It's never stupid to ask questions. Especially not when I speak in such broad and unspecific terms.
The two 'types' are generalizations of private experiences. Often (maybe even more often than not) they can co-exist side by side within the same person. Have you ever met such 'split' personalities, where you feel sympathy for one side of their character, while at the same time greatly disliking another?
I've often found that I can relate to a lot of people on a one to one-basis. At first they put up a 'civilized' front, and talk about social theory, modern literature or entertainment-products of various sorts (yes, I am a university-student), but if I meet them with the right attitude - no hostility, and no condescension, even though I find their talking-points to be vapid trash - if I ask the right questions, and if I truly listen to what they're saying, and react to this,, then some non-superficial humanity gradually starts to show.
They reveal themselves to be 'gentle barbarians/primitives' lost in a hyper-complicated world, that they truly don't understand. The civilized front is just a means of covering up this underlying, and for many people shameful reality, but once they realize that I do not judge them, they start to relax and open up.
Good talking-points with such people are: Relationships/love, childhood memories, hopes/fears for the future etc.
The 'barbarian of civilization' is, on the other hand, always to be found in social settings. They are the 'bros' of humanity, always reveling in hedonistic excess. On a one to one-basis I find such people downright impossible to communicate with. They are the fiercely materialistic types, only able to think and speak of pussy, drink/drugs, and - themselves. They don't have any soul. There is nothing to relate to.
These people will insist that they are just living life by their own law, that they are unbound by the bourgeois morality of society, that they are just doing what everybody wants to do deep down inside and other such nonsense. In actual fact, they are themselves the purest product of a degenerate society, unable to see that they are in chains, forever isolated from any real connection to the world, other people and reality as such.
As I said: There isn't necessarily any sharp divide between the two types. Often the first type can be seen 'escaping into' (that is: Turning into) the second once under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
It's a perplexing phenomenon, and I can't really find an explanation for it. Fear is probably the most likely cause. People are generally desperate to escape the vapid emptiness of modern society, but they have to put on a facade in fear of the judgments of others. They don't want to be seen as weak - and ironically, this is their greatest weakness.
Some people can be brought to realize this, and others can not.
Lengthy post. Hope it explains more than it confuses!