As in the medieval church or among Soviet apparatchiks, the pull of groupspeak is always strong among compliant and opportunistic elites. For today's intellectuals, professors and artists, being on the team pays real dividends when it comes to tenure, promotion, publication, reviews, lecture invitations, social acceptance and psychic reassurance. And the dividends are compound: One is a lockstep member of one's crowd and one enjoys the frisson of dissidence, of being at variance, but always so comfortably at variance, with one's benighted fellow citizens.
. . . and what is a celebrity good for, if not to be at variance with others? Groupspeak is a cheap substitute for wisdom, so it naturally comes out of the mouth of anyone who is a celebrity for reasons other than expertise in whatever is under discussion.