"Why is office politics in the academe so vicious?"
"Because the stakes are so low."
That was the truest thing I learned during my years as a Grad Student. Kevin Drum, reviewing conservative thinker Bruce Bartlett's attack on W "Imposter" says that the same dynamic is at play in our national political discourse. It's a great article summed up by these quotes:
Ideological activists may be loath to acknowledge this, but the truth is that today both major political parties are largely stuck.
On the left, the problem is that liberals have achieved the bulk of what they set out to achieve 75 years ago, and the country is pretty happy with it....There just aren't very many big-ticket items left with the potential to generate a lot of voter excitement.
...In the same vein, the problem on the right is that conservatives have failed miserably whenever they've tried to take a serious chainsaw to modern liberalism. Cutting taxes is just about all they have left, and as Bartlett concedes, taxes can't be cut forever......
.... In practical terms, we're no longer fighting seriously over grand principle, we're just fighting over who gets the most toys.
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