"The Tortoise And The Hare" Is A Huge Lie

It's a slow and steady lie.

Aesop, you are a straight-up liar.

shakko / Via en.wikipedia.org

And I'm not referring to your stories' numerous talking animals, disturbing as they may be.

I'm saying that the moral of The Tortoise and the Hare is a lie. Maybe the worst lie that has ever been told in the entire history of humanity. Actually, that's probably not true. It's DEFINITELY the worst lie in the history of humanity.

Here’s a quick refresher on the story:

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A mean-spirited rabbit makes fun of a turtle for being slow. The turtle gets sick of the rabbit's constant bragging, so he challenges the rabbit to a race. Naturally, the rabbit starts kicking the turtle's ass, because it's a race and rabbits are very fast, especially compared to turtles, who are very slow.

BUT, during the race the rabbit becomes so overconfident that he takes a nap. When he wakes up, he sees that his archenemy, the turtle, having slowly but steadily inched towards the finish line, is about to win.

The Moral: Slow and steady wins the race.

The Problem: That’s totally and completely not true at all.

The animals in The Tortoise and the Hare can speak human language and that's not even the least-true part of the story.

“Slow and steady” is the worst possible strategy for winning a race. Here’s why:

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A race is a contest of speed. If you move SLOWLY the entire time, you cannot win a competition whose only criterion for victory is going faster than other people.

Have you ever seen an Olympic track and field athlete use the "slow and steady" strategy? No, you haven't, because that strategy sucks.

Here are some morals about racing that are actually true:

• Fast and steady wins the race

• Extremely fast but occasionally slowing down still wins the race

• Relatively slow but speeding up to be faster than your opponent for just a portion of the race could still conceivably win the race

The Real Moral: Go as fast as you want

Arthur Rackham / Via en.wikipedia.org

And beware life lessons taken from stories with talking animals.