From Wikipedia, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the idiom :
Carrot and stick (also "carrot or stick") is an idiom that refers to a policy of offering a combination of rewards and punishment to induce behavior. Some claim that this usage of phrase is erroneous, and that in fact comes from the figure of a carrot on a stick. In this case, the driver would tie a carrot on a string to a long stick and dangle it in front of the donkey, just out of its reach. As the donkey moved forward to get the carrot, it pulled the cart and the driver so that the carrot would always remain out of reach.
I see a carrot.
Its so near I can almost reach out and touch it.
And yet, yet.
Someone up there seems to enjoy toying with me, for no matter how near it seems to be, the carrot is always, always just a little bit out of reach.
I'm going to break my back one day, stretching out for what I've always wanted.
Give me a break, will you?
~vid~
No. Like every other moron on the internet, you seem to have done the research for your assumption by only looking at pages that support YOUR opinion, or at best quickly glancing over a page that disputes it, but without actually stopping and contemplating the unbelievable notion that maybe, just maybe, you're mistaken. And you ARE mistaken. There was never a common practice of offering an animal a carrot as reward and beating it with a stick as punishment. I'm not saying that it didn't happen, I'm just saying that such a specific model of behavior modification was not well known. But, the image of someone riding a donkey and dangling a carrot from a stick just in front of the animal was common and well known for many decades, particularly in humor. It was very common in cartoons when I was a child.
ReplyDeleteIn your post, you anthropomorphize a donkey, granting the animal your own thought process. (Come to think of it, maybe the comparison of intellect is not greatly inaccurate...) Your only attempt at supporting your claim is dialogue you've imagined for a donkey, with the argument that one would have to be pretty stupid to fall for a carrot that stays just out of reach. Despite your generous imagination, donkeys are fucking stupid. All things being relative, they're smarter than many, many creatures, but what matters here is that they are definitely stupid enough to walk towards the "floating carrot," and stubborn enough to keep after it for a while. So, your argument consists of a fragment from one wiki article, your speculation that a donkey's thought process is just like yours, and you drive the argument home with the killing stroke- the inarguable and ingenious bit of rhetoric: "Give me a break, will you?"
Woooo! Who can argue with such solid, quantifiable evidence, especially when it's expressed so elegantly and intelligently?
I've spent a good deal of time reading both arguments, and the evidence presented by people who INSIST on the stick as punishment consistently begins with phrases like "I'd bet," and "I imagine." That makes it not evidence at all. It's just speculation on what the earliest users of the phrase meant when it started. I'm sure you'll just say to yourself, "What an idiot!" and continue patting yourself on the back for being one of the few "smart" people in a world of barely conscious, easily led, sheep. Do you say things like "Wake up, SHEEPLE!"? I assure you- just because you're brighter than the largely stupid majority, doesn't mean you're a genius. It just means that you're less stupid than most. I am pretty damned bright. The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know. I'm smart enough to be open to the idea that I could be wrong, and this is forgotten wisdom, but it takes courage and strength of character to admit when one is wrong. I'm sure it won't do any good, but you are wrong.
First off, I would like to congratulate you on the immense courage you have shown in commenting as Anonymous.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I wasn't aware that there was any argument of any form in this post. I was merely using an idiom to describe my state of mind, and my absolute mulish behaviour to keep on at what I was doing, and I inserted an explanation of the idiom (albeit from Wikipedia) for those readers of mine who were not as familiar with English idioms as the rest of us are.
I don't understand where you stand in leaving such an irrelevant comment on my post when you have absolutely no idea (and you have proven this in your comment) what I was using the idiom for, nor what I was talking about in the first place.
Please keep your rude opinions to yourself in the future when commenting on personal blogs. If you don't like what you're reading, move along. I have never advertised my blog nor this post, and I do not welcome unnecessary and unwarranted rudeness.
i realize that i am almost precisely 3 years late to this non-argument, but must express my concern, nonetheless.
ReplyDeletei am about to use this idiom in a post of mine own, and now understand, as well as can possibly be understood, the trepidation of bloggers everywhere who stand tippy-toed on the cliff, about to use the ever-divisive carrot/stick idiom.
may the good lord have mercy on my soul.
may i have the same stout heart as three blind mice in my endeavors.
Hello Bianca!
DeleteSorry your comment didn't get posted immediately, my blog requires that I moderate comments before they are posted. :|
I am not quite sure to which non-argument you're referring to : the post itself or the rather rude comment below it.
I hope the idiom suits you well in whatever post you are about to write, and may you not have such rude Anons commenting out of the blue.
Happy new year!