And that's the root of the problem.
People's personalities drive them in certian directions. People who love to be fawned over seek performance and media jobs. A professor is a "performer" as well within his classroom.
A large part of the way such people place themselves in way to be fawned over is to spout fashonable ideas. I can't imagine how a person actually "believes" such things that they may say. But I know different people are driven by entirely different things. So perhaps it is more important for such people to be "loved" than to be "truthful".
There is truth in what you write, but there is another phenomenon at play here, and has been for the past Century. With the explosion in economic job catagories in the 20th Century--throughout the Century--many of those, who in other ages were drawn to the verbal arts, went into some of those new job opportunities. There was a tremendous syphoning off of the best and brightest, and an incredible dumbing down of those who went into the verbal arts. Our educational establishments, media and Clergy all reflect this reality.
To sum it up, those who would ordinarily be defending the Conservative tradition have indeed been off making money, and the result is that everything we believe in--indeed everything which made those new opportunities possible, to boot--is in peril today.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site