The Middle Mind

by White, Curtis

• ISBN13: 9780060730598
• ISBN10: 0060730595
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-04-23
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

Acclaimed social critic Curtis White describes an all-encompassing and little-noticed force taking over our culture and our lives that he calls the Middle Mind: the current failure of the American imagination in the media, politics, education, art, technology, and religion. Irreverent, provocative, and far-reaching, White presents a clear vision of this dangerous mindset that threatens America's intellectual and cultural freedoms, concluding with an imperative to reawaken and unleash the once powerful American imagination. The Middle Mind is pragmatic, plainspoken, populist, contemptuous of the Right's narrowness, and incredulous before the Left's convolutions. It wants to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and has bought an SUV with the intent of visiting it. It even understands in some indistinct way how that very SUV spells the Arctic's doom.

Author Biography

Curtis White is the author of the novels Memories of My Father Watching TV and Requiem. A widely acclaimed essayist, his work appears regularly in Context, The Village Voice, In These Times, and Harper's. He is the current president of the Center for Book Culture/Dalkey Archive Press

Table of Contents

Foreword: First a Brain Wash	v
Introduction	1	(24)
The Middle Mind	25	(36)
Such an Awesome Site of Resistance	61	(29)
The Great American Disaster Machine	90	(57)
The Highway of Despair Leads to a World in Love	147	(40)
Notes Toward the Next American Sublime	187	(16)
Bibliography	203	(4)
Acknowledgments	207	(2)
About the Author	209