Throffer is a portmanteau of threat and offer. The term was first used in print by political philosopher Hillel Steiner. It has not been universally adopted and it is sometimes considered synonymous with carrot and stick. The theoretical concerns surrounding throffers have been practically applied concerning workfare programmes.
About Throffer in brief
Throffer is a portmanteau of threat and offer. The term was first used in print by political philosopher Hillel Steiner. It has not been universally adopted and it is sometimes considered synonymous with carrot and stick. The theoretical concerns surrounding throffers have been practically applied concerning workfare programmes. In such systems, individuals receiving social welfare have their aid decreased if they refuse the offer of work or education. Some writers argue that offers, threats and throffer may all be coercive if certain conditions are met. For others, by contrast, if a throffer is coercive, it is explicitly the threat aspect that makes it so. Other writers, while electing to use the word, consider it a poor one. For instance, literary scholar Daniel Shore calls it ‘a somewhat unfortunate term’ while using it in his analysis of John Milton’s Paradise Regained. In addition to Steiner’s original account of throffer, other authors have suggested definitions and ideas on how to differentiate throffer from threats and offers. For an offer, such as ‘you may use my car whenever you like’, the offer is not the preferred use of the car, but the consequence of compliance. For a threat, the threat is that the recipient of the offer would be confronted with the normal and preducable course of events which would confront the recipient if the intervention were not to occur. In the article that introduces the term Throffer, Steiner considers the difference between interventions in the form of a threat and those in theform of an offer.
He concludes that the distinction is based on how the consequences of compliance or noncompliance differ for the subject when compared to the norm. The concept of ‘normalcy’ is presupposed in literature on coercion, as changes in well-being are not absolute, but merely relative. Noncompliance is not an absolute change, but a relative change that requires a standard and predUCable change in circumstances. For example, in the case of sex offenders, noncompliance can result in more lenient sentences if they accept medical treatment. Other examples are offered by psychiatrist Julio Arboleda-Flórez, who presents concerns about throffer in community psychiatry, and management expert John J. Clancey, who talks about throffer in employment. Several writers have also observed that throffer presented to people convicted of crimes, particularly sex offender, can result. The term ‘throffer’ has not, however, been universally used; Michael R. Rhodes notes that there has been some controversy in the literature on whether to use throffer. He notes that a number of writers, including Lawrence A. Alexander, David Zimmerman and Daniel Lyons, who do not use the term. Some, including political scientists Deiniol Jones and Andrew Rigby, consider throffer to be synonymous with ‘carrot and stick’ The term is also used to refer to the way a donkey is offered a carrot to encourage compliance, while noncompliance is punished with a stick.
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This page is based on the article Throffer published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 11, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
