I truly don't understand this article, or the comments on it: Jerks step on, belittle or otherwise sabotage their academic colleagues. The most common method i

I truly don't understand this article, or the comments on it: Jerks step on, belittle or otherwise sabotage their academic colleagues. The most common method is by criticising their opinions in public, at a conference or in a seminar and by trash talking them in private. Criticizing their opinions in public? How is this being a "jerk"? This is what academia is supposed to be all about - you publish, others criticize, you repair or you accept that you were wrong. That's how we approach truth. Trash talking in private might be jerky behavior, though given the prior statement the author might just mean "I think XXX's theory is incorrect because of [reason]" rather than "XXX has sex with goats, plagiarizes his students and forges all his data". Most theories are just wrong. The point of academia is not to be a polite mutual admiration society providing easy and stable work for people who loved college, it's to get closer to truth. The comments provide better examples of jerky behavior. For example, a female professor called the "IR Hulk" was privately supportive of someone's work, but then she publicly ambushed them with criticisms she presumably did not share in private. I also don't even know what to make of comments like this: Academia in general is very hostile to forms of communalization and cooperation and champions the rational individual (read: male)... The issue of favoring those who provide valid rational criticism is "indeed feminist one"? Can someone steelman this for me?