The arts are not competitive sports

Literary awards have their uses. At their best, they spotlight deserving works and give them a boost in the relentless competition for public attention. Genre awards like the Hugo create news events and help publicize the genre. For writers, they provide the same kind of emotional support we get from fan mail and autograph sessions. Somebody out there likes what you’re doing. You aren’t the only person in the world who thinks it was worth the effort. (The fact that an editor bought it and a publisher put money behind it says something, too, but one should never underestimate the writer’s need for approval.)

An award can even have a practical effect on a writer’s career. An editor once told me an award can have a decisive effect on the publishing committees that approve proposals for new books. The marketing director is a key figure in those committees, and marketing directors like to hear that an author has won an award. “Award-winning author of....” gives them a short, effective cover blurb.

In spite of all that, awards conflict with the basic nature of the arts. They turn the arts into a zero-sum game — a competition in which every gain for one person is a loss for someone else.

Winners and losers

Competitive sports are an obvious example of the limitations of zero-sum games. If an Olympic swimmer beats her competitor by a tenth of a second, she’s a winner and the other swimmer is a loser. The difference between them may be trivial, but the winner receives worldwide fame, with all the opportunities for wealth that go with it, and the loser receives a listing among the also-rans.

In the arts, that trivial distinction becomes irrelevant. Musicologists may tells us that Beethoven’s late quartets are the greatest string quartets ever written, but their judgment has no practical significance. Beethoven’s last quartets may be better than all the quartets produced by Mozart or Brahms, but so what? We can cheerfully listen to all of them, according to our moods and the whims of the musicians and managers who arrange concert programs.

Granted, all artists and writers are locked in a ceaseless competition for our time and attention. We can’t consume everything. But our lives are roomier than the creators of top ten lists seem to think. I’ve read War and Peace and The Hunt for Red October, and they were both great reads. If you pressed me, I might have to admit War and Peace is a greater novel. But I don’t have to make that judgment.

Off with their heads

Awards and lists force artificial choices. They distort the relationship between artists and their audience by eliminating all the nuances that affect our day-to-day decisions. If I decide I’ve heard several performances of Beethoven’s Ninth lately and I’d rather hear a Network for New Music program with new pieces by Jennifer Higdon and Andrea Clearfield, I’m not deciding Higdon and Clearfield are greater composers than Beethoven, and all those scowling busts should be tossed in the trash. There’s room in my life for all three of them — which I’m certain they would all agree.

Lists and awards are exercises in evaluation. They turn artists into schoolchildren, sitting at their desks while the teacher announces their grades. “Your quartets get an A plus, Ludwig. I’m giving you a plain A, Wolfgang. I’m afraid you only get a C, Antonín Dvořák.”

Works of art are experiences, not test papers. We don’t turn to the arts because we want to hand out grades. You heard the angels sing, or you didn’t. If you did, you aren’t going to fret about their current rank in the celestial league standings.