Avoiding people who work and speak in a craven or shallow way isn't simply a question of personalities or style. A person who is craven or dismissive, and seemingly not that careful a thinker, doesn't act according to a lack of reason, they act according to the simplest form of the prevailing social discourse. The way things seem to be within the prevailing discourse is occasionally not the way things are, and in bad times (both material and spiritual), the distance between the common speech and what might be called the more authentic appearance grows larger.
It is important to deal with people who demonstrate a capacity to judge the social forms that make it so easy for them to understand the world.
'Things are seldom as they seem -- skim milk masquerades as cream..."