As painful as it can be to endure, we are told that hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. It’s only modestly reassuring; hypocrisy can be difficult to endure and it can cause tensions and problems of its own.
■ Nevertheless, a world that values virtues is preferable to one that does not. And of all the possible hypocrisies, none might be greater than disparaging an entire country because a few people within it chose not to offer you an award. Yet that is the awkward position created by the President, who is oddly perturbed that he hasn’t been named to the Nobel Prize.
■ In the abstract (and maybe even in the particular), awards are how you keep people from fighting wars. Without them, people tend to aspire towards other clear-cut signs of fitness and strength (which is why war heroes are so openly revered across so many cultures).
■ Culturally, we need a sense of honor for things worth aspiring towards: It’s hard for people to aspire towards behaviors unless we place them on a pedestal. Merit -- real, freely chosen merit -- has to be rewarded with status and recognition. If people pursue honors rather than just heroics, then we stand a chance of perpetuating something like a civilization.