All of entertainment is based on cognitive dissonance. I'm not convinced people don't like it. I think maybe they like it a bit too much. You get a hit of endor

All of entertainment is based on cognitive dissonance. I'm not convinced people don't like it. I think maybe they like it a bit too much. You get a hit of endorphins from it. I'd be hard pressed to put numbers to it, but if people go through 10 conflict/resloution cycles in a day just from episodic TV, how much more is that than what our grandparents had ( or their grandparents if that is what it takes to get you back to before the barrage of entertainment product began, or at least began as much ). The mechanism of Balkanization is about leadership using a divide and conquer strategy to maintain a power base. Then again, specifically the Balkans had Tito ruthlessly disappearing troublemakers. The Russians may have been bastards, but they kept a lid on it outside Yugoslavia. Stalin wasn't the horror he was for no reason.