What I mean by that is Academia is ruthless, and for no good reason.

It artificially created an entire ecosystem supposed to recognize merit, science, quality, when what it does is further prestige-based structure. It set standards about what the "right" journals are, what the "good" Universities are.

It creates prestige-based scarcity : only so many people can publish in these journals, only so many people can work at these Universities, only so many Universities can be funded. Funds goes to a few select Universities, while others scrap for money or prey on students.

And so Academia become this brutal, hyper-competitive field, where on the surface all that is in the name of good science and a quest for knowledge. You need to be competitive, because being excellent is the only solution to go anywhere, to get any job. You need to accept the harshness, the brutality of academia, because it is for your own good, and the good of science.

Except it is not. Peer review is biased and failed many times. Academics come from academics. Conferences have prohibitive costs. Academia is still dominated by western white males.

The ruthlessness of academia has nothing to do with a quest for good knowledge justifying holding everyone to high standards, and everything with maintaining structured inequality inherited from the past. It is (re)creating a space that is hostile to anyone who is not hyperprivileged, who is not meant to be there, keeping them out under the pretense that they are just not good enough, not tough enough, not committed enough, for Academia.