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Understanding Pseudo-Debility and Intelligence

Otto Fenichel argued that some cases of feeble-mindedness are actually pseudo-debility caused by inhibition, where intellect weakens when affective motives work against it. He suggests people become temporarily stupid in situations where understanding would cause anxiety, guilt, or disrupt an existing neurotic state. Doris Lessing similarly argued that intellectuals can display a kind of clever stupidity disconnected from real-world experience, stemming from rigid logical thinking.

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54 views1 page

Understanding Pseudo-Debility and Intelligence

Otto Fenichel argued that some cases of feeble-mindedness are actually pseudo-debility caused by inhibition, where intellect weakens when affective motives work against it. He suggests people become temporarily stupid in situations where understanding would cause anxiety, guilt, or disrupt an existing neurotic state. Doris Lessing similarly argued that intellectuals can display a kind of clever stupidity disconnected from real-world experience, stemming from rigid logical thinking.

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Otto Fenichel maintained that "quite a percentage of so-called feeble-mindedness turns out to be

pseudo-debility, conditioned by inhibition ... Every intellect begins to show weakness when
affective motives are working against it".[14] He suggests that "people become stupid ad hoc, that
is, when they do not want to understand, where understanding would cause anxiety or guilt
feeling, or would endanger an existing neurotic equilibrium."[15]
In rather different fashion, Doris Lessing argued that "there is no fool like an intellectual ... a kind
of clever stupidity, bred out of a line of logic in the head, nothing to do with experience."[16]

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