Intellectual inhibition may fall into the categories of mental retardation or mental debility. These categories are discussed from the viewpoint of dynamic psychology with contributions of post-Freudian approaches, reinterpreted in light of the Lacanian theorization of the concept of mental debility. From this perspective, mental debility is not only a specific psychopathol¬ogy, but also a potentially constitutive condition of anyone’s mental life and, since stupidity concerns ethics, it is the political aspect of mental debility. In contemporary society, social relations are founded on an imaginary level, encouraging defense mechanisms in subjective mental functioning which are connected with a limitation of mental functions. The result of this restriction of thinking can be political, as the Adolf Eichmann’s case seems to show.
Keywords: Stupidity; Group psychology; Defense mechanisms; Ethics; Psychoanalysis and politics