Some damned foolish thing in the Balkans

B. Michael's response to yesterday's question includes this statement:

Professional philosophy is pretty balkanized. It's like any other professional academics: There are fifteen people on the planet who can talk intelligently about any given thing. Everyone else argues about the validity of that thing and questions whether that thing is a thing. None of it has anything to do with day-to-day life.

In the meantime, yesterday's thread continues to roll, or unroll, as the case may be.