religion? Politics?

Few people give received beliefs a second thought, many--or all--of which were installed before the so-called "age of reason." I.e., they are pre-verbal and pre-cognative. More intelligent people tend to be more reflective, or at least make more effective use of their mirror neurons. Not that everyone can't, but the emotional bonds to the "pre-" stuff is so strong in many that they never choose to look, feeling their sense of self threatened. More mature individuals seem to be able to divorce their sense of self from any thought train, cluster or habit. It is a HUGE advantage to be able to do that.

The ability to separate sense of self, to abstract it, even to, and especially to the point of identifying as awareness itself, brings an incalculably important transformation to bear on one's life experience. And while this used to be an arcane and esoteric feat, it is nowadays accomplished somewhat more simply, as there is not nearly the religious and social danger of perusing it as once was, say in Catholic dominated culture before the Reformation.