter
ThaneKrios
Banned
What about Mars?
Tim the Wiz
Banned
History will bear the Obama award as evidence of just how frustrated the Bush years made everyone and what can happen when you make an emotional decision. He's been a good president given the circumstances he entered into, but not exactly a humanitarian of the stature of past recipients. That's just the nature of the beast - it should be difficult for state leaders to receive the Peace Prize, given they are tasked primarily with the self-interest of their citizens.
The founding fathers are all dead. Besides, it's been a decades long process during which dozens of politicians worked together to build it, it wouldn't make much sense to give the prize to individuals. It's also not the first time entities rather than persons received the prize (IAEA, IPCC, UN, ICBL, IPPNW, ...). Nothing new here.
Already happened, do your research.
USA (or rather its presidents) has already won several peace prizes.
I find the award well deserved. It's the Nobel for the Peace, not an award for let's say, economics. The EU had/has a lot of problems, but if one thing was done right, it's the peace between the nations.
I'm living in Strasbourg, in France, the capital of Europe (along with Bruxelles and Luxembourg) and only a few kilometers from Germany, where I can go shopping, eating a huge icecream without any problems.
Seven decades ago, here was the epicenter of the most devastating war that humanity suffered, think about it.
Also, the creation of the EU gave our town some cool futuristic-looking building
(click here for more)
I'm living in Strasbourg, in France, the capital of Europe (along with Bruxelles and Luxembourg) and only a few kilometers from Germany, where I can go shopping, eating a huge icecream without any problems.
Seven decades ago, here was the epicenter of the most devastating war that humanity suffered, think about it.
Also, the creation of the EU gave our town some cool futuristic-looking building
(click here for more)
Especially if you read why it was awarded it makes more sense
The Nobel Peace Prize 2012 was awarded to European Union (EU) "for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe
Can't argue with that.
Yeah, I love this. I've always loved that I can go to Paris or Berlin or London or Barcelona...and feel as entitled to be there, and to feel in some way 'connected' as I do at home. I like seeing that 'EU' immigration line at the airport. I feel welcome. And I love what the flow of immigration back to my own country has done for it.
I know it's easy to say 'big deal', but for a continent so fractured by war for so long...
Tim the Wiz
Banned
The last sole win by an entity was in 1999 to Doctors Without Borders, which I personally think hits the sweet spot of a non-corporeal direct actor of peace. You look at other sole wins by entities - UN Peacekeeping Forces, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, UN High Commissioner for Refugees - and these are specific entities doing specific tasks contributing to global peace. The EU is a laudable symbolic entity with definite merit in its representative status of a united Europe and the award is defensible on "let's celebrate this institution during the hour of its sternest test" grounds but I just look at prior recipients and see a missed opportunity to use the Prize as the tool it can be.
Some? Majority of posters were born before unification of Germany.
Nobel Peace Prize became a joke a long time ago.
Eh, nearly 15 years? Cold 'war' was a bit longer, unless you take the hostilities during the period as an actual war.
I understand the distaste towards Economics and Peace, but what's wrong with Literature? I mean, it's arguably Eurocentric, but that's hardly a crime.
As in EU members in wars against eachother, not against the dirty communists (or "peace keeping missions")
I think literature should be turned into a arts prize... But I could live without it.
Would like to quote this.
As a Belgian I live in what used to be called the 'battleground of Europe'. Now, it's hard to imagine another war ever happening here.
Having a "that's art? My grandchild could do better"-discussion every single year? I can do without that.
BertramCooper
Banned
Ten bucks says the EU is going to celebrate by going to Amsterdam and spending the entire €930,000 on pot and whores.
That's true but it does bug me that literature has elevated in such high position and other arts ignored. Best option would be get rid off it once and for all or start giving nobel to some aging artist (literature or anyother) and it could work as life time achievment award.
Why have a prize for each of the major sciences but one for 'all of art' though?
Obviously the point of the prize is to remind people of the bigger picture that the union is a lot more than the euro crisis. It's no coincidence EU was awarded this year.
They should have a prize for Maths too.
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