If you want to get paid for abstract analysis that is not mainly organized around current cultural or political fights, academia is pretty much the only game in town. So I am quite grateful that academia exists, and has included me.
But I do have a complaint. In most areas of life, activities are typically justifies in some detail in terms of the accepted purpose of that area. E.g., hospitals save lives, businesses serve customers, roads support travel, armies deter fights, and so on. But though the accepted purpose of academic research is to either answer deep important questions, or to help non-academics somehow, academics rarely explicitly justify their work in such terms.
For example, polls found that these goals best explain ~7% of which research projects academics pick, and ~9% of which papers/projects academics approve via peer review. Such choices are instead explained 32% and 58% respectively by topic/methods being in fashion. The remaining 62% of project choice is explained by building on prior work/skills, and the remaining 33% of peer review choice is explained by work showing impressive abilities.
You can also check this yourself by asking individual academics to explain how their work could plausibly contribute to answering deep important questions, or to non-academic value. Most will be surprised by the question, having never been asked, and answer poorly.
