Homogenization and Balkanization There is a tremendous market failure that is homogenizing public policy while balkanizing civil society.
Stanford Professor Diane Ravitch’s new book The Language Police reveals self-censorship in education. For example, even high-school history and English texts cannot mention: divorce, drugs, homosexuality, or dinosaurs (evolution) on one hand; religion, women as homemakers, slavery, inequality, and so on, on the other. In other words, anything real or interesting or historically accurate. Oligopoly Watch chalks this up to oligopsony (a market controlled by a few buyers), in this case three state textbook evaluation committees. Because there is some measure of accountability and a great deal of lobbying influence, the committees are balancing political correctness from the extreme left-wing and right wing.
Meanwhile, our kids get extreme exposure to these issues through the mass media, itself an oligopoly. When a media oligopoly can diversify its properties through digital cable, the law of the niche drives appeal to extremes. Given the choice, kids will naturally gravitate towards learning about contentious issues in media that is largely absent of context. Further fostering extremism.
Meanwhile, the Boy Scouts ban atheists and gays. With the supreme court granting the right to private civil society organizaitons to be exclusive, extreme interests are balkanizing. Again, this is a market with few sellers.
Parents are left with little choice.
8:21:52 AM 
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