For the academic the rhetorical sense of superiority through the possession of knowledge is essential for facing the daily grind, turning again to the otherwise boring article, braving the students who, fresh as each class may be, will still ask the same questions year after year. Psychological survival is not achieved without effort, and the environment must be managed, knocked about with one's elbows until it takes a shape comfortable to one's sense of self. This is not selfishness, for in reshaping the environment the academic is also reinvigorating the educational process.
O truly enjoy... [a university], the individual-student or faculty-must harbor a well-calibrated sense of annoyance at the institution, entering into a muted adversarial relationship...both in order to move the institution just that little bit away from what is was to what it could become, and also to assure at least the sense if not the reality of independence.
