The number of times the administration has used large piles of blank paper to convey the image of work done is a perfect representation of what I mean by a focus on the aesthetic and the superficial.

The appearance of a thing is substituted for the thing itself.
The symbol is detached from the concepts it symbolizes.
Texts no longer exist to be read as a whole, but to mined for soundbites or simply invoked, unopened, as a source of authority.