Guy saved a billion lives? Never heard of him.

 

Norman Borlaug was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by President Bush this week. He adds this honor to his Nobel Peace Prize and his Presidential Medal of Freedom and joins Mother Teresa, Elie Weisel, Nelson Mandela, and MLK Jr. as the only people in history to have been awarded all three.

Never heard of Norman Borlaug? Most people haven’t. He’s a 93-year-old agronomist who is credited with breakthroughs which have kept at least one billion people from starving over the last several decades.

In this piece for Newsweek, Jonathan Alter points out how screwed up our national cult of celebrity has become:

Borlaug’s success in feeding the world testifies to the difference a single person can make. But the obscurity of a man of such surpassing accomplishment is a reminder of our culture’s surpassing superficiality. . . Great scientists and humanitarians were once heroes and cover boys. No more. For Borlaug, still vital at 93, to win more notice, he would have to make his next trip to Africa in the company of Angelina Jolie.

But the western world can’t be bothered to take notice of extraordinary genius applied for the good of mankind. Our energies must be focused obsessively on what club Paris partied in last night and what designer’s shoes Posh was seen wearing.

And their contributions to the good of mankind have been precisely what?. . .

~ by The Oracle on July 22, 2007.