Comment by roenxi

You don't have to look very far to discover that they aren't perfect. I do suspect that as the academic tradition will fail as the bar to getting a degree lowers. Something like half the population the population of the US is getting a degree? Some of those students must be pretty average. Pretty challenging to build an exceptional cultural pocket out of average people.

Nevertheless they are much closer to the ideal than pretty much any community you can name. Especially on the scale the academy operates at in both time, space and social influence.