Aphorism and Succinctly Grasping the Real

I am writing on a point by the sociologist Anthony Giddens, and his claim that modernity is weakly understood (its facets, its changes, its transitions) although people are embedded within it. This causes me to wonder, are some fiction writers (e.g. Coetzee, Eagleton) so skilled at summary aphorism and weighing in briefly on big issues, because their occupation involves a disconnect and imagining every day?

Eyes to the stars, creating fiction, their grasp of great events and influences can be stronger and what they want to say well-conveyed in merely a few paragraphs. This contrasts to the tome of labour and often slower expression of the academic, which is rarely succinct outside of the introduction.