Popular Music and Music Education

I ran across the above post earlier at MusicEd.net, and posted a comment relating to my concerns as an academic dealing with incoming music students. The real reason for my concern on the topic is that, as part of my in-process paper on weblogs and music scholarship, I am trying to understand the fear that many so-called non-music specialists have about speaking or writing about music. As my mentor pointed out, hardly anyone would hesitate to express an oppinion about music in casual conversation, and everyone has preferences, but put people in an academic setting, and suddenly a fear of saying the wrong thing kicks in. How do we, as academics, engage with music on terms that evoke less fear and incomprehension in others? and do we even want to? And if not, why do we do what we do?