New Music and complexity

I'm far from a "complex" composer. I know what I like, I know the sound I'm trying to get, and if I'm lucky, what I wanted actually comes out. I have my bag of tricks--from Balinese music, serial music, jazz, medieval and renaissance polyphony, chant melodic development, and even a few things I picked up from Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails. If you buy me a beer or a bubble tea, odds are I'll tell you about a few of them in any given piece.

This article over at New Music Box has got me thinking, and not in a good way. It seems like every bit of my life lately has been taken over by dichotomies--religion, politics, gaming, now music--and the polarization resulting from them feels like it's tearing life apart some days. In the article and in the comments, there's a disparaging attitude--nothing new, I know--towards "academic" composers and critical theorists. I'd like to know where he's listening to such people who write bad music and theorize about it, because those I know who do both write really beautiful music. Odds are you wouldn't hear them on a high-profile concert, but if you know where to look, you're in for a real treat.

I'm sure a lot of bad music gets written in academe. I'm sure a lot of bad music also gets written outside of it. There's also a lot of good music written in both places, which gets ignored by snark such as that post.