>"Cultural memes aren't really the measure of progress, or worth, of academia." I didn't say they were a measure of the worth of academia. However, they are a

>"Cultural memes aren't really the measure of progress, or worth, of academia." I didn't say they were a measure of the worth of academia. However, they are a way to track the evolution of public debate. For example, the '1%' meme (about the top 1% owning more than the remaining 99%) has shaped public debate around wealth inequality. If academia has been a big influence on public debate, my argument is that we should see this play out in cultural memes. Cultural memes are just ideas which are commonly known in our shared culture. The GP indicated that the restlessness of academia was damaging public debate, my argument was that the general public was largely indifferent to this activity.