Ponderous academics under publish or perish constraints say some outrageous and downright stupid sh*t and create controversy so they can keep their tenured jobs doing essentially NOTHING. The more publicity they get, the better. I don't know if it has as much prestige as the crapola they write in those academic journals that nobody reads anyway ( but in several cases, they should--assuming they can get past the profusion of multi-syllabic, redundant nonsense--to get the REAL message )
Too much booksmarts without streetsmarts is ZERO credibility to me. Like Trotsky,for instance and Marx before him....