I think his premise is sound. That with the new overabundance of variety comes a lot of fertilizer for individuation. That even as people follow various micro-trends, large scale patterns will arise. We'll just have to learn to look at things differently to orient our approach in a way that has meaning again. Failing that, in the extreme, we'd be forced to take everyone as they are--self-made patchworks of ideologies and styles--and that's just too much work. Cliques and stereotypes are all but inevitable.
The internet is a great place for fringe groups to pursue their collective interests and as they feed off of one another's ideas, unaffected by how far in time or space the inspiration has had to travel, we'll have more and more variety proliferating.
Imagine if animals could continue to evolve that way after what we now consider extinction. Mutating and giving rise to new breeds and species in turn. Raptors and wolves living side by side in the wilderness. Possibly even breeding with one another to create little raptor wolf babies.
I'm going to stop before I ramble too far off topic. Let me know what you think.
"In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists."
— Eric Hoffer
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