I watched an intellectual
state an opinion with undue confidence
and heard the snikclick of a switchblade
as he waited for response
and heard it again as he responded
to a critique of said fact — snikclick —
and I thought of tweed and thought of
black leather and thought of textbooks
bound in tweed and black leather — of
entire libraries of tweed and black leather
and switchblades being grafted onto tongues
and how gangs of philosophers might look on Harleys
and thought of smart, picked on kids
getting their gang on with words and ideas
that have no value for them
except when they sound like “snikclick”
Dark Matter 
August 15th, 2012 at 11:03 am
Only unsuccessful, unsatisfied academics are like this. Definitely not a majority of them, although I would bet that a majority of them were outcasts in grade school. The good ones work hard to encourage thoughtful conversation, not pull out their cognitive switchblades whenever they are challenged.
August 15th, 2012 at 1:25 pm
And yet, there are plenty of those…this was inspired by two separate conversations over the last three weeks…