How it is

1952
the academic world suffers from excessive humility. It is characterized by the conviction that its thoughts and pursuits are as insignificant as the Chamber of Commerce would like to think. Accepting this evaluation of itself, the academic world cannot be bothered to assume social responsibility or to talk seriously about its own pursuits even to itself.1 Perhaps there would be fewer specialist meetings and conferences if men of letters were sufficiently expert in literature to be interested in modern physics. And physicists would want to know much more about letters if they were aware that poetic method was always at least a decade ahead of laboratory method
(Review of Auden: An Introductory Essay)

  1. See the similar sentiments expressed by Harold Innis in the mid 1930s as cited in Innis and McLuhan in 1936.