Montaigne’s essay starts off making what seems like an obvious point that, I think, is no longer true:
We do not pick out for praise a man who takes trouble over the education of his children, since however right that is it is not unusual, no more than we pick out a tall tree in a forest where all the trees are tall. I do not think that any citizen of Sparta boasted of his valour, for it was the virtue of all the people of their nation; nor did he boast of his reliability or of his contempt for riches. No matter how great it may be, no recompense is allotted to any virtue which has passed into custom: I doubt if we would ever call it great once it was usual. Since such distinctions have no other value or prestige than the fact that few men enjoy them, to make them worthless you simply have to be generous with them. Even if there were more men nowadays who merited our Order it still ought not to have its prestige debased.
We don’t literally honor a father for pushing his kids to become tennis stars, but our culture gave Will Smith an Academy Award for playing Richard Williams in a movie—in a way honoring the real-life person deemed social valuable by using him as the vehicle to award an actor with his entrance into the Hollywood pantheon. And, of course, Smith used his coronation night to slap Chris Rock. To me, that assault ended what little remained of the Academy Awards’ credibility.
The Academy Awards have never been a great indicator of artistic merit. But at least for most of their history, there was some tension between the commercially successful, the critical favorites and the safe middlebrow where most award winners dwelled. There was always a shred of hope that over time, the artistry of film would win out and the Academy might honor riskier choices.
Instead, Hollywood embraces mediocrity and uses the awards to choose the type of mediocrity that bests represents our culture. If you’re going to remain in the dull middle, it’s a perfectly responsible thing to do. But as Montaigne noted, once you become generous with awards of honor, you make them worthless. And when your message of social value has to compete with shouts of “keep my wife’s name out of your fucking mouth,” then the whole effort becomes indistinguishable from pro wrestling.
Montaigne expressed concern that his culture focused excessively on status, and it’s hard to imagine him approving of what we have become. We never stop creating pointless awards to adorn what we do. There’s even a speechwriting award that I have refused to enter. It all seems like a money making gig to me—send in an entrance fee, win an award! I have more respect for participation trophies.
People run for offices to receive applause, play in All-Star games hoping to win the MVP, hire PR firms to get onto 30 under 30 magazine issues. The quest for status never ends.
Does any of it mean anything? Of course not, but there are entire industries devoted to analyzing and talking about the races for these honors. There are many people who spend more time watching loud men argue on cable TV about who deserved to play in an All Star game than they devote to watching the actual game. And next week, they will have all forgotten who won the game.
Montaigne was in the same camp as those who once hoped to reform awards and make them more meaningful. I sat there once, but I’ve now given up. I no longer devote time to these statues of self congratulations.
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