Um. helps to keep in mind that the academy provides funding for thought and obviously subsidizes bad thought. Whereas thought leadership in history did not come from the academy but from wealth sufficient for literacy and time for study. In other words, it is not clear that the academy produces better intellectual work products than individual craftsmen, any more than Hollywood produces better art products than individual craftsmen. And the evidence appears overwhelmingly the opposite: that the academy, entertainment industry, media, and democratic state, produce higher volumes of bad quality everything.