Thanks to bouilhet for finding the passage I mentioned in my earlier post (from Wittgenstein’s Nephew):
If one disregards the money that goes with them, there is nothing in the world more intolerable than award ceremonies. I had already discovered this in Germany. They do nothing to enhance one’s own standing, as I had believed before I received my first prize, but actually lower it, in the most embarrassing fashion. Only the thought of the money enabled me to endure these ceremonies; this was my sole motive for visiting various ancient city halls and tasteless assembly rooms– until the age of forty. I let them piss on me in all these city halls and assembly rooms, for to award someone a prize is no different from pissing on him. And to receive a prize is no different from allowing oneself to be pissed on, because one is being paid for it. I have always felt that being awarded a prize was not an honor but the greatest indignity imaginable. For a prize is always awarded by incompetents who want to piss on the recipient. And they have a perfect right to do so, because he is base and despicable enough to receive it. Only in extremities, when one’s life and existence are threatened– and only until the age of forty– is one justified in receiving any prize or distinction, with or without an accompanying sum of money. When I received prizes I did not have the excuse that I was suffering extreme hardship or that my life and existence were threatened; hence by receiving them I made myself not only low and contemptible but positively vile, in the truest sense of the word.
Plufyn says:
Was this written by someone who was close to winning a Nobel Prize, but then never got it?
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October 12, 2009, 8:24 pmPatHMV says:
I’ve received a few awards that I would toss into this category. They are most often made by people who want something from you — money, time, patronage, favors — or by people trying to reward you for providing those things at some point in the past (often a combination of the two). While the latter feels rather better than the former, it’s really just a matter of determining when payment is due. A prostitute is still a prostitute, whether she gets paid up front or after services are rendered.
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October 12, 2009, 8:41 pmSMatthewStolte says:
Although this quote packs a punch, I find it difficult to take such an attitude seriously.
Ingratitude is an hateful thing, even among those whose list of thanksgivings is far shorter than my own.
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October 12, 2009, 8:53 pmjccamp says:
I’m trying to envision someone making this exact speech at, say, the Academy Awards...
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October 12, 2009, 9:00 pmcorneille1640 says:
I disagree. I recently won a prize at my workplace, and it was given by very talented people while I was the incompetent one. No p***ing was involved.
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October 12, 2009, 9:21 pmroad2serfdom says:
Did they tell you it was raining?
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October 12, 2009, 10:33 pmDave Hardy says:
Got some while working for government. It was a little embarrassing, in front of your peers and all (who’d done no less than you), but everyone recognized you hadn’t written up the commendation and were going thru it for the filthy lucre attached. It would have been easier if they’d recognized that we were a mercenary bunch and just thrown us the money.
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October 12, 2009, 11:13 pmfnook says:
Thanks for posting that quote. Didn’t read your original post but that is some beautiful prose. I turn 40 shortly so I guess my time for accepting cash enhanced awards is over, unless of course I’m comfortable with vileness.
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October 12, 2009, 11:34 pmLarryA says:
Define “award.”
Somehow working my buns off for several years and finally earning my Eagle Scout badge doesn’t fit this category.
Neither do the National Federation of Press Women communications awards my wife and I have won over the years, judged by our peers.
Of course there’s no cash attached to either of them.
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October 12, 2009, 11:55 pmyao says:
Is this “Bernhard on Prizes” or “Bernhard’s Fictional Character on Prizes”? I’d be a little more careful in distinguishing an author’s voice from speeches uttered in a work of fiction.
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October 13, 2009, 12:05 amPeteP says:
If the Norwegians would like to give ME a million dollars for doing absolutely nothing, I’d LET them piss on me. Quite literally.
$ 1,000,000 buys a whole lot of ‘getting over it’ time :-)
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October 13, 2009, 1:10 amPendulum says:
What a brilliant man he was. Just a brilliant thinker.
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October 13, 2009, 1:41 amWidmerpool says:
And the brilliance starts right away in the first sentence: “there is nothing in the world more intolerable than award ceremonies.” What is that I see slouching towards Stockholm? What rough beast, its hour come at last, shuffling to the podium? The horror, the horror.
Sometimes hyperbole is justified–and sometimes it’s just silly.
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October 13, 2009, 8:19 amSnaphappy says:
Widemerpool has it. Which would be worse?
a) Another Holocaust
b) Another Hurricane Katrina
c) Another World War
d) Another MTV Music Awards ceremony
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October 13, 2009, 9:18 amMike says:
I don’t see any semblance of a rational argument in the quote.
Awards serve an important social function: they tell us who to esteem. They are one among many credentials we use to facilitate this function, including for example titles and diplomas. Their value lies in their efficiency: knowing the credentials of an individual helps me decide to what extent I should trust him, sparing me the labor of performing a full investigation into his past. Because people like esteem, awards motivate those who seek prominence.
Now it is true that some people/groups attempt to hijack this utility, because it doesn’t cost much to hand over a plaque but at the same time this could in principle convey a valuable credential. This is not unlike obtaining a diploma from a degree mill.
This is why I think a monetary prize is an important component of an award. Monetary prizes, of course, cost money. This constrains the awarders ability to award prizes, and presumably the awarders respond by giving more care to their selections. The incentive of the awarders, presumably, is to elevate their own status, by affiliation with the successful award winners.
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October 13, 2009, 12:44 pmBlargh says:
I don’t see any semblance of a rational argument in the quote.
It’s not meant to be a rational argument.
Also, while it’s a quote from a fictional character, it probably accurately reflected Bernhard’s views. It can’t be understood without reference to Bernhard’s political beliefs and love/hate relationship to his home country of Austria. By the way, Bernhard actually did say something similar to this when he won Austria’s top literary prize, along the lines of “[thanks, but] everything is ridiculous when one thinks of death.”
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October 13, 2009, 10:52 pmBlargh says:
A little more context:
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October 13, 2009, 11:00 pmRyan Waxx says:
Not possible. It contains words longer than four letters.
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October 15, 2009, 8:16 am