I am an academic, working at a fancy, establishment school, who writes for academic outlets.

One might say, “A-ha, Brennan is just an image-conscious guy, trying to win favor and esteem from the regime. He’s an regime-approved libertarian, ha ha, I mean crypto-closet-statist, hee hee. He lives in his academic bubble and just has to talk to people like him.”

Well, let’s think about that. Think about which people are saying things like that. Then, ask yourself: which is likely to be more corrupting, situation 1 or 2:

1. Louie Stonegood writes only for special, ideological journals, websites, and institute-presses, where such journals, websites, and institute-presses are run by people who agree with Louie about pretty much everything. They will publish his stuff, so long as Louie continues to say the things they more or less already agree with.
2. James Breadman writes only for mainstream academic journals and the top academic presses in his field. In order to publish anything, he has to convince at least two referees and one editor, who most likely disagree with him intensely on political issues, that his work is really good. In order to get a raise or be promoted, he has to convince ideologically hostile people that his work is really good.

2 presents all sorts of opportunities for intellectual corruption. But 1 is far worse.

So, careful with this kind of argument, people.