The Dean Deflation has led to some discussion of the Internet as an echo chamber. I think that an echo chamber was involved, but it was not necessarily the Internet. In this essay, I discuss the academic echo chamber.

If your temperament favors freedom without responsibility, then there are certain occupations that are a good fit. Academic life is one of them, as I pointed out in Real World 101. A professor has very little of what most of us would consider responsibility. Teaching, which is the most responsible activity that a professor must perform, is considered a minor part of the academic's life. Almost all professors seek to lower these modest responsibilities even further by seeking reduced teaching loads.

What I object to is translating it into a political ideology. It scales badly. Very badly.