Prince of Asturias Awards 1981–2014. Speeches

P rince of A sturias A wards 1981-2014. S peeches 9 We must ensure that this evolution is guided by ethics, equanimity and justice so that the gap between some countries and others does not grow, so that peoples are not separated more than they are now, so that the lives of human beings throughout the planet can continue to improve. The British sociologist Anthony Giddens has been granted the Award for Social Sciences. The Director of the prestigious London School of Economics, one of the major research centres and think tanks in the world —which Giddens has led to its greatest heights—, is considered one of the most outstanding sociologists in the international field. His work has been, and remains, one of the most influential of our times in its field, and is unquestionably the most widely read and quoted of his generation. He is also renowned for his innovative, perceptive observations, which transcend the borders of his science and touch upon the fields of history of thought, class structures, nationalisms, family relationships and political thought. He is the author of numerous important studies that have been translated into thirty languages. His book Sociology has become an essential text in many of the world’s universities, Spanish ones amongst them. He is the master of generations of young sociologists, and has led them to see that some of the clearest aims of social science are to question dogma, appreciate cultural variety and understand the workings of organizations, thereby to increase the possibilities of human freedom. Anthony Giddens has rebuilt the classic tradition of sociology, moulding it masterfully to contemporary reality in a spectacular tour de force of synthesis. Yet the most influential part of his work is in how he has explained “reflexive modernity”; that is, the hallmarks of our society and their main consequences. The indispensable work of Giddens contributes to our understanding of our world, accompanies and guides us, offering, in short, a radical reflection on what a better life and better society for all might be like as the twenty-first century dawns. The corner stone of the cinema production of an exceptional American, Woody Allen —who has been granted the Award for the Arts— comprises an original, lively awareness of this new era straddling two centuries, and a nostalgia for a more mutually supportive, human and happier world, where joie de vivre, hope and illusions are ever-present. Woody Allen, whose sensitivity and talent arouses universal admiration, is a genius who has managed to combine the roles of director, actor and film scriptwriter in his art. Although he has modestly said that his talent is simply to make us laugh, we all know that his films have a far wider and profounder meaning than just humour, even though the latter is one of the hallmarks of his filmmaking. We perceive the meaning in his films—which are agonizing and stimulating at one and the same time— of life and death, love and religion, psychoanalysis and different art forms, the role of women and the witty, continual jibes at a society that turns its back on essential, simple human values by the day. At the same time, noble feelings such as tenderness and modesty, subtle intelligence and cordiality, emotions and pity, besides a wealth of irony, continually intertwine in the life of the main character of his films: an original character, impossible to categorise, who lives immersed in a time of urgency, an unpredictable contradictory time, which he somehow manages to bustle his way through with a sensitivity and humanity that is replete with dignity. Woody Allen has set his film world in an emblematic metropolis of our times that is wounded right now by fanaticism, New York City, which he has shown us through more humane eyes, but even more than that, through the eyes of poetry. Deep down in his work there lies a profound criticism of the city and the society his characters inhabit, and yet the poetic atmosphere that pervades the scenes of his films make us contemplate his world with feelings of tenderness and a sense of humour. The European public have felt this intensely, and for them the cinema of our times cannot be conceived of without the work and figure of Woody Allen. Our Foundation has always been particularly responsive to efforts to defend the environment, “The men and women who are working tirelessly at the Antarctic research stations are the vanguard of a project that is fundamental to the lives of those that follow us.”