The Greatest Award of All: On Power, Prizes, and Phallic Substitutes
It seems to be a human condition to be keen about prizes. We create them for all sorts of categories, some are well-conceived to congratulate a lifetime's work, while others exist merely to inflate egos. In fact, prizes are a reminder of how eager we are to be recognized.
Some of our beloved prizes, such as the one Alfred Nobel imagined, recognize prominent human beings in different fields for their craft. Very few of them have devoted their lives, literally, to their work like Marie Curie (who won the Nobel Prize in a man's world and died because of her discoveries). However, in this same realm, the literature and peace prizes are quite questionable. Some artists like Bob Dylan have questioned their nominations. As for the peace prize, well, it seems we need wars to have peace nominees.
Other prizes are well known for celebrating masterpieces, but again, it's perhaps a Western cultural trait to celebrate any human creation, which, in some sense, could be interesting to watch in real time with LinkedIn badges, Instagram number of followers and likes, stupid streaming videos with brain-rot content or a 15 minutes Ted Talk about a complex problem such black holes. Now, art is a very difficult thing to judge. We see this in music with the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, in movies with the Oscars, and so forth. There's this edge where, once you tell an artist about recognition, and they seek it, well, the art stops and becomes something else, it gets corrupted. If one as an artist aims to win awards, probably pop featuring starts to be the latter, maybe we can ask Maroon 5 after winning the “Best New Artist” in 2005 like a rock band, or let’s take Mr. Hemingway out of his grave when he idolized his “macho-man” writing after receiving the famous Pulitzer prize with his novel The Old Man and the Sea.
Moving forward, we have the latest of the latest awards in contemporary Anthropocene history: the FIFA Peace Award. One could say that football is a sport through which conflicts could be solved because it has the power to gather disrupted societies (the World Cup). Thus, any prize at that level should logically be given to sportsmen and women. Now, why on earth do our useless politicians deserve this kind of distinction?
We all witnessed our friend Donald “Toddler" J. Trump's eager desire for a peace prize. According to his records, he has solved every conflict on the planet, even in the galaxy and beyond. In one of his uplifting and intelligible speeches said, “I stopped seven wars but won't get a Nobel... they'll give it to some guy that didn't do a damn thing”. On his record: Israel vs Iran (he dropped some bombs here and there); India and Pakistan (we don’t know exactly what he did); Cambodia vs Thailand (there’re still in conflict); Armenia vs Azerbaijan (he gave handshakes and… that’s it); the RD Congo vs Rwanda (we bet that the peace agreement signed in the US is more like a pressure to have access to rare earth minerals than real peace); and Egypt vs Ethiopia (very questionable conflict though). He has done more than the Jedi! His ego is so vast that we can come up with a new award, which many people in power, men, of course, will happily, but with a bit of shame, join.
You know why men seek power and gift jewelry to women? Deep down, they have to compensate for their lack of satisfaction. Having awards and global recognition is the only thing that keeps them in shape, because outside of that, when they're in their beds or in the bathroom checking their own nature saying, “boy, what a frustration it must be not to have the greatest award of all”. To quote the greatest of all frustrated men, Freud, “It is quite unmistakable that all weapons and tools are used as symbols for the male organ: e.g., ploughshare, hammer, gun, revolver, dagger, sword, etc.”. Check your prizes’ size and let the winner takes his phallus to the magic mirror.
