Dynamite stuff
Posted by Marc Hodak on November 25, 2007 under History | 
2 Comments to Read
On this day in 1867, Alfred Nobel patented dynamite–a stable compound of nitroglycerine and silica that could be remotely detonated with a blasting cap. We could now literally move mountains.
Thirty years later, Nobel’s will was executed with a 31 million kronor (about $5 million at the time) endowment for the prizes for which he is now best remembered. Whether or not he created a “Peace” prize out of a sense of guilt, as some historians contend, I highly doubt. But there is no doubt that his invention made both large-scale construction and large-scale killing much easier, and he was acutely aware of the implications of the latter for his legacy.
If Nobel’s impact on the world is considered by some (not me) ambiguous, the value of his Peace prize is (at least, I think) far more so. Here is an excellent primer on what it takes to win one.
Kat said,
It has long been known that the Nobel Peace Prize is joke. I don’t much agree with the Reason article either, though. I agree that defining “peace” is difficult but I don’t think that the standard Reason uses – pacifism – is correct. In fact, I think pacifism is immoral. If someone violently attacks your family, standing on the sidelines and trying to reason with the unreasonable attacker is immoral. If the Nazis annihilate jews, sitting on your hands and allowing them to proceed in peace (there’s that word again), is helping them out by simply not stopping it.
The simple fact is that the world is full of conflict and always has been. From the beginning of time we’ve had to make trade-offs and trade-offs are conflicts in themselves. I would like peace, but I would also not like to be ruled by a Muslim Caliphate. The two desires are at odds. As long as man is not transformed into Marx’s perfect fantasy of non-acquisitive man, these dilemmas will remain with us.
Whatever the criteria for winning the Nobel Peace Prize and however we define “peace”, it should be noted that Al Gore’s idiotic movie won him the prize over a woman who risked her own life to save the lives of Jewish children in Poland.
M. Hodak said,
I believe that “Si vis pacem, para bellum” is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for securing peace. I don’t know what is sufficient, especially in a WMD age, but clearly the Nobel committee is not even in the same discussion on this matter.