I agree with 'courage', but the problem is that it all depends on the courage of the people with money rather than the courage of the researcher. Someone has to

I agree with 'courage', but the problem is that it all depends on the courage of the people with money rather than the courage of the researcher. Someone has to take the risk and hire you for a tenure track position, and someone has to choose you over someone else (from a better school? with a more en-vogue topic?) for giving out grant money. Ideally it should be a meritocracy, but how do you prove in advance what is good research? And I guess, then it often boils down to 'no one ever got fired for buying IBM'.