When Honor Loses Its Meaning!

In times past, honoring someone was an event of gravitas. It was anticipated because it stood behind a significant achievement, a career worth pausing to reflect upon, and a name that left an indelible mark impossible to ignore. The shield presented on stage was akin to a certificate declaring that its recipient had contributed something worthy of being preserved in memory. Today, however, honors have proliferated to such an extent that the question arises: What remains of the meaning of honoring? Festivals multiply, celebrations follow one another, shields are distributed lavishly, and titles are bestowed without restraint. “Genius,” “creative,” “esteemed,” “pillar,” “pioneer,” “exceptional,” “legend”... words have swollen in size until they nearly emptied of meaning, turning the dictionary of praise into a dictionary of flattery, not evaluation. The problem is not celebrating those who deserve it. The problem begins when honoring becomes an end in itself, when celebration becomes a facade for patronage, a space for flattery, or a closed circle of mutual puffery, where everyone knows what will be said before the ceremony even begins. This puffery here is not merely beautiful words spoken on stage, but a whole culture that sometimes makes praise more important than achievement, relationships more important than merit, and social presence more important than the work that is supposed to be the reason for the honor.

Even stranger, some names have become almost permanent guests at award ceremonies. Specific faces move from one platform to another, from one festival to the next, year after year, receiving the same shields and hearing the same phrases, as if creativity has narrowed its scope to be confined to the same names. Can one person really be the “most honored” every year, at one occasion after another, without raising questions about the space that should be given to new faces and experiences? Honoring should open the door to achievements deserving the spotlight, not redistribute the spotlight to those who already live in it. There is a young artist who has produced a striking work but received no attention. There is a writer with a genuine project but lacking the network of relationships that would lead him to the stage. There is a researcher, director, or musician working away from the limelight, perhaps deserving of honor more than names accustomed to dominating the scene. But when patronage becomes part of the selection mechanism, the question is no longer “Who deserves it?” but rather sometimes: “Who do we know? Who do we want to please? Who ought to be present?” Here, honoring loses its most important asset: symbolic justice. For even if honoring does not grant money or position, it grants recognition. And when recognition is given without merit, it transforms from a moral value into general flattery, potentially losing some of its value for those who truly deserve it.

Perhaps what further complicates the picture is the language used to describe the honored. The word “genius” has become frighteningly easy to use. “Creative” no longer necessarily refers to someone with a distinctive experience. “Esteemed” may become just an adjective added to a name because the occasion requires a ceremonial formulation. But what happens when we apply the description “exceptional” to everyone? We negate the very concept of exception. When everyone is a “pioneer,” it is no longer clear who actually paved the way. When every celebrity becomes a “legend,” the legend becomes a title available for distribution. When we bestow great words without restraint, we do not elevate the value of the honored so much as we diminish the value of the word itself. Language, too, requires justice. And honoring requires the courage to allow the honored entity to say: This person deserves it now, and this person does not yet deserve it. Because not honoring is not an insult, just as honoring is not an obligatory courtesy. It is not required to prevent festivals from celebrating, nor to diminish the value of those who have spent their lives in art, culture, and creativity. What is required is to restore the meaning of honoring, and to make the shield a result of a career, not a means of manufacturing an image or creating stardom out of thin air. Those with long careers have the right to be celebrated, but new generations also have the right to find a place under the spotlight. Those with a big name have the right to be honored, but it is not just for a big name to become a barrier to every name that has not yet had the opportunity.

Perhaps today we need fewer, more valuable festivals, more independent committees, clearer criteria, and broader spaces for names that lack the sufficient relationships to reach the stage. Above all, we need to stop puffing people up for a while. Art does not grow through excessive praise, culture does not advance through the abundance of shields, and the true creator does not need to be called a genius every year to prove his genius. His works do that. Time does that. Memory does that. As for honoring, its function is to discover value and celebrate it, not to create it through flattery. Not everyone who ascends the stage deserves the shield, not everyone who carries a shield has become a pillar, and not everyone who is repeatedly honored becomes more valuable. Sometimes, the best thing a ceremonial festival can do is ask itself, before distributing its shields: Do we honor the creator because he created... or do we honor him because we are accustomed to his presence on the stage?