The discreet language of the Nobel Prize winners
By: Beatrice E. Rangel - 14/10/2025
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The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Maria Corina Machado, the indestructible fighter for Venezuelan freedom, compels reflection in our corner of the world.
Because like all Nobel Prize winners—including scientists—he carries a message for our region that demands unavoidable scrutiny.
In the case of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Nobel Commission is highlighting a phenomenon of singular significance for the economic and political future of Latin America: the maturity of civil society. Because Mrs. Machado's heroic feat would be impossible without two ingredients. The first is the conviction of civil society that, united under a single leadership, it is possible to defeat a sinister and criminal tyranny. The second ingredient is Mrs. Machado's conviction that the path to democracy is peaceful, democratic, and nonviolent. Both ingredients lay the foundation for a stable democracy when the dictatorship that has confiscated sovereignty from the Venezuelan people finally disappears.
In the case of the Nobel Prize in Economics, the Swedish Academy of Sciences has recognized those who have worked to understand the impact of innovation on the world's economic and social structures. In the words of two of the laureates, Professors Peter Hogwitt and Phillippe Aghion, XXX, "Innovation represents something new and is therefore creative. However, it is also destructive because it eliminates production processes; it makes knowledge and skills obsolete and eliminates middle-class jobs," the Academy of Sciences thus places the drama of our era in its proper perspective. Innovation is leading us to levels of comfort never imagined before, but it is also causing harm to a sector of society that needs attention. This is a warning to public policymakers that ignoring the damage caused by innovation can have adverse repercussions for democracy.
The chemistry prize was awarded to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar M. Yhaghi for the development of metal-organic frameworks that serve the purpose of improving gas storage, carbon capture, catalysis, and water purification processes. In short, for creating long-term environmental protection agents.
The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis for their discovery of macroscopic quantum tunneling and the quantization of energy in an electrical circuit. Both elements are essential for the development of quantum computing, whose capacity to solve complex problems is truly infinite.
Taken together, the most prestigious international recognitions tell us that there is no democracy without a strong civil society and that every mature civil society produces from within its midst the ideal leader (in Venezuela's case, a female leader) to lead it along the paths of freedom. Wise leaders create public policies to harness the positive effects of innovation and correct those that cause poverty and democratic disaffection. And also—via scientific recognition—academics tell us that we are already in the era of semantic networks and that, therefore, we humans must infuse our actions and behavior with elements of solidarity with other human beings and understanding of the environment to embrace progress and avoid conflict.
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