Why academics lose their real-world bearings

The cognitive elite may get passionately attached to beliefs about topics that most people never even think about. Even the “experts” may be highly informed about nothing other than their profession’s shared illusions if employment and pay bear little relation to the correctness of the expert's opinions. As Orwell (1968) smartly put it, “One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool."

From the interesting paper Rational Ignorance vs. Rational Irrationality.