Awards Versus Money

11 Mar 2017

Recognition And Compensation

Most of the time I’m against all professional recognition and large amounts of compensation (i.e. awards and money). Because it distracts from the work. After all, what matters is the results, the product, the endpoint.

Which is all fine and true up until the point where someone gets recognized/ compensated whom doesn’t seem to really deserve it, forcing me to come to terms with my view of recognition/ compensation.

It turns out, it’s not that I think it’s best to be against all recognition/ compensation, it’s just that I think each should be given in exact proportion to accomplishment. But this is tricky business, translating accomplishment into value.

It’s especially difficult to do with awards because they are a discrete, as opposed to continuous, value. So it’s possible for those awarded to have done more or less than is deserving of that award. In other words, there’s a range of value/ work that is sufficient for the winning of an award and, depending on the value/ work type of that award and the award’s social factors (a big piece), the magnitude of this range can vary widely.

Money

This in contrast to money. Money is a continuous value and is almost exclusively, if the basic principles of economics are to be believed (which, not that I’m an expert or anything, I believe they are), awarded in exact proportion to value/ work provided. Money is, in theory, our abstract version of value.

When done right (which is actually harder to do than seems right), value/ work maps directly to some amount of money on the continuous money line. Which seems a more fair and accurate system than the mapping of ranges of values to some confined set¹ of awards, whose mapping is arbitrary and (arguably) more likely at the whim of social factors. (Although it should be admitted that monetary compensation is also very much at the whim of social factors.)

Now, I’m not advocating greed here. I think it’s sensible to have a slight distain for the dealings of money, because, as I mentioned, it keeps focus on the actual work/ value, which is what really matters. Money is simply the representation of that value/ work, in abstract terms, which can be a very useful concept. But it’s not something that should be focused on exclusively, as an end in it of itself. This misses the point of its being a representation, and leads to dangerous behavior.

Awards Are Social Value (Money Can’t Buy)

But this also isn’t to say that awards aren’t useful. In many areas, monetary exchange isn’t possible. In others, the pursuit of money is thought distasteful and wrong. Art and science are the most obvious examples.

Scientists/ artists who work solely for the money are (or at least were) thought beneath true artists/ scientists. (This is what it means to “sell out”, remember?) And it’s exactly these communities that awards are the most highly regarded and touted. The Nobel Prize and the Oscars are the most obvious ones that come to mind.²

The main thing about awards is that they represent mostly social value in their compensation, which is a space that money (at least we say³) can’t touch. You can’t buy collegues whom respect you just like you can’t buy a Fields Medal. By their very nature they represent what money can’t buy. As useful as money is in representing value, and transforming it from various value types to others, it can’t (at least explicitly) be used to exchange for certain types of social value.⁴

But, then again, for some people this might not matter much. Who would want something of immense value that can’t be translated into/ used for other things? What good’s a medal that can’t be used to pay rent with? Though it must be admitted that a reputation of recieving great awards inevitably leads to not having to worry about these concerns. Awards are social constructs whose basic premise/ existence all potential recipients must (at least nominally) buy into, so they can use the network associated with its winning of it.

They Are Both Representations

But, of course, there are the artists/ scientists/ mathematicians whom think it distainful to go after any awards/ money whatsoever. Who think that awards/ money are bollocks and true art/ science/ truth needs no awarding, needs no compensating.

And actually this is probably a sensible position. Mainly because (as I mentioned specifically about money) I’d say in general any mistaking of a representation for the real thing leads to dangerous behavior. It leads to wild goose chases that may never end. It leads to realizing, possibly after a lot of “hard” work, goals/ aspirations fictions outside reality.

And this may be the most reasonable view. It holds the work as the highest good/ value, which ultimately if done well enough for long enough will inevitably lead to either money or awards, or both. And which also actually results in (god forbid) real value.

---

1: This is the other issue with awards: they are by nature finite/ limited, whereas money is in effect infinite. Go Back

2: Except these days these awards are accompanied by monetary award as well, which is telling. I guess we’ve generally come to our senses about the value of capital even in these areas. Though this isn’t to say that the value of capital can’t easily be oversold there too. Remember the mistaking of representations. Go Back

3: But money can buy inordinate amounts of high-quality education for children, which can lead to awards, or grandchildren being children of professors and so on. It can also buy the funding of awards/ grants for great science/ art/ math, too. Go Back

4: In fact, in certain areas there are specific rules against it: prostitution is illegal; you can’t purchase a wife/ husband. Whereas in others it’s perfectly legal: you can adopt a child (which we could argue whether this a social or biological good); you can also use money to produce lots of social goods, donating to a soup kitchen, etc. Go Back