To The Editor:
Like Valerie Bigelow, I am not terribly enamored of carrots and sticks in public decision making. If school consolidation (or any other policy idea) is so terrific, then convince us citizens by the power of reasoned argument and by citing working examples from elsewhere. Offering us “carrots” (i.e., bribes) or threatening us with “sticks” treats voters like children and is anti-democratic.
Lawyers and debate team members (not to mention political partisans) use rhetoric to present their side of an argument which isn’t necessarily helpful to the average person. Moreover, we seem to have an abundance of politicians (and others) who appear to believe that simply asserting something means it is true. Likewise, mere speculation about the presumed results of any particular policy is just that – speculation which makes assumptions about things that may not actually happen and proposes them to be facts.
Perhaps what we need is a series of Socrates Café-type events on this issue (and others, like gun control) so people can hear the perspectives of all sides and ask pointed questions in a nonaggressive setting aimed at getting people to listen thoughtfully and then form an opinion. On the other hand, philosophers themselves have spent centuries disagreeing with each other without ever reaching any agreed upon consensus on important questions like truth or morality, so maybe we are just doomed to incessant squabbling as a substitute for civic dialogue.
Paul Kanke
Warren
