Incoherent Rant on Academia

There is something about most universities that freaks out conservatives. I'm sure there are legitimate criticisms but the first step is to ensure that they are internally coherent. Take this critique as quoted by Daimnation:

"...American historians were not always so oblivious to the nation's art and mass entertainment. If you were an aspiring historian in college or graduate school in the 1950s and early 1960s, the course offerings and reading lists in American history were crammed with allusions to novelists, painters, playwrights, and composers."

Okay so the problem is that American historians are clueless and tone deaf when it comes to "art and mass entertainment" these days, how did it get so bad? Well it goes on:

"What counted now was the culture of daily life — how people behaved in saloons and department stores, what kinds of clothes and cosmetics they bought, whether they were active or passive when they listened to the radio"

So the historians neglected to pay attention to mass entertainment because they were too busy focusing on... mass entertainment? What exactly are the academics supposed to do differently?