some communities manage to sustain levels of art and music, often rooted in folk culture, which bring a richness even to the most poverty-stricken areas. But the shoulder-shrugging functionalism of post-war architecture, coupled with the passivity born of decades of television, have meant that for many people the world appears to offer little but bleak urban landscapes on the one hand and tawdry entertainment on the other. And when people cease to be surrounded by beauty, they cease to hope. They internalize the message of their eyes and ears, the message that whispers that they are not worth
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