I think 'condescending' is the standard tone of academics the world over, sadly. It's annoying enough when it comes from an English don, but when a bunch of modern people who have never done anything more stressful than ordering a book up from the stacks in the History Faculty or marking an 18 year old's essay and spend their lives in cosy studies sitting in fat padded armchairs start saying things like Saint-Just was an adolescent with no life experience I just want to shake them. Very violently.