Bittermuch on The Professortariat

The late J.J. Bittermuch writes me from the fifth circle (the Wraithful) of Hell:

“The important thing to remember about the professortariat is that academics are strongly rewarded for saying whatever it is that the cultural elite wants to hear. That’s how you get grants and tenure.

“The problem is that there is sometimes a lag between the speaker and the message. That is, when the elite wants a new message, it has to somehow deal with the professors who are already in position, repeating the dogmas that had before been the keys to the kingdom.

“Thus, in much of the 19th century (and again, in the 1950s), it was the academic’s job to say that everything in Western culture was just ducky, thanks, and that the rest of the world should line up and fight Communism and/or learn how to use soap. Which we’d sell them. At inflated prices. Of course.

“Then, in parts of the 20th century, and particularly in the 1960s, when the children of the elite decided they didn’t want to head off to ‘Nam or where-ever, academics got their brownies by being the severest critics of America and the West.

“Now, in the 21st century, the cultural elite has new goals – specifically, to gain control of oil reserves and, if possible, prevent China from doing so. Ergo, we have a new message from the top, and it involves young men marching off to die in gawdawful deserts and maybe, given time, on Pacific beaches.

“The problem is that many of the academics at the Universities still haven’t gotten the word, and they’re out there preaching reform and revolt. So, we have the myth of the “tenured radical” as a result.

“But, of course, there’s no such thing. The ‘tenured radical’ is just trying to do what he’s always done . . . only, he finds himself with his lips puckered in the air, the derriere in question having mysteriously moved to some new location.”