A society needs new ideas constantly percolating to the surface, to see what catches root during each new turn in the meandering path of evolution. Sustainable life requires a dialectic, so that from the old can spring forth the new. The margins are the laboratory for the center. After awhile, people know what vanilla and chocolate taste like, so they quite coming back to see if there's any other flavors. They know there won't be.
People withdraw, become frustrated, alienated.
Having lived for 38 years in a winner take all society, that kind of self-censorship comes pretty easily to me by now. Yale graduate, published writer, decent-paying employment, stable personal relationship. I've put my nose to the grind stone, head down, buried in my own little life, looking for light at the end of the tunnel up ahead. Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead, and all that rot. Sometimes a majority means that most of the fools are on the same side.