Trouble among the Swedish literati
And I mean big, big trouble.
No Nobel Prize in literature will be awarded this year as a result. Pity (that’s sarcasm, in case it’s not clear).
That first link I gave is to a very long story about the rot on the Nobel committee that ordinarily awards the prize, and the repercussions. If you don’t want to read something that long, that second link is much shorter. Here’s an excerpt from the latter:
The Academy, the 18-member body that chooses a laureate and awards the Nobel Prize in Literature annually, has seen seven of its members depart, including its first-ever female leader. In a release, the Academy noted that this would be the eighth time in its history it had chosen to declare what it called a “reserved prize,” and the fifth time the delayed prize would be awarded at the same time as the following years time.
But this time is different. The Academy has been reckoning with accusations of sexual harassment as the #MeToo movement continues to spotlight sexual abuse and misconduct that has long gone unaddressed in numerous entertainment industries, including the literary and publishing worlds.
The uproar surrounds the behavior of French photographer Jean-Claude Arnault, an associate of the Academy—he is married to one of its former members, Katarina Frostenson—who has been accused of sexually assaulting at least 18 women, including, possibly, the princess of Sweden. Arnault, through his lawyer, has denied all claims.
It’s a lot more complicated than that, actually, and also involves Frostenson, who’s been accused of separate (non-sexual) offenses. The longer article goes into that in exhaustive detail, but the bottom line is that these people seem to be incredibly full of themselves and to feel that rules are only for the little people.
To completely eliminate sexual assaults I propose to have all male babies castrated at birth. Extinction of the human kind is just a small price to pay to achieve the glorious goal of absolute gender equality.
I don’t know how many people realize that the Nobels are generally distinguished between the hard Nobel Prizes (the hard sciences like chemistry, physics, medicine, etc.) and the soft awards of economics, literature and the peace prize.
The soft Nobels are given out of Oslo (Norway) not Stockholm (Sweden), and although I don’t know anything about the composition of the two committees (are there two?), note that the controversies over the past thirty years have been associated with the soft prizes.
Dave:
This isn’t just about sexual assault, or behavior by males, or one person. There are many other aspects and charges.
Also, the accusations that do concern sexual abuse and harassment go back many many years and this was a sort of open-secret Harvey Weinstein situation rather than something milder. And his behavior was embedded in a culture of entitlement and arrogance on the part of many., both men and women
They’re all Democrats, eh?
T:
Click on that first link I gave. It’s all about Sweden and the Swedish Academy. Here’s Wiki:
Good to see literature living up to its reputation 😉
a culture of entitlement and arrogance on the part of many., both men and women
#MeToo #SecularReligion
Men and women are equal in rights and complementary in Nature. The gendered differences between the sexes do not elevate women to angels or demote men to devils. #PrinciplesMatter. Judge men and women by the content of their character, not the “color” of their skin.