The mileu of Hyde Park conspiratorial left wing politcs produces a culture that needs thorough airing. The best way to expose it to public scrutiny would be through some BBC costume drama. Unfortunately there is not enough time before the election. There are variants of this dominating to some degree most campus communities in America now. Perhaps Berkely has a similar feel. The difference for the University of Chicago may be the bright line running back to the 1930s. Few other schools are like Chicago. This may in part be because it does not have an Engineering department, because it is at heart a graduate school, because it is isolated from the coasts, because the proletarian industrial and racial politics of the region feed into left wing narratives. At Columbia there was a strong old left comunity before WW-II and strong new left forces after the war but only a tiny minority could feel themselves totally wrapped into that sealed world over the last 30 years. For people who are living this activist dream it can be like time has stood still. They can imagine themselves as joining the world of the Cambridge spies Burgess, Maclean and Philby.