"The People" and "They"

It is difficult to hold a conversation without the participants referring in detail to "the people" or "they", where the views of authority or the views of the great mass of society are distilled to a single simple phrase, idea, standing or viewpoint. "They" can refer to councils, governments, the police or authorities, a nation, scientists. It has always struck me as arrogant that participants feel they know the views of others so well that they can quote them or reduce them to simple insights so easily.