"One of the urgent task before everything else is that, we are used to consider, at least in our European society, that power is in the hand of the government and is exerted by some particular institution such as local governments, the police, the Army. These institutions transmit the orders, apply them and punish people who don't obey. But, I think that the political power is also exerted by few other institutions which seem to have nothing in common with the political power, which seem to be independent but which actually aren't. We all know that university and the whole educational system that is supposed to distribute knowledge, we know that the educational system maintains the power in the hands of a certain social class and exclude the other social class from this power. Psychiatry for instance is also apparently meant to improve mankind and the knowledge of the psychiatrists. Psychiatry is also a way to implement a political power to a particular social group. Justice also. It seems to me that the real political task in a society such as ours is to criticize the workings of institutions, that appear to be both neutral and independent, to criticize and attack them in such a manner that political violence has always exercise itself obscurely through them will be unmasked, so that one can fight against them."

- Foucault, from the transcripts of a debate with Chomsky

The Ugly Celebration Of The Modernity

The popularity and the prestige that are held by the Nobel Prize has created an illusion that each year there are at most three deserving candidates for each category among the six categories of all human endeavours worthy of the honour as inflated stature as the Nobel Prize. It's really disturbing to hear someone describing the Field Medal as the Nobel Prize of the mathematics, or the Turing Award as the Nobel Prize of the computer science. The ego of the Nobel Prize has infiltrated the discourse that are not even considered by The Nobel Prize Awarding Institutions. The Nobel Laureates are the sage of the modern world. Many of such sages with their nobel power to hypnotise the masses have endorsed racism, gender discrimination and wars. William Shockley and James Watson both have used their reputation to promote racist ideas. Mother Teresa in her Nobel Lecture after receiving Nobel Peace Prize said - "but I feel the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion". Among the Nobel Laureate warmongers we definitely cannot forget Henry Kissinger. Although there are many controversial individuals who have beed awarded the Nobel Prize, on each controversial decision of the Nobel Committee, the masses seem to focus on the merit of the recipient without questioning the merit of the prize itself. In the wake of the postmodern society, to walk on the line of Foucault, it is now essential that we criticise the Nobel Prize for all the political violences that has exercised itself obscurely through the Awarding Institutions under the disguise of being apolitical and impartial.

Merchant Of Death

One man's guilt is another man's honour.

It's not shocking that the establishment of the Nobel Prize is originated from the guilt that upset Alfred Nobel after reading his own obituary on a french newspaper with a belligerent heading -"Le marchand de la mort est mort," (The merchant of death is dead). The obituary, continued it's soul-crushing humiliation to the extent to describe Alfred Nobel as - "who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before."

As much as Alfred Nobel represented the epitome of the Imperial, Patriarchal violence, so does the Nobel Prize. Even though it seems that in his last days, guilt-ridden Alfred Nobel tried to reverse his reputation by his will of the Nobel Prize, but he only reaffirmed all the evil that he himself represented in his will. Rather displaying his excellent enterprising skills to pass on his business of political violence from an elite individual to few elite institutions under the impression of the enabler of the human brilliance. As patriarchal as it can get the Nobel Prize Awarding Institutions noticeably failed to acknowledge the achievement of the women for a whole century of human excellence. As imperial as it can get the Nobel Peace Prize Awarding Institution time after time have bestowed the Peace Prize upon the mass murderers. The Nobel Peace Prize failed to enable Obama to close down the GITMO as well successfully enabled him to murder women and children through drone attacks. The Nobel Peace Prize enabled Henry Kissinger to continue the Vietnam War!



All the Nobel Laureate scientists who have contributed to the 'Manhattan Project' certainly have found their hand in blood after Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing! The prestige of being a Nobel Laureate allowed Milton Friedman to win over public opinion on neoliberalism and globalisation in half an hour TV debates. Today the consequences are naked infront of our eyes, dismantling of the welfare state, rising income inequality, war and environmental damages. Winston Churchill with his nobel oratory skills and a Nobel Prize in literature could conveniently and effectively implement a man made famine in Bengal, starving millions of lives to slow and painful death.

There are certainly deserving candidates with fair contribution to the collective human progress honoured by the Nobel Committee. Martin Luther King Jr. definitely deserved the Nobel Peace Prize, but it could also be that the award made it inevitable that he must be assassinated for the sake of the status quo.

Jean-Paul Sartre

On October 22, 1964 in a statement made to the swedish press, Sartre elaborated on his refusal of Nobel Prize in Literature. Below is a quote from his statement.

"This attitude is based on my conception of the writer’s enterprise. A writer who adopts political, social, or literary positions must act only with the means that are his own—that is, the written word. All the honors he may receive expose his readers to a pressure I do not consider desirable. If I sign myself Jean-Paul Sartre it is not the same thing as if I sign myself Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Prizewinner. The writer who accepts an honor of this kind involves as well as himself the association or institution which has honored him. My sympathies for the Venezuelan revolutionists commit only myself, while if Jean-Paul Sartre the Nobel laureate champions the Venezuelan resistance, he also commits the entire Nobel Prize as an institution. The writer must therefore refuse to let himself be transformed into an institution, even if this occurs under the most honorable circumstances, as in the present case. This attitude is of course entirely my own, and contains no criticism of those who have already been awarded the prize. I have a great deal of respect and admiration for several of the laureates whom I have the honor to know."

- Sartre in his Nobel refusal letter

When the institutions are the destroyer of peace, an institutional peace prize with utmost honor is either an irony of the modern world or the most cruel practical joke of the millennium. Howbeit, we cheer or boo each year on the decision of the Nobel Prize Awarding Institutions, like the inundated audience of a reality TV show. Fragile humanity! We tend to imitate as imitating is easier than being creative. The educational institutions are hell bent on killing individual creativity. Our knowledge was manufactured via an assembly line, categorised into industrial necessities, putting to use for the growth of the state's GDP. Nobel Prize is the most prestigious, popular celebration of the best product manufactured via an assembly line. Thus inspiring us to shutdown our creativity and stay focused to be the best of the categorised lot, with the thin hope that we could be the best product ourselves.