The academics have suffered the fate reserved for those who do not engage with the outside: had they spent time writing books for the common man, had they spent time exposing idealism (ill-defined here as you've left it) and motivating the need for deconstruction, had they done any of these things they would not be viewed with such ridicule.

I will even suppose that something useful and important is being done in those fields--nevertheless, at the end of the day, I can point to my computer or bike and say "Engineering and hard science made this possible", and they can't point to a damned thing anyone cares about.