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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