What he means is that doubled pawns can be a sort of handicap. As long as you stay put it is hard to notice, but once you start being aggressive (e.g moving around) it gets quite apparant that you're having trouble moving.
So doubled pawns tend to work alright when they stay where they are, but once your opponent starts chasing you with them they will expose their weakness (mainly because they cannot support eachother as easily anymore in my opinion)
Also because the pawn in front pawn has a tendency to blockade the pawn in the rear making the latter an easy target that often needs to be defended -- tying up a more valuable piece.
It's important to note, however, that there are some occasions where they can actually be an asset, such as early in the game where mobility may be less of a concern and they can exert a strong influence on the centre.
To my understanding the whole "Dynamic/Active v. Static/Passive" is about the potential energy of a piece and how much influence it has, or will. Common example: a Knight on e4 is a dynamic knight while a knight on a1 is static because it has less potential. But I am sure you understand this by now.
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Hello everybody. I'm reading My System by Nimzovich and so far it's been a great book until I reached the part 2. I do not understand the part about the Doubled pawns. (Chapter 2 Doubled Pawns and Restraint). Are you supposed to make your opponent doubled pawns advance? What happens after you make it advance? And I also do not get the whole "Active/Dynamic vs. Static/passive" part. Would somebody be so kind as to explain it to me? Thanks so much.