Carrots and Sticks

Hello everyone!

In my "Causes and Prevention of War" class, we've been discussing the concept of "Carrots and Sticks". Carrots are rewards that one country offers another to keep peace, and sticks are threats, usually military ones, but sometimes economic or diplomatic ones. For example, right now the Bush administration has been using nothing but sticks with Iran, surprise, surprise. Unfortunately, sticks usually backfire, but people are too stupid to realize it, so they usually get used.

Anyway, this concept also shows up in relations among individual people, too. Take this myspace bulletin I came across:

Subject: STOP... Thief!!

Body: whoever stole a keg tap from my party last night, you're a fucking douche and I hope karma beats your fuckin' ass..

you can still bring it back.

Here we see the thief being threatened with an ass-beating from karma (sticks), but the person is also offered a chance to become less of a douche (carrots) by returning the tap. We can learn much from this parable. There is always a chance for redemption.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Rob

PS: Don't forget to vote on the Rob Dow’s World One Year Anniversary Spectacular Special Extravaganza! As of 4:30 pm Wednesday, only two people have. Please don't make me downgrade from three to two readers in future columns...