The Four Quadrants Of Conformism

Not sure about this, but I agree with the points about academia, so I post it.

Academia is now a place of enormous, almost religious conformism. Its denizens think of themselves as nonconformists, because they measure themselves against the past status quo--a very traditional, conservative conception of American public opinion. 

But they basically all agree about repudiating the (past) status quo.

Imagine a bunch of tweed-clad nerds all reciting in chorus: Death to America...

Actually, there aren't a lot of tweed-clad folk, nor nerds, in the humanities and social sciences anymore. That stuff's way passe. You normally encounter (a) the hip-ish (crazy hair, crazy clothes, at least hints of ostentatious sexual inclinations), and (b) the hyper-professional. Sometimes these are combined. You're most likely to find tweed on some "nonbinary" type wearing it ironically.

That's actually close to saying: what you'll find are people more like activists and the upwardly-mobile than like nerds. Presumably there are still nerds in the sciences. But nerds aren't actually very welcome in the humanities anymore. And, I take it: the social sciences. Nerds are nonconformists, after all. And that's not welcome. And they're awkward. And that's not welcome. And they're bad at conforming strictly to narrow social norms--and that will get you shit-canned fast, nerd-boy.