Mario, your namesake was, in most respects, a very smart
          man. He just had this wierd blind-spot about the arts. I
          don't know if culture is the soul of a country. I think
          that's a very complicated question. Most of all, I think
          that just by stamping our feet and saying it, we are going
          to get nowhere. We need to think critically and express
          ourselves creatively about the role of those arts which
          cannot succeed in the marketplace. And this in a country
          where, increasingly, the marketplace has replaced the deity
          as "the invisible hand."
 
          Eric Siegel
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