And the rejection of common sense is often used to defend ideas so bad that one has to put serious intellectual effort to create arguments for them.
A lot more "intellectuals" defended Pol Pot and Milosevic compared to ordinary chums. The denial of the Cambodian genocide was known as the "Standard Total Academic View on Cambodia".
In politics, it's a red flag because it is often used to defend bad policies that only appear good when one doesn't have the fortitude to understand the better policy.