this idea that the fragmentation of our media has led to a fragmentation of our culture, which david brooks probes with typical thoughtfulness today, has been reviving apace on the occasion of the ok city anniversary and everybody's fears about right-wing, "anti-government" violence etc cocoons, echo-chambers, fox, msnbc etc. let me just say that if there is danger in balkanization, there is surely danger in unanimity, or everyone getting their news from one source. you can't mobilize an ideologically balkanized culture into a genocide, for instance, and the idea that we all have common beliefs and experiences sounds good until these common beliefs and experiences turn us all into monsters simultaneously. i, personally, am into the splintering of culture right down to the point of splintering each individual consciousness. or i would be, if there were such a thing as individual consciousness, which of course is an anachronistic notion that we left behind decades ago.