On Stupidity

The text consists of an extensive comment on a quotation from "Ideology and Terror," the final chapter of Arendt's study The Origins of Totalitarianism: "The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist." As such, it reflects on the link between lying and totalitarianism, lying and stupidity, and lying and deficiency in judgment.