The Nobel Committee and Sartre

ON THE RIGHT

There is something about Jean-Paul Sartre’s rejection of the Nobel Prize that is wonderfully pure. Because there is something about accepting a prize offered by anyone at all that suggests an acquiescence—unwise, in some cases—in the prize-giver’s standards. If you are offered an award by a committee that previously had given the award to Tom Dick and Harry, there is a sense in which you become a part of the com-munity or Tom Dick and Harry. Sartre recognized this—and said no. I honor his stand as a refreshing act of individuality and wish that others who have been tendered the prize had refused it, along with Mr. Nobel’s 53-gees, as grandly. It is of course a pity that M. Sartre advanced the wrongest reasons for gainsaying the honor.

About the Author

William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

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ON THE RIGHT

There is something about Jean-Paul Sartre’s rejection of the Nobel Prize that is wonderfully pure. Because there is something about accepting a prize offered by anyone at all that suggests an acquiescence—unwise, in some cases—in the prize-giver’s standards. If you are offered an award by a committee that previously had given the award to Tom Dick and Harry, there is a sense in which you become a part of the com-munity or Tom Dick and Harry. Sartre recognized this—and said no. I honor his stand as a refreshing act of individuality and wish that others who have been tendered the prize had refused it, along with Mr. Nobel’s 53-gees, as grandly. It is of course a pity that M. Sartre advanced the wrongest reasons for gainsaying the honor.