Are All Professors Paranoid?

It should come as no big surprise that dark academe is a hotbed for paranoia. Dark times have a way of preying on our fear of being hurt. Nevertheless, is the level of paranoia in neoliberal academe in particular any different from the paranoia in late capitalist society in general? Are academics more paranoid than the rest of the population? It has been said that around 15–20 percent of the population frequently have paranoid thoughts and another 3–5 percent suffer from severe paranoia. While the latter group requires medical treatment for what psychologists call persecutory delusions, the others have lesser forms of paranoia. Thus, given that around a quarter of the population are said to be paranoid, it seems safe to say that paranoia is not uncommon today. Nevertheless, designating a large chunk of the population as paranoid is a fairly recent phenomena.