I disagree. I think, as a 28-yr-old doctoral student, that if anything
Academia is not elitist enough. Don't get me wrong -- I am a registered
democrat and a working class liberal by birth; but there is no doubt that
the humanities, at least, are so oriented towards egalitarianism and the
writing of wrongs that they border at times on social work. It is from
this orientation that the much-discussed sanctimoniousness of the "pc"
springs; all of it, except the hideous professional jargon, is the result
of the 60s matrix. Fuck the establishment; and if you can't do anything
concrete, at least talk up the virtues of "the disenfranchised" "the
marginalized," etc. Academia would be a lot better, I think, if it took
the politics of the 1930s and merged it with the scholarly culture of the
1950s; instead what we have is the politics of the 60s merged with the
scholarly culture of 80s -- greed, self-aggrandizement, and
conference-jaunting, logrolling irresponsibility.
Joshua Ozersky