Humans and Logic

I was listening to some news today. The politics in America are screwed up ... and I don't mean just because my preferred party is no longer in power. I mean it's screwed up because logic and common sense seem to have been cast aside. It's as if people are willfully employing inconsistent thinking.

That made me think ... are humans naturally inclined towards logical thinking? Or is logical thinking something that must be acquired ... a trained habit of the mind? I'm really beginning to think it's something that must be learned. I don't mean just the structure and terminology of logical argumentation ... I mean the intuitive recognition of the structure of a logical argument leading to a logical conclusion.

Over and over again I see people trying to employ logic to persuade someone on a point. The people agree on each premise leading up to the conclusion. Then they categorically reject every agreed-to premise when they choose to disagree with the conclusion. And it's not that they don't believe the argument leads to the conclusion ... it's that they admit they don't wish to accept the consequence of the conclusion and so therefore logic is abandoned.