Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Why did Jean-paul Sartre decline his Nobel prize.?

Existentialism based on its fundamentals and deep notice to human as a human needs


to humanity as a free human.


And doesn't accept politics institutes.|||Hello Mia Kay,


Jean-paul Sartre said he always refused official distinctions and did not want to be "institutionalised". M. Sartre was interviewed by journalists outside the Paris flat of his friend Simone de Beauvoir, authoress and playwright. He also told the press he rejected the Nobel Prize for fear that it would limit the impact of his writing. He also expressed regrets that circumstances had given his decision "the appearance of a scandal".|||There were a number of reasons that Sartre declined. First, it must be remembered that he heard that he was a candidate and wrote right away telling them not to consider him. His letter was addressed wrong and never reached them. The first reason he declined was because of the "Western" or capitalist bias of the prize. He felt that the prize was a political statement that disagreed with communist values (ie Soviet Union). Sartre said that he would refuse the Lenin Prize (their equivalent) as well. He was working on a project of a third choice between the horrors of both communism and capitalism, and he felt that both of these prizes were choosing one side or the other. He also felt that the prize was exclusively for Western Europeans and Americans, complaining that the South Americans, with many talented authors, had not, up to that point, ever won a single prize. Finally, as has been mentioned above, by accepting the award he become part of the institution. He would no longer be just "JP Sartre" but "JP Sartre winner of the Nobel Prize."


Sartre did not know the rules of the prize. He wasn't trying to create a scandal by declining the prize, as he attempted to decline before it was awarded. The famous letter that he wrote to the Nobel committee which is used (ironically) as his acceptance speech bears this out. The Nobel committee decided that even if the award was declined it was awarded anyways (to deter the possibility that ones home country would force someone not to accept, which has happened). Sartre, to my knowledge, is the only person to have declined the award for personal reasons. However, after he declined the award wasn't given to a Frenchman for a long time. They did diversify the Nobel prize to and began giving awards to Latin American writers.





Cheers!

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