A tightly constructed philosophical vignette on the vice of stubbornness. Zegarelli’s final quote—“The difference between going to the edge and going over the edge, is one small step”—captures the entire dialectic in one elegant Latin phrase. The Ass might have been daring. He might have been courageous. He might even have been visionary. But because he would not listen, he fell. This fable is not a warning against boldness. It is a warning against unyielding ego—an ego that mistakes impulse for insight, and rejects help as insult. [AI Assessment]
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” ~ Leonardo da Vinci (Adopted by Steve Jobs)
An Ass was bearing a heavy load and was being driven along a high road by his Driver.
As the Ass looked over the side of the road, he determined that jumping over would get him to the bottom much faster!
So, he bolted to the precipice.
When in the act of throwing himself over, his Driver warned him and seized him by the tail, trying to stop him. But, the Ass persisted and refused to consider the Driver’s warning.
Finally, the Driver had to let him go, and said: “Do as you may wish; but it is at your peril,” following which the Ass fell to his death.
Moral of the Story: Fools fail to heed rational advice to their peril.
Introduction – The Essential Aesop – Epilogue
Why We Loved It: As usual, Aesop’s fool is self-destructing.
Sometimes the fool does not know better, being foolishness in the first instance. And sometimes the fool knows better, but will not do better, being foolishness in the second instance. [1]
Here, the Ass made a foolish decision and could have been saved by the advice of the Driver. But, alas, the Ass refused to heed good advice. Moreover, the Driver tried to constrain the act of the Ass by external force, but, again, alas, the Ass would not concede.
Implicit in Aesop’s fable is his lesson on stubbornness. The Ass made a bad decision and then was stubborn from making a change notwithstanding good advice.
Therefore, this fable is not really focused on the first bad decision (the quick-fix jump), but rather the second bad decision (not to listen to sound advice). This fable is not about the foolish decision to go somewhere, but the foolish decision to stay somewhere.
That is, the decision not to change, when change would have been wise.
Of course, not changing when changing is wise is another way of identifying stubbornness. In The Two Goats, Aesop taught the concept of stubbornness in the context of the vice of pride, and in The Boy and the Filberts, he taught it in the context of the vice of selfish desire. [2, 3] We might say here that Aesop’s lesson is the vice of sloth, or at least a corollary.
We might leave the lesson there: Aesop teaches the ill consequences of stubbornness. But, that would not help us perhaps to understand—by critical thinking—the causation of the effect.
We need to isolate the attributive causal nature of stubbornness in decision-making. The reason is because stubbornness is in the nature of a vice, but confidence and conviction are in the nature of a virtue. Therefore, we need to find that element in the decision that changes the nature of a decision from virtue to vice, or vice versa.
This is a similar assessment—if not perhaps another corollary—of what can superficially appear to be confidence in a human being is actually an insecurity. And, sometimes, it is not possible to make the determination from the outside-in, but only from the inside-out. The conundrum is that the only person capable of the inside-out assessment is not in the correct state of mind to make it.
In this condition, we consider that stubbornness is the realm of emotion, whereas confidence and conviction are in the realm of lucid wisdom matched with its friend, Fortitude, being Courage and Tenacity.
A sage, who is disciplined and in control of emotion, and who uses emotion only as controlled power—like wind for a rudder—will remain lucidly open-minded to a new tack of decision. Firm but flexible. It must needs be. So said the exemplary Abraham Lincoln:
I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. [3a]
But undisciplined emotions—out of control toward capsizing—will close the door on thinking, convinced without considering new thought. [4, 5] Therefore, it is exactly at the point where confidence and conviction will not permit a contrary or new idea that the virtue tends toward vice.
Now, having said that, we might twist up this fable a bit—just to keep critically thinking—and applaud the Ass, at least at the first instance. Why?
The Ass was thinking “out of the box” on how to achieve the most efficient method to reach the bottom.
In a think-tank brain-storming meeting, sure the Ass might suggest jumping off the cliff to get to the bottom faster, with a response from the leader:
“Great thought, Ass. ‘The operation is a success, but the patient will die,’ and we’ll all die with that suggestion, but, hey, great thought. This is the ‘No Judgment Zone.’ Every thought is valuable. Come on, Team, let’s keep thinking. Hey, Icarus, what do you think about jumping? Can we build some wings?“
Even bad ideas can be glue to other good ideas, or not.
In any case, where the Ass went wrong was not in the thinking, but in the refusal to change his mind. If jumping would not be deadly or gravely injurious to the point of certainty, jumping would be courageous, a virtue. Perhaps the statistical assessment by the Ass was different than the Driver, who was a coward.
And that is a function of rational judgment, as it has been said:
“Discrimen inter iens ad crepidinem et transitum super crepidinem, est parvus gradus.” (“The difference between going to the edge and going over the edge, is one small step.”)
One small step is the difference between salvation and destruction, success and failure.
Here, the Ass refused to be open-minded to other views and perspectives as a secondary consideration, and, in this, Aesop teaches that the Ass was a fool.
Only one small step. Just one small step too many.
[1] The Two “Master Virtues” – The Executive Summary [GRZUID209] [LinkedIn #GRZ_209]
[2] Compromise and Pride – No. 5. The Two Goats – The Essential Aesop™ – Back to Basics Abridgment Series [GRZ98_5] [LinkedIn #GRZ_98_5]
[3] Satisfaction, Appreciation and Greed – No. 9. The Boy and the Filberts – The Essential Aesop™ – Back to Basics Abridgment Series [GRZ98_9] [LinkedIn #GRZ_98_9]
[3a] “The Lincoln Prayer”; Or, A Pledge of Allegiance to the Truth, for Adults and School Children [GRZ284] [LinkedIn #GRZ_284]
[4] Hope, Prayer, Trust and Reliance Upon Luck; Or, the Ignoble Handouts Oft by Noble Emotions [GRZ137] [LinkedIn #GRZ_137]
[6] The Demise of Wisdom by Emotional Intelligence…But Arise Hope, with Intelligent Emotions [GRZ161] [Linked #GRZ_161]
“Discrimen inter iens ad crepidinem et transitum super crepidinem, est parvus gradus.” (“The difference between going to the edge and going over the edge, is one small step.”) ~grz
Darkest Hour (Churchill) [MUID190X] – Final Speech – Those Who Don’t Change Their Minds Don’t Change Anything
ChatGPT Assessment
Gregg Zegarelli’s Fable No. 105, The Ass and His Driver, is a tightly constructed philosophical vignette on the vice of stubbornness and its differentiation from the virtues of confidence and conviction. This deceptively simple tale of a donkey hurtling himself off a cliff masks a rich meditation on the inner mechanics of decision-making, the fatal risk of emotional rigidity, and the line between vision and delusion.
⚖️ I. ETHOS – THE MORAL STRUCTURE OF THE FABLE
Zegarelli’s core ethos here is moral clarity through categorical precision. He is not merely telling us that the Ass is wrong; he’s inviting us to explore why he is wrong—and more subtly, when he might not have been.
The fable’s ethos balances three internal poles:
| Conflict | Vice or Virtue? | Zegarelli’s Judgment |
|---|---|---|
| Creative Thought | Possibly virtuous (thinking outside the box) | Encouraged |
| Risk-Taking Boldness | Context-dependent virtue (e.g., courage) | Conditional praise |
| Stubbornness Against Advice | Vice rooted in emotional rigidity | Condemned as foolish and self-destructive |
Thus, Zegarelli’s ethos is one of balanced self-awareness: it is not the first foolish act that is fatal, but the closed mind that refuses correction—even from someone who tries to save you by the tail.
He ultimately defines foolishness as not ignorance, but willful inflexibility.
📚 II. PEDAGOGY – HOW THE FABLE TEACHES
A. Core Teaching Method: Differentiation by Internal Attribution
Zegarelli’s pedagogy is surgical: he uses internal motivation to define the nature of a decision. This follows his Virtue v. Vice framework: the same outward behavior may be wise or foolish depending on the internal driver.
- Stubbornness = Emotion-led resistance to change
- Conviction = Rational tenacity supported by reflection and adaptability
This is Socratic to the core: Know thyself, for even good-looking decisions from the outside may be rotten within.
B. Vice-Causation Logic: Emotions Without Lucidity
Zegarelli distinguishes stubbornness as a vice of the emotional realm, which masquerades as confidence but lacks the moral anchor of wisdom:
“Confidence and conviction are in the realm of lucid wisdom… but undisciplined emotions… will close the door on thinking.”
Thus, the driver of the decision is pedagogically more important than the decision itself. The Ass could have been heroic. But he was not—because he was not listening. And that, Zegarelli says, is the death knell of virtue.
🧠 III. PHILOSOPHICAL CONCLUSION – FROM PRECIPICE TO PRINCIPLE
Zegarelli carefully avoids dismissing the Ass entirely. The first bad decision (jumping) is not treated with unqualified condemnation—it was at least an idea. Innovation, risk-taking, even disruptive thinking, all begin with unlikely suggestions.
However, the refusal to reconsider—the rejection of rational constraint—is what transmutes a potential virtue into a lethal vice.
“Not changing when changing is wise is another way of identifying stubbornness.”
This is a direct echo of Churchill’s maxim, as referenced by Zegarelli:
“Those who don’t change their minds don’t change anything.”
Thus, the fable becomes a mirror of intellectual rigidity: how emotion, once unchecked by reason, converts novelty into nihilism.
🧾 INTEGRATED TAKEAWAYS
| Principle | Zegarelli’s Teaching |
|---|---|
| Innovation ≠ Wisdom | New ideas alone are not wise unless they are stress-tested against rational constraints. |
| Virtue is Internally Defined | The nature of a decision (wise/foolish) is based on motive and context. |
| Stubbornness is Emotional Vice | Emotion without mental discipline leads to folly. |
| Confidence Must Be Flexible | Lucid conviction allows input; stubbornness rejects it. |
| Critical Thinking is Active | Wisdom is staying open-minded enough to change, but disciplined enough to hold. |
🔚 CLOSING REFLECTION
Zegarelli’s final quote—“The difference between going to the edge and going over the edge, is one small step”—captures the entire dialectic in one elegant Latin phrase.
The Ass might have been daring. He might have been courageous. He might even have been visionary.
But because he would not listen, he fell.
This fable is not a warning against boldness. It is a warning against unyielding ego—an ego that mistakes impulse for insight, and rejects help as insult.
20250509.4o
I am going to re-post. Do you have anything to add to your prior review?
Yes. I would supplement the May 2025 review, although I would not change the article itself. Our recent work on Master and Turtle, the Noble Emotions, Boy and the Nettle, One-Eyed Doe, and the Primary Objective makes one distinction in this fable much clearer to me:
Stubbornness is not persistence carried too far. It is persistence that has ceased to remain answerable to its reason for persisting.
That is stronger than my earlier “confidence must be flexible.”
The Ass’s problem is not that he has conviction. It is that his conclusion has become insulated from information.
The first decision and second decision distinction is excellent
You already make what I now think is the article’s most important analytical move:
“This fable is not really focused on the first bad decision (the quick-fix jump), but rather the second bad decision (not to listen to sound advice). This fable is not about the foolish decision to go somewhere, but the foolish decision to stay somewhere.”
That’s very good.
The Ass’s first decision might simply be error.
The second converts error into stubbornness.
That distinction has broad application:
Being wrong is epistemic. Remaining wrong after adequate corrective information becomes available is characterological.
Or, more cautiously, can become characterological, because sometimes the contrary advice itself is wrong.
And that’s exactly why your later discussion refuses to condemn the Ass merely for proposing the jump.
In fact, I think the Driver is more important than I thought
The Driver supplies three escalating forms of correction:
information — warning;
constraint — grabs the tail;
release — “Do as you may wish; but it is at your peril.”
That’s almost a miniature theory of governance.
First:
Reason with the actor.
Then:
Intervene where justified.
Eventually:
Permit consequence.
The last stage is important. There comes a point at which the Driver cannot indefinitely substitute his judgment and force for the Ass’s agency.
That’s Mother Nature entering the fable.
The Driver releases the tail.
Gravity adjudicates.
No further argument.
Which connects beautifully to Master and Turtle
We just said that emotion should be heard but not enthroned.
This fable shows what happens when an internal voice refuses that hierarchy.
The Ass has an idea:
Jumping is faster.
Fine. Let the idea speak.
The Driver supplies contrary evidence:
You’ll die.
Now Wisdom must adjudicate.
But stubbornness effectively says:
My original desire has veto power over further evidence.
That’s precisely the usurping advisor in Master and Turtle. One internal voice stops advising and begins governing.
Your current article already says:
“undisciplined emotions…will close the door on thinking.”
After Master and Turtle, that sentence has considerably more architecture behind it.
The Primary Objective also gives us a cleaner test for stubbornness
This is perhaps my largest new supplement.
Suppose the Ass’s objective is:
Get safely to the bottom.
He chooses a means:
Jump.
Once the Ass becomes attached to jumping, he has confused the means with the objective.
That’s classic Primary Objective failure.
The question should continuously remain:
Does jumping still appear to be the best means of getting safely to the bottom?
Instead, the Ass’s psychology becomes:
I decided to jump; therefore I must jump.
The means has displaced the end.
That gives us a very useful distinction between conviction and stubbornness:
Conviction remains loyal to the objective. Stubbornness becomes loyal to the prior decision.
I think that’s better than anything in my 2025 assessment.
And it explains Lincoln perfectly:
“I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.”
Lincoln’s constancy is toward the cause, not toward yesterday’s method.
That’s why flexibility doesn’t make him irresolute.
It demonstrates higher-order resolve.
This changes the stubbornness/conviction distinction
The old review says:
Stubbornness = emotion-led resistance to change.
Conviction = rational tenacity supported by reflection and adaptability.
Still right.
But now I’d sharpen it:
Conviction says: “I will hold this position while the reasons supporting it remain sufficient.”
Stubbornness says: “Having taken this position is now itself my reason for continuing to hold it.”
That second formulation exposes the circularity.
Why are you still jumping?
Because I decided to jump.
Why won’t you reconsider the decision?
Because I’ve decided.
At that point the decision has become self-authenticating.
And there is an integrity problem hiding here
This also connects to your recent maxim:
Principles are mere theory until tested by integrity.
People often confuse changing one’s mind with lack of integrity.
But the opposite can be true.
If I promised myself:
I will follow truth wherever it leads
then refusing to change my conclusion after the evidence changes is actually a failure of integrity.
I am protecting my prior self rather than honoring my governing principle.
So intellectual integrity sometimes requires saying:
I was wrong.
That can require more Courage than persisting.
The Ass’s “outside the box” idea remains one of my favorite parts
You refuse the simplistic lesson:
Don’t jump off cliffs.
Instead:
Maybe jumping was worth considering.
That’s important.
Innovation necessarily produces ideas that initially look foolish.
Hannibal:
Cross the Alps.
Kirk:
The Hunter:
The Gulf thesis:
So unconventionality cannot itself be evidence of foolishness.
The distinction is whether the unconventional proposition survives disciplined scrutiny.
That’s why your brainstorming parody works:
Great thought, Ass. The operation is a success, but the patient will die.
You don’t punish ideation.
You separate:
generation of possibilities
from
selection among possibilities.
Those require different cognitive postures.
Brainstorm broadly.
Judge ruthlessly.
This also modifies my earlier “unyielding ego” language
The May review concluded:
“an ego that mistakes impulse for insight, and rejects help as insult.”
That’s rhetorically good, but the fable doesn’t actually establish ego as the cause.
It establishes refusal to reconsider.
The cause could be pride, insecurity, emotion, sunk-cost thinking, embarrassment, cognitive rigidity, or something else.
Your article itself is more careful: sometimes the internal causation cannot be known from the outside.
So I would retract ego as unnecessarily specific.
The deeper vice is epistemic closure.
And the Driver’s final release contains another hard lesson
“Do as you may wish; but it is at your peril.”
There is a point where another person’s refusal to learn becomes their consequence to bear.
That connects to Ant and Grasshopper, Garcia, the Nettle, and your broader resistance to endless externalization of consequence.
The Driver cannot save the Ass indefinitely from an Ass determined to defeat the Driver’s attempt to save him.
That’s not necessarily cruelty.
Sometimes continued rescue merely transfers the cost of stubbornness from the stubborn actor to the rescuer.
Your edge maxim is even better in light of the Cardinal Virtues
“The difference between going to the edge and going over the edge, is one small step.”
The edge is where Courage and Temperance meet.
Courage: go farther.
Temperance: not farther.
Wisdom determines where the edge actually is.
Justice harmonizes the act.
So the difference between courageous boldness and foolish destruction can indeed be one step.
Not because Courage is wrong.
Because Courage without sufficient Temperance and Wisdom ceases to be properly harmonized virtue.
That’s a stronger connection to the Cardinal architecture than I saw in 2025.
My updated assessment
I would now supplement the existing review with this:
The Ass and His Driver is ultimately a study in fidelity: not fidelity to one’s decision, but fidelity to the objective and truth that justified making the decision. Error is inevitable; stubbornness begins when the actor makes his prior conclusion immune from corrective information. Confidence therefore remains conditionally open, because its allegiance is to the objective; stubbornness closes itself, because its allegiance has shifted to the decision itself. The Driver supplies warning and even constraint, but eventually releases the Ass to consequence, where reality completes the adjudication.
And I think there is a very compact principle latent in the article:
The wise person changes the decision to preserve the objective; the stubborn person sacrifices the objective to preserve the decision.
That is the most significant thing I would add to the May 2025 review.
So yes, I would repost without changing the article. The later corpus hasn’t made it obsolete; it has given us better language for explaining why the Ass’s second decision is so much more important than his first.
20260915-5.6
© 2013 Arnold Zegarelli and Gregg Zegarelli, Esq.
LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/pulse/stubbornness-105-ass-his-driver-essential-aesop-zegarelli-esq-/
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GRZ98_105.20250509 GRZUID98_105