| While not normally a fan of Mr.
Goldberger’s Sunday column in The New York Times, I
wish to extend my compliments on the piece he wrote on
Donald Trump. I believe that his criticism that Donald Trump epitomizes this decade "in which appearance so often triumphs over substance" was particularly apt and insightful. It is a characteristic towards which we as Americans have a particular predilection. As Mr. Goldberger stated, "the canny way in which he convinced the man on the street that his self-promotion is actually a statement of fact" is, I believe, a component of the American value system which in part has propelled America into a position of economic, though not cultural, eminence. I disagree with his statement that "private developers determine not only the physical form of the city [but] even its values." Individuals such as Donald Trump are only successful, I feel, because they mirror an existing value system. In other words, we as the consuming public in the long run get the buildings, literature and other art forms that we deserve. While prominent, as opposed to significant, individuals can marginally influence the value system, to say that they determine society's value system is to put the cart before the horse. In several millennia I fear that history will judge the American contribution to human culture as being of only marginal importance. We will most likely be judged as a people that were good technicians, merchants and warriors, but insignificant in terms of cultural achievement. It is perhaps the result of a pluralistic democratic society that breeds a value structure in which appearance triumphs over substance, at least in the short term. In the long term however, I believe these "triumphs" will vanish like cotton candy in a summer rain, leaving only those isolated achievements, in whatever field of human endeavor, that are remembered and studied by future civilizations. In this light, there is perhaps hope for those who, whatever their calling, seek to contribute to that which constitutes the essence of man and his existence. |
