LogFAQs > #909992788

pinky0926 posted...

Sounds like they've gone back to awarding it to humanitarians that actually deserve it

I'm not sure what you mean by "gone back". The peace prize has always been controversial in the sense that the laureates vary by "type".
I read something a while back that was quite interesting, and it classified laureates broadly in two different categories:
- One is the humanitarian ones that you mention, where they've done a lot of good things "on the ground". The purpose here is not just to award but also to raise awareness of particular struggles and give the laureate a bigger platform for their continued work. This year's laureates, Liu Xiaobo, and Malala would be typical examples.
- The other is when the prize is typically awarded to politicians or otherwise already public and powerful people, and can arguably be seen to be intended more as a type of pressure. Like, a "Kissinger and Tho received the peace prize, now they can't really back out of the agreement they made" type thing. Arafat, Rabin, and Peres would be another example of that kind of thing.

The explanation was given to try and make sense out of Obama winning the prize. It seemed to the writer that he was a person from the second category but with reasons more from the first category, i.e., breaking a kind of glass ceiling in US politics and to add to his platform and legitimacy. We can all see the outcome, but it was an interesting take on things nonetheless.
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