Not being a philosopher or psychiatrist, this is only one person’s humble opinion, and one open for change as I continue to learn.
An Idealist is someone who has a vision of an end result that could bring about better changes for Earth. They can either be ostracized or create a following. And often both.
Some Idealists are so far off base that they get the most publication and tend to stick in our minds, such as Hitler and Jim Jones. Then there are those that came up with creating fire on demand, automobiles, flight, etc. Surely these people had their own set of skeptics.
Fortunately, some of the skeptics are Realists…people who can strategically envision the path to the potential success of an idea. They provide feedback on where the vision could potentially fail in order to adjust the tasks involved to get to the end result.
Then there are the nay-sayers who shoot down any new idea that might rock their world. But that is a whole other conversation.