It was quite disappointing seeing him try to be honest and fair only to be belligerently yelled at. I assume you mean the way he was treated was disappointing,

It was quite disappointing seeing him try to be honest and fair only to be belligerently yelled at. I assume you mean the way he was treated was disappointing, not that he acted as a role-model for young, inexperienced and still developing students. When you say he was mistakenly expecting reason, I think if he was having a discussion with each individual he would have been convincing. When it comes to hanging out with people I live by a (perhaps mean-spirited) rule - the larger the group of people you're talking to, the fewer topics you can delve into deeply. If you have one person you can find a common topic that you can share and dive into. However if someone else joins the two of you, you now need to find a common topic between the three of you. The likely outcome is that it will need to be more popular and less esoteric, thus probably less interesting. Now have a group of people: discussion will be centered around what's on TV etc and political or philosophical discussions need to be watered down heavily or cut out of the discussion. I think a similar thing is going on here - the crowd, collectively, is dumb. Even if it's composed of smart individuals.