In the phrase “carrots and sticks” “carrots” mean blandishments or rewards; “sticks” mean penalties or punishments. Withholding a reward is not a punishment; failing to apply a penalty is not a reward. Punishments are punishments, sticks are sticks, rewards are rewards, carrots are carrots.
Context: on PRI’s The World program this afternoon the earnest radio program host characterized the EU’s threat to withhold aid from the Palestinian Authority unless Hamas renounced violence as “an enormous stick”. Nonsense. This is confused thinking. If the EU chooses to withhold a reward for good behavior from a badly behaving political party, that’s a neutral act not to mention an acknowledgment of reality. A punishment i.e. “a stick” would be placing a bounty on the heads of Hamas leaders, for example.
Let’s use our metaphors properly lest they lose all meaning. They’re a vital national resource!
