I see this all the time. I was trying to explain recently to someone how a person can be highly intelligent and a fool at the same time. It is as if the brain takes skills from one area to build them up in another. Many intelligent people lack social understanding, and some are extremely cut off and cruel in their view of the wider population. Some intellectuals are highly totalitarian in their thinking.

Academia itself also functions as a kind of subculture, with its own customs, traditions and quirks. I'm not just thinking of the strange fraternities, processions and whatnot in old universities, but the way academic papers are worded or even titled.