‘I’m wondering, too, whether part of the mix — another facet of feelings of inadequacy — would be an attempt to gain intellectual heft by associating themselves with ideas popular in academia and the press?”
Speaking as someone in academia, I often wonder whether intellectuals association with bankrupt and discredited ideologies would an attempt to gain social status by associating themselves with ideas glamorized by Hollywood and the press. The ‘smart’ kids – or at least the adequately smart – get to associate themselves with the pretty and popular ones, and they both get an emotional thrill of validation out of it at a very low cost. Walk around you average liberal arts department and you’ll find scores of adults and young adults desparately looking for some sort of radical style to make up for thier social insecurity. They’ve got a schtique every bit as much as the entertainers, from the white kid with the massive dreadlocks, to the pasty girl all in black, to the guy that dresses like some sort of french clown, and so forth. If to Hollywood, ‘socialism’ is about cheaply not feeling like a bastard, to academia its about cheaply getting laid.
