The Big Smush: Why Everything Is So Political

I can remember those first few years, always looking for blazers. I was a newly minted Ph.D., and I wanted to look professorial. I was a member of a category of people called “professors” or “academics.” I wasn’t trying to fake it. I was a legitimate member of this category in good standing.

But there were things about being an academic — what they think, do, and value — that set them apart. I wanted to embrace those things.

They like coffee, preferably from independently owned coffee shops. They buy organic food at farmer’s markets and talk about far-off places like Kazakhstan. They enjoy stage plays and Ken Burns documentaries on PBS. They are liberals, and some look down on Republican voters as being small-minded or bigoted. They drive to work listening to Fresh Air on NPR.

And blazers. Of course, they wore blazers.

I didn’t sit down one day and draw up a list. It was a relatively automatic and unconscious process of just being around other professors in graduate school and at conferences. And yes, these were some pretty broad generalizations. All academics, including myself, don’t do these things. But I took pride in being an academic, and these were things I thought were good.

I became such a devoted blazer wearer that I was getting them as Christmas presents from family.

That process plays out countless times for any number of social categories people find important. These categories include…