This book presents a view of the events and the people we encounter in everyday life that is more pessimistic, disturbing, and even frightening than the conventional view. But it is also more realistic and more explanatory of the dilemmas we constantly encounter than the conventional outlook.

The book discusses such claims as the following: that rationality is an exceptional position rather than the common one; that a great many of our beliefs about political behavior are unwarranted; that public officials normally exercise little initiative and little authority; that established institutions ensure that little change will occur; that such change as does take place will be superficial, making little difference in people's lives; and that confidence in constant progress and frequent innovation, in spite of the persuasive evidence to the contrary, effectively counter discontent with the conditions that persist in everyday life.

Our common assumption is that the acts of Homo sapiens are basically rational and that mistakes in reaching conclusions are the exception. On the contrary, mistakes are so common that rationality is probably the exception. The Marxist concept of false consciousness, meaning an erroneous assumption about the sources of one's own thought, applies to the elite as much as to the masses.

Consider some of more common reasons for mistakes. We typically focus on the short run, ignoring longer, wider, more important consequences. “In the long run we'll be dead” is a false orientation.