Hello,
I get that you're not trying to be arrogant. I really get what you are trying to say. I appreciate your post because I think it's written with raw honesty in terms of revealing what you think/feel.
I have no sound advice as I'm not an expert in terms of psych stuff and workplace dynamics. What I can tell you though, for all my 2 cents's worth, is that I think you're starting or have started to get disillusioned with academia. We have an understanding/impression/conception that the ivory tower is a haven of intellectually superior, mature people. As a consequence, we have high expectations of it. The "truth" is, no matter how A-level you get, people are people. People get rubbed off the wrong way, hold grudges, hold on to their egos, driven to project an image of success, and most of all, find it hard to accept that we make mistakes once in a while. The last one is especially hard to accept when "phd" follows your surname or "professor" precedes name.
It's a sad realization, but it looks like being able to get through or succeed in academia does not only require intelligence, but the capacity to navigate your way through its politics and daily entrapments-- pretty much like everywhere else. Not all of the published and well-accomplished academics have Einstein IQs, they just work their a**es off and stick to it. I think you may be having a bit of a culture shock. Some of us stand outside the walls of the ivory tower, thinking it must be so great to get in there, very impressed with people with all kinds of titles and what not. But once we get there, we realize that it's not as grandiose as we have imagined, and can even be petty as it gets. "Isolated" is a typical description of being an academic. Not all academics are necessarily isolated, but there's a good chance that people work alone on their research.
In my opinion, if you'd really like to be a professor, then expose all the flaws in your colleagues' arguments in a paper and publish it. Wish you the courage to get through.
