Reference reading
Stubbornness
Refusing relevant correction of an AI-assisted judgment or an established view about AI.
The model has changed its answer. The operator refuses to change the stencil.
Habitual unwillingness to revise a view or method when relevant reasons call for reconsideration.
Well-supported caution, a principled refusal or justified continued trust can be reasonable.
How it takes hold
The procedure was useful for yesterday's cases. Today's exception is treated as a reason to repeat it more firmly. A method once justified by results begins to justify itself by having been used before.
Rigidity refuses relevant reasons to revise a view or method. It can appear in unquestioned reliance on automation and in blanket refusal to consider it. The habitual orientation is the same: evidence is welcome only while it leaves the settled arrangement untouched.
A person whose circumstances differ must fight the procedure before their actual concern can be considered. Good methods can also lose credibility when their defenders refuse to acknowledge their limits.
Finding the distinction
Illustrative situation: a sorting method repeatedly mishandles a clearly different case.
Too rigid: the case is forced into the old category.
Fitting: the relevant difference is examined and the rule retained or revised for reasons.
Overcorrection: the entire method is discarded whenever an unexpected case appears.
Perseverance sustains a worthwhile purpose through difficulty; rigidity preserves a position despite relevant reasons for reconsideration. Novelty Worship makes the opposite-looking shortcut of treating newness as sufficient superiority. Neither age nor novelty settles whether a method fits.
A principled refusal, well-supported caution or an unpopular judgment can be reasonable. Revision is not valuable merely because someone requests it.
Counterfeit of Perseverance: A reviewer repeats an unsuitable procedure to demonstrate consistency. Genuine Perseverance sustains the worthwhile purpose while reconsidering its method.
A response that restores something
A useful reconsideration names what the method was intended to achieve and which new facts bear on that purpose. This allows a specific revision rather than a ceremonial declaration that everything must change.
An exception can improve a rule when its reason is explained. It need not turn every decision into an arbitrary personal concession.
Open-minded judgment permits the old method to survive a fair review when its reasons remain stronger. The point is answerability to reasons, not an appetite for constant replacement.
Other perspectives
Alertness, flexibility, curiosity are the essentials
John Dewey · How We Think
Dewey contrasts responsive inquiry with rigid habits, not with considered commitments that survive review.
continually mistaken for the first
John Stuart Mill · On Liberty
Mill describes custom mistaken for nature, illuminating how a familiar procedure can seem beyond reconsideration.
Read and compare
What relevant reason would warrant changing this approach?
Discernment · Humility · Perseverance
These are constructive virtue readings, not a list of automatic opposites. This reference article does not score character or assign a vice to its reader.