Of course they can.

All accomplishment is rooted in a sense of what an ideal situation would look like, and contrasted with what exists. The tension between those two things makes energy and motion in human affairs.

Like any idea, the notion of idealism can be used to justify apathy because 'you never reach the ideal so why bother', but that is just meretricious indolence.

Some artists use it as an explanation for not finishing anything because "it's not perfect yet". Seems to me that if the purpose of a work of art is to communicate something, it is good enough when it does that.

A