"The Professor...

...must be an obscurantist or he is nothing; he has a special and unmatchable talent for dullness, his central aim is not to expose the truth clearly but to exhibit his profundity, his esotericity--in brief to stagger sophomores and other professors."

-- H. L. Mencken

Meh. That's funny alright...but it doesn't seem to be...what's the word?...oh yeah: true.

Don't get me wrong, I've met a frighteningly high number of professors who were not too bright...or bullshitters...or intellectually (or otherwise morally) corrupt...or all of the above... Way, way more than I ever expected to meet.

But I guess my first inclination is to say that there aren't enough of them to make Mencken right in general. I mean...I don't think it's the norm.

But I've never looked into it in any systematic way.