I’ve always found the story of the tortoise and the hare interesting, although not necessarily for the reasons it’s usually told. We’re taught that it’s a lesson about perseverance, about the virtue of being slow and steady. I think there’s a much more interesting lesson in the hare himself, and in the particular kind of arrogance that makes an otherwise capable individual profoundly stupid.
Consider the circumstances. The hare challenges the tortoise to a race. He chooses a competition in which he possesses every conceivable advantage, against an opponent whose limitations are obvious. He knows he’s faster, and he’s right. He knows the tortoise is at an enormous disadvantage, and he’s right about that too. What interests me is how quickly those perfectly reasonable observations become something else entirely.
The hare doesn’t merely believe he can win. He believes he cannot lose. More importantly, he assumes that the tortoise’s disadvantages reflect some broader inferiority, that a creature who cannot compete with him on equal terms must also be incapable of understanding the situation.
That’s a particular kind of stupidity, and one for which I have very little respect.
Now, I’ll give the devil his due. The hare is exceptionally good at what he does. He has advantages, he understands them, and he’s perfectly capable of using them to devastating effect. I don’t believe in diminishing someone’s abilities simply because I despise them. Some people are calculating, resourceful, persuasive, and extraordinarily effective at exploiting others. You can recognize all of that without confusing it for intelligence in any broader sense, much less character.
In fact, I’ve found that people who become exceptionally good at exercising power over others can develop a rather distorted understanding of their own abilities. When you’ve spent enough time winning competitions arranged in your favor, it’s easy to start believing that your success is proof of some inherent superiority. You stop distinguishing between intelligence and influence, competence and character, or having the ability to defeat someone and actually being better than them.
And eventually, you become so impressed with yourself that you stop examining your own assumptions.
The tortoise, meanwhile, is under no illusions. He knows he’s slower. He understands the disadvantages. We tend to romanticize his perseverance because we already know the ending, but imagine being the tortoise without that luxury. Imagine finding yourself in a contest you never wanted, against someone who holds nearly every advantage and takes considerable pleasure in demonstrating how little power you have.
Imagine being beaten repeatedly, losing ground, becoming exhausted and frightened, and wondering whether you’ll make it through at all. There’s nothing particularly noble or beautiful about that experience. Sometimes endurance is miserable. Sometimes it’s humiliating. Sometimes continuing isn’t an act of extraordinary courage so much as the only option you have left.
And sometimes the hare wins. Quite often, in fact.
The world is full of powerful, successful people who have made careers out of exploiting advantages other people don’t possess. Some of them are very good at it. Some of them have entire institutions supporting them, and no shortage of people willing to assure them of their exceptional abilities. They may be quite accomplished within their particular sphere, and still be fundamentally foolish people.
That’s an important distinction.
The hare’s assessment of his own speed was accurate. His assessment of the tortoise’s physical limitations was accurate. His mistake was assuming that those two facts told him everything he needed to know about his opponent.
He knew what the tortoise couldn’t do. He had no interest in learning what the tortoise could.
And that is where arrogance becomes dangerous, particularly to the person indulging in it.
When someone becomes accustomed to exercising power without meaningful consequences, they can begin to confuse control over circumstances with control over outcomes. They mistake fear for respect, silence for surrender, and suffering for defeat. They assume that because they’ve hurt someone badly enough, that person is finished. That because they’ve prevailed repeatedly, the outcome is permanently settled.
It’s a remarkable assumption, especially when you consider how little they may actually understand about the people they’ve been so busy underestimating.
The hare spends the race concerned with his own superiority. The tortoise, meanwhile, has had ample opportunity to observe the hare. His habits, his arrogance, his carelessness, his extraordinary confidence in the permanence of his advantage.
One of them has been learning. The other has been congratulating himself.
And then the hare takes a nap.
I suppose that’s what happens when you become so convinced of your own superiority that you no longer believe anyone else requires your attention. You stop paying close attention to what’s happening around you. You stop considering possibilities that don’t flatter your understanding of yourself. You become careless, not because you’ve lost your abilities, but because you’ve convinced yourself you no longer need to exercise them.
I don’t believe perseverance guarantees victory. I don’t believe the universe reliably rewards the deserving or punishes the arrogant. Plenty of hares win, and plenty of tortoises never reach the finish line. Justice isn’t a natural law, and endurance isn’t a magical power.
But neither is arrogance.
And there’s a peculiar stupidity in believing that because you’ve gotten away with something repeatedly, you will continue to get away with it indefinitely. That because you’ve controlled the circumstances, you’ve determined the ending. That because someone has been disadvantaged, frightened, or badly hurt, they’ve somehow become incapable of understanding exactly what you’ve done.
You may be faster. You may be stronger. You may have money, influence, connections, and an entire room full of people assuring you that you’re the most capable person they’ve ever encountered. Perhaps you are exceptionally capable in certain respects. I’ll give you that much.
But being capable of doing something doesn’t make you wise, and being capable of hurting someone doesn’t make you superior.
More importantly, it doesn’t make you untouchable.
The tortoise doesn’t have to become a hare. He doesn’t have to acquire the same advantages, and he doesn’t have to convince his opponent that he’s worthy of consideration. He may never enjoy the same power, and there’s no guarantee that he’ll win. But the hare would be foolish to assume that means he has nothing left to contend with.
So, to the hares of the world, enjoy your advantages. You’ve made excellent use of them, and I wouldn’t dream of denying you the credit.
Just don’t mistake the fact that someone hasn’t defeated you for proof that they can’t.
And don’t confuse a tortoise who’s been beaten with one who’s stopped moving.
The race isn’t over simply because you’ve decided you’ve won.
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