Drs. Richard Paul and Linda Elder of the Foundation for Critical Thinking take a dim view of humanity that frighteningly resonates as true. They write, for example:

How can humans create within their own minds such an inconsistent amalgam of the rational and the irrational? The answer is self-deception. In fact, perhaps the most accurate and useful definition of humans is that of ‘the self-deceiving animal.’ Deception, duplicity, sophistry, delusion, and hypocrisy are foundational products of human nature in its ‘natural,’ untutored state. Rather than reducing these tendencies, most schooling and social influences redirect them, rendering them more sophisticated, more artful, and more obscure.

Of “the overwhelming preponderance of people,” they claim:

Their thinking is largely comprised of stereotypes, caricatures, oversimplifications, sweeping generalizations, illusions, delusions, rationalizations, false dilemmas, and begged questions. Their motivations are often traceable to irrational fears and attachments, personal vanity and envy, intellectual arrogance and simple-mindedness.

These are the prey of skilled manipulators. The authors claim those who try to be objective and rational, as we learn from public schooling that everybody is, comprise only a teeny, tiny percentage of the total.