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The Middle Mind: Why Americans Don't Think for Themselves
What do George W. Bush, the Ivory Tower, Steven Spielberg, and Terry Gross have in common?
Does a political scandal make for good news copy?
Does network programming allow us to unwind from a day's work?
Does the art at the local museum make for pleasant cocktail conversation?
An unflinching and wry look at the dumbing down of the American imagination.
In this groundbreaking and incisive exploration, acclaimed social critic Curtis White describes an all-encompassing and little-noticed force taking over our culture and our lives. White calls this force the Middle Mind -- the current failure of the American imagination in the media, politics, education, art, technology, and religion.
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.
The Middle Mind is not about left or right, highbrow or lowbrow, academia or pop culture; in fact, it pervades society without discrimination. The danger is not in a specific point of view, but rather in how the Middle Mind thrives in the common ground of unquestioned mediocrity. All we seem to ask about the culture we experience is whether it's entertaining.
White argues that we have forgotten how to read, to watch, to think for ourselves. Because it is neutral, widespread, and easily digestible, the Middle Mind has lulled the American imagination to sleep. As we sit comfortably amused and distracted, just outside the door there is an immediate crisis of a nation blindly following the path of least resistance. 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.
Does a political scandal make for good news copy?
Does network programming allow us to unwind from a day's work?
Does the art at the local museum make for pleasant cocktail conversation?
An unflinching and wry look at the dumbing down of the American imagination.
In this groundbreaking and incisive exploration, acclaimed social critic Curtis White describes an all-encompassing and little-noticed force taking over our culture and our lives. White calls this force the Middle Mind -- the current failure of the American imagination in the media, politics, education, art, technology, and religion.
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.
The Middle Mind is not about left or right, highbrow or lowbrow, academia or pop culture; in fact, it pervades society without discrimination. The danger is not in a specific point of view, but rather in how the Middle Mind thrives in the common ground of unquestioned mediocrity. All we seem to ask about the culture we experience is whether it's entertaining.
White argues that we have forgotten how to read, to watch, to think for ourselves. Because it is neutral, widespread, and easily digestible, the Middle Mind has lulled the American imagination to sleep. As we sit comfortably amused and distracted, just outside the door there is an immediate crisis of a nation blindly following the path of least resistance. 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.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published August 19, 2003
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315 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
April 7, 2021
The one Curtis White you gotta read if you gonna read just one Curtis White...
November 9, 2013
I have been at war with ‘middlebrow’ novels for a while now, or publishers that sell novels with pastoral covers and wistful bucolic pictures. This stretches into an innate loathing of the acceptance of unoriginal, topical, and content-driven novels, where the author’s life story is of greater currency, and the content is interchangeable (i.e. Arab Spring the same as doomed romantic encounter). White’s entertaining and substantial thesis expands on this notion of middlebrow (Middle Mind) and diagnoses a cosiness in our literary and intellectual culture that needs to be shattered with a flameball of avant-garde novels and untypical thought-making (often with reference to Derrida and lots of Wallace Stevens quotes). A refreshing and satirical book that takes unexpected detours into metaphysics, religion, and philosophy, White’s book is a provocative treatise and a necessary read for those who have long ago turned their backs on mainstream culture and wonder why the rest of the world hasn’t followed.
April 24, 2012
I had no real urge to read this, wasn't even considering reading this approaching the weekend turnbuckle, and then one hasty, ill-considered decision made in the leg-hopping throes of imminent dumpage meant that Barrett and Kagan received a notice of postponement while I attended myself (as quickly as possible, mind) to this infuriatingly readable thing, an ode to giving Terry Gross and Charlie Rose and all of their cud-chewing, middle-minded followers an overdue beat-down in the hope of snapping them out of their stupor. White here reminds me somewhat of John Ralston Saul—and with more than a passing nod to William Henry's
In Defense of Elitism
, that highbrow brow-beating from an irascible critic singing a similar song in a different key—though the author here is more scattershot in his tactics, if generally more coherent in his strategy than the wordier Saul. Aside from how their scorn for those power-grabbing, imagination-stultifying elites manifests itself in ways both complimentary and antithetical to each other and both make a pitch at the populist angle while displaying a confused understanding of those masses they desire to reach, White finds equal fault in the complicity of that average citizen whereas JRS deems the latter to have been mislead, misdirected, and misused by those specialized seneschals of the late-capitalist consensus. And to a greater degree than his Canadian peer in the pungent polemic, White evinces consistency in his role as a hit-and-miss artist—at times achieving both within the same paragraph, let alone on the same page.
At the very outset, White declares the tripartite goals he set out to achieve in the publishing of this thin slice of well-bred: to make something beautiful; to misbehave; and to be persuasive. IMO, the first two were realized to an appreciable amount—but it's in the third where he falters. As other reviews have pointed out, there is much wisdom and much that is of worth in what White has to say about the leveling down of both American culture and the visions of what the country can and should be; but he's also prone to talking out of his ass, proves insufferable in his own cloistered vantage point, and boldly passes judgement upon subjects he'd have been better advised to consider at further length. Let's face it, just try to imagine what a nation filled with citizens raised, since childhood, on postmodern theory—the endpoint of one of White's bang-shang-a-lang proposals—would actually be like: you'd require an hour of deconstruction and histrionic argument just to get someone to pass the ketchup. Indeed, it is conceivable that the opposing case could be made that a certain level of ignorance and/or apathy on the part of the general populace is a necessary ingredient for the functionality of a capitalist democracy comprising some three hundred-plus millions of people. Furthermore, it is quite clear from White's own words that he deems it obvious that his preferred society—one in which the citizenry seriously undertake to educate themselves in order to be able to assess what is transpiring within on a daily basis and contemplate what course changes should be implemented, as well as attuning themselves to cultural and societal frequencies that would unleash the fertility and harness the potentiality of each citizen's imaginative and creative abilities—would arrive at conclusions similar to his own. He evinces little understanding of the reality that a Middle-Mindless populace might find themselves drawn towards ideologies and cultural memes and creative directions antithetical to what White would prefer; a failing common amongst thinkers that I have espied throughout the ages, whatever location on the ideological spectrum they may occupy.
Now, with all of that said, I would still endorse White's book. Aesthetically it proved a pleasure to imbibe, and whatever the failures White has suffered within, they are failures he absolutely understood were potential within his wide-ranging plaint. To a certain extent, they are revealing—to whit, early on he describes the postmodern professoriate as being a Dungeons & Dragons cult. In a footnote White admits that he is unclear about this metaphor's accuracy, and, in point of fact, the analogy does not work; but it serves as a useful example of how White operates at several points within. In his mind, D&D—being something about which he knows nothing but, nonetheless, holds in utter contempt—presents itself as being appropriate as a derogatory descriptor of ivory tower aesthetes. Barreling straight ahead regardless of whether one is full of shit—at such points the Middle-Mind doesn't seem to have much on the author. However, in the end such sidebars are of less importance than the fact that the book's persistent prickliness and pointed poking is a purposeful tactic, meant to provoke the reader—at the very least—into serious contemplation of the points White has made and/or raised, even where middling or muddied—and with that in mind, the author should consider The Middle Mind a modest success.
At the very outset, White declares the tripartite goals he set out to achieve in the publishing of this thin slice of well-bred: to make something beautiful; to misbehave; and to be persuasive. IMO, the first two were realized to an appreciable amount—but it's in the third where he falters. As other reviews have pointed out, there is much wisdom and much that is of worth in what White has to say about the leveling down of both American culture and the visions of what the country can and should be; but he's also prone to talking out of his ass, proves insufferable in his own cloistered vantage point, and boldly passes judgement upon subjects he'd have been better advised to consider at further length. Let's face it, just try to imagine what a nation filled with citizens raised, since childhood, on postmodern theory—the endpoint of one of White's bang-shang-a-lang proposals—would actually be like: you'd require an hour of deconstruction and histrionic argument just to get someone to pass the ketchup. Indeed, it is conceivable that the opposing case could be made that a certain level of ignorance and/or apathy on the part of the general populace is a necessary ingredient for the functionality of a capitalist democracy comprising some three hundred-plus millions of people. Furthermore, it is quite clear from White's own words that he deems it obvious that his preferred society—one in which the citizenry seriously undertake to educate themselves in order to be able to assess what is transpiring within on a daily basis and contemplate what course changes should be implemented, as well as attuning themselves to cultural and societal frequencies that would unleash the fertility and harness the potentiality of each citizen's imaginative and creative abilities—would arrive at conclusions similar to his own. He evinces little understanding of the reality that a Middle-Mindless populace might find themselves drawn towards ideologies and cultural memes and creative directions antithetical to what White would prefer; a failing common amongst thinkers that I have espied throughout the ages, whatever location on the ideological spectrum they may occupy.
Now, with all of that said, I would still endorse White's book. Aesthetically it proved a pleasure to imbibe, and whatever the failures White has suffered within, they are failures he absolutely understood were potential within his wide-ranging plaint. To a certain extent, they are revealing—to whit, early on he describes the postmodern professoriate as being a Dungeons & Dragons cult. In a footnote White admits that he is unclear about this metaphor's accuracy, and, in point of fact, the analogy does not work; but it serves as a useful example of how White operates at several points within. In his mind, D&D—being something about which he knows nothing but, nonetheless, holds in utter contempt—presents itself as being appropriate as a derogatory descriptor of ivory tower aesthetes. Barreling straight ahead regardless of whether one is full of shit—at such points the Middle-Mind doesn't seem to have much on the author. However, in the end such sidebars are of less importance than the fact that the book's persistent prickliness and pointed poking is a purposeful tactic, meant to provoke the reader—at the very least—into serious contemplation of the points White has made and/or raised, even where middling or muddied—and with that in mind, the author should consider The Middle Mind a modest success.
August 9, 2009
Curtis White does not clearly define the "Middle Mind" or clearly explain "Why Americans Don't Think for Themselves". For example, he does not define an Upper Mind or a Lower Mind and he does not explain how Americans think for someone other than themselves. Much is unclear in this rambling jumble, which includes little sociological or scientific data to support whatever claims it makes. Basically, it seems that the Middle Mind is represented by a liberal who doesn't challenge the status quo. To rise above the Middle Mind you should be a progressive who rejects the status quo. (Forget conservatives, whom White might put in the No Mind camp.) Popular culture is bad because it supports the Estabishment. Counter-culture is good because it subverts the Establishment. (Is it a coincidence that White was in San Francisco in the 1960s?)
White does makes it very clear what he likes and doesn't like. If you don't like what he likes, you mired in the Middle Mind. White likes Wallace Stevens, Jacques Derrida, Theodor Adorno, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Michael Moore, Theodore Roszak, and progressive alternative artists. White also likes Molly Ivins, Andrei Codrescu, and David Foster Wallace, all of whom provided cover blurbs.
White does not like popular culture, television, capitalists, corporations, conservatives, the military, politicians, anything related to the George W. Bush administration, Ronald Reagan, Harold Bloom, William Bennett, and Dinesh D'Souza. White spends much space in the book "staking [his:] claim for the American military-industrial-technocratic empire as a disaster machine". White comments on the "media blacklisting" of Chomsky and Zinn, as if Chomsky didn't have books in every Borders and Barnes & Noble, and as if Zinn didn't have the bestselling history book and a profitable capitalist industry in progressive "People's History" books. While the book sometimes focuses on the cultural Middle Mind, it often slips into the political Middle Mind.
White's solution to the poorly defined problem of the Middle Mind is more thought, imagination, and the "sublime". Examples of the sublime are Marshall McLuhan's "The Mechanical Bride" which "yearns for what it can't adequately express" and David Lynch's work: "Lynch is sublime in part because he is inarticulate. He really has no idea what he's trying to say." White does not seem to believe that people in the U.S. are already allowed to be creative, imaginative, and thoughtful. It frustrates White that people embrace popular culture rather than reject it. (If the people rejected the popular culture, then what would the popular culture be?) It also frustrates White that so many people prefer to think for themselves rather than think just like White would prefer (e.g., progressively). In summary, if people don't think like White, they must not be thinking.
White makes a good point that academic Cultural Studies "flattens distinctions" between great art and mediocre art -- between "Milton and Madonna". White applies this criticism to shows like Terry Gross's "Fresh Air" and Charlie Rose's show, which often interview great talents and mediocre talents with equal admiration. That could make an interesting essay (and I say this as a big fan of "Fresh Air"). However, rather than elaborate on this, White goes on to really criticize such shows for being "a threat to no one nowhere" -- that is, they represent the Middle Mind because they don't fulfill White's preferred function of criticizing the popular culture and status quo. White criticizes Cultural Studies and popular shows for being institutionalized and supporting the capitalist popular culture.
After discussing Cultural Studies, White reviews Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan", which he disliked because it was "crypto-fascist", and the Radiohead record "Kid A", which he liked because it was not made to meet commercial expectations.
It is amusing when White writes this about "Saving Private Ryan": "I have been surprised that my friends -- intelligent, sophisticated people on the whole [e.g., progressives:] -- had no idea what I was talking about when I elaborated my understanding of the film's 'lesson.'....In short, my ominous conclusion was that they didn't know how to 'read' the film. That is to say, they didn't know how to abstract the integument of structure from a piece of narrative art in order to begin to talk about how the thing means (i.e., creates an ethical world)." Imagine White's friends anxiously brushing up on Derrida before seeing any movie with him.
White said in an interview "Basically I don't watch tv for the same reason that I don't drive nails into my frontal lobe." In a time when much of the nation's art is presented through television, one would think that someone writing about art would be sure to be familiar with it. One could imagine a cultural critic of fifty years ago saying "I don't listen to modern music for the same reason that I don't drive nails into my frontal lobe." A conservative view that is at odds with White's theme. Does White watch Internet content or read Internet blogs? Where does White think the youth of today express their views?
If you are a progressive Thinker who believes your friends and fellow citizens are inferior, culturally and politically, then you may enjoy this book. Rated one star for the critique of Cultural Studies, and one more star for the funny look at "Saving Private Ryan".
White does makes it very clear what he likes and doesn't like. If you don't like what he likes, you mired in the Middle Mind. White likes Wallace Stevens, Jacques Derrida, Theodor Adorno, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Michael Moore, Theodore Roszak, and progressive alternative artists. White also likes Molly Ivins, Andrei Codrescu, and David Foster Wallace, all of whom provided cover blurbs.
White does not like popular culture, television, capitalists, corporations, conservatives, the military, politicians, anything related to the George W. Bush administration, Ronald Reagan, Harold Bloom, William Bennett, and Dinesh D'Souza. White spends much space in the book "staking [his:] claim for the American military-industrial-technocratic empire as a disaster machine". White comments on the "media blacklisting" of Chomsky and Zinn, as if Chomsky didn't have books in every Borders and Barnes & Noble, and as if Zinn didn't have the bestselling history book and a profitable capitalist industry in progressive "People's History" books. While the book sometimes focuses on the cultural Middle Mind, it often slips into the political Middle Mind.
White's solution to the poorly defined problem of the Middle Mind is more thought, imagination, and the "sublime". Examples of the sublime are Marshall McLuhan's "The Mechanical Bride" which "yearns for what it can't adequately express" and David Lynch's work: "Lynch is sublime in part because he is inarticulate. He really has no idea what he's trying to say." White does not seem to believe that people in the U.S. are already allowed to be creative, imaginative, and thoughtful. It frustrates White that people embrace popular culture rather than reject it. (If the people rejected the popular culture, then what would the popular culture be?) It also frustrates White that so many people prefer to think for themselves rather than think just like White would prefer (e.g., progressively). In summary, if people don't think like White, they must not be thinking.
White makes a good point that academic Cultural Studies "flattens distinctions" between great art and mediocre art -- between "Milton and Madonna". White applies this criticism to shows like Terry Gross's "Fresh Air" and Charlie Rose's show, which often interview great talents and mediocre talents with equal admiration. That could make an interesting essay (and I say this as a big fan of "Fresh Air"). However, rather than elaborate on this, White goes on to really criticize such shows for being "a threat to no one nowhere" -- that is, they represent the Middle Mind because they don't fulfill White's preferred function of criticizing the popular culture and status quo. White criticizes Cultural Studies and popular shows for being institutionalized and supporting the capitalist popular culture.
After discussing Cultural Studies, White reviews Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan", which he disliked because it was "crypto-fascist", and the Radiohead record "Kid A", which he liked because it was not made to meet commercial expectations.
It is amusing when White writes this about "Saving Private Ryan": "I have been surprised that my friends -- intelligent, sophisticated people on the whole [e.g., progressives:] -- had no idea what I was talking about when I elaborated my understanding of the film's 'lesson.'....In short, my ominous conclusion was that they didn't know how to 'read' the film. That is to say, they didn't know how to abstract the integument of structure from a piece of narrative art in order to begin to talk about how the thing means (i.e., creates an ethical world)." Imagine White's friends anxiously brushing up on Derrida before seeing any movie with him.
White said in an interview "Basically I don't watch tv for the same reason that I don't drive nails into my frontal lobe." In a time when much of the nation's art is presented through television, one would think that someone writing about art would be sure to be familiar with it. One could imagine a cultural critic of fifty years ago saying "I don't listen to modern music for the same reason that I don't drive nails into my frontal lobe." A conservative view that is at odds with White's theme. Does White watch Internet content or read Internet blogs? Where does White think the youth of today express their views?
If you are a progressive Thinker who believes your friends and fellow citizens are inferior, culturally and politically, then you may enjoy this book. Rated one star for the critique of Cultural Studies, and one more star for the funny look at "Saving Private Ryan".
March 27, 2010
An epically frustrating book. I expected the book to be about the ills of the progressive suburban mind (the thoughts of those people who drive around listening to Terri Gross on NPR or watch to Charlie Rose with rapt attention), and it kind of is, but mainly it's 200 pages - and thankfully not longer - of Curtis White railing against the world. Sometimes, there is some rather insightful commentary. Nice critiques include how the Terri Gross/Charlie Rose interview true artists and hacks with the same reverence and how the Cultural Studies major flattens distinctions. These critiques, however, need to be separated from borderline brain-damaged ideas throughout the book. A couple of these comments is how we are supposed to hate cars because they've killed 3M in the past 30 years (Dr. White seems to have forgotten how many people would have died had say, transportation didn't deliver you food at your grocery stores) or how scientists all build weapons for our military overlords and disclaim any responsibility (forgetting those nice folks who, I don't know, cured leprosy and polio).
And White's grand prescription is... read more Derrida! This is not to say that Derrida may not help us become better people (I haven't read any Derrida, so I am not going to make any claims), but that this would be the kneejerk suggestion that one would expect from someone teaching English at the university level (which he is). For a book whose subtitle is "Why Americans Don't Think For Themselves", it seems that White's perspective is prototypical for someone with an English Ph.D. White just spouts those banal English Ph.D. lines, but somehow thinks his book has much more original (and correct) thought than it actually does.
Life, if you want to look at it in all its complexity, is extremely difficult and overwhelming, and it's really necessary that one needs to simplify it in order to get through the day. What I was hoping for was a critique on how a "dominant" class of people simplifies life in a rather poor way and some thoughtful (and new) suggestions on how to fix those simplifications. Instead, I was treated with mostly slipshod invective (with a couple good ideas thrown in) and a rather poor suggestion that will do nothing to make those "Middle Minds" lives materially better.
And White's grand prescription is... read more Derrida! This is not to say that Derrida may not help us become better people (I haven't read any Derrida, so I am not going to make any claims), but that this would be the kneejerk suggestion that one would expect from someone teaching English at the university level (which he is). For a book whose subtitle is "Why Americans Don't Think For Themselves", it seems that White's perspective is prototypical for someone with an English Ph.D. White just spouts those banal English Ph.D. lines, but somehow thinks his book has much more original (and correct) thought than it actually does.
Life, if you want to look at it in all its complexity, is extremely difficult and overwhelming, and it's really necessary that one needs to simplify it in order to get through the day. What I was hoping for was a critique on how a "dominant" class of people simplifies life in a rather poor way and some thoughtful (and new) suggestions on how to fix those simplifications. Instead, I was treated with mostly slipshod invective (with a couple good ideas thrown in) and a rather poor suggestion that will do nothing to make those "Middle Minds" lives materially better.
July 29, 2007
He was my teacher at Illinois State, so a grain of salt.
The best teacher I've ever had. Old school: he talked, we listened. We asked questions, he always had answers. Plus he once called a hairdo he had in the 60s a "haircut of despair." Which is still the funniest thing.
The best teacher I've ever had. Old school: he talked, we listened. We asked questions, he always had answers. Plus he once called a hairdo he had in the 60s a "haircut of despair." Which is still the funniest thing.
June 16, 2012
The first few dozen pages seem really promising, but it's all downhill from there. He comes off as talking out his ass about half the time, and if you don't like the same bands/academic theorists/radio programs as he does, then you clearly aren't enlightened. Heck, he's even disappointed in his friends' level of enlightenment.
He mentions the need not to water important subjects down into easily digestible bits--into sensationalist headlines--for the Middle Minded public to understand, which I agree with, but it's difficult to capture the attention of an over-stimulated group of people with a dense, academic stack of info.
I wish I hadn't wasted time reading this book.
He mentions the need not to water important subjects down into easily digestible bits--into sensationalist headlines--for the Middle Minded public to understand, which I agree with, but it's difficult to capture the attention of an over-stimulated group of people with a dense, academic stack of info.
I wish I hadn't wasted time reading this book.
June 11, 2011
I re-read this because I liked how Curtis White lays out his argument; I had the same disgust at _Saving Private Ryan_, and the people I saw it with reacted much like those friends White talks about.
This book isn't densely argued, hedged by authorities, or written at a low temperature (though I'm sure it could be more intemperate). It's not meant to be cautious, but to provoke thought (though it can also provoke despair), and it succeeds.
This book isn't densely argued, hedged by authorities, or written at a low temperature (though I'm sure it could be more intemperate). It's not meant to be cautious, but to provoke thought (though it can also provoke despair), and it succeeds.
Read
June 24, 2021A deeply self-important and un-self aware white man misunderstands other ways of analyzing culture that are different from what he learned in his privileged educational background (we are meant to be very impressed that he studied under famous (TM) intellectuals who knew him well enough to yell at him) and therefore finds these unfamiliar and nonsensical (to him) ways of thinking deeply disturbing and wrong. Basically unreadable even if you know every one of the unnecessary references. But that’s the point: to awe you with his wisdom and cow you into accepting his argument without challenge. Don’t be fooled: this emperor has no clothes.
Theoretically, I agree with his conclusion, but his arguments are so elitist and clueless that he isn’t going to persuade anyone, and I don’t even want him to.
Theoretically, I agree with his conclusion, but his arguments are so elitist and clueless that he isn’t going to persuade anyone, and I don’t even want him to.
February 7, 2012
It's hard to know how to rate this book. On the one hand, I think the author's basic ideas are extremely important: we need to "think change" and not just be content to passively consume media in order to feed our human need for creativity. But I would have found his arguments much more convincing had he given more examples. Instead, each point is based on a single rant against some movie/critic/show/etc. that the author doesn't like. I wasn't familiar with many of these, so I could only take his word for it. It's like the book was based on just a handful of rants upon which a theory was constructed... it seemed weak. Also, his disdain for Nick Hornby's music reviews bothered me. He looks down at Hornby because Hornby wants music to, get this, *SOUND GOOD*, scoff! I did like his movie interpretations, but on the whole he comes across as a pretentious snob. Much of this book was very abstract and theoretical without sufficient examples, and I had a hard time focussing. His definition of The Middle Mind was a bit vague as well.
I feel like the author had a bunch of good ideas, but they would be much better as tightly edited and theoretically expanded articles (the book was based on articles in the first place, I guess).
I feel like the author had a bunch of good ideas, but they would be much better as tightly edited and theoretically expanded articles (the book was based on articles in the first place, I guess).
May 25, 2016
White is swiftly becoming one of my favorite contrarian thinkers. In this book he takes on the notion of the Middle Mind, what he views as an intellectual and imaginative shallows of Western, and particularly American, life and culture. In essence, the Middle Mind is a place where any thought is permissible, so long as it doesn't matter. In this case, to "matter" means to open up social imaginaries outside of the status quo. Artists and creatives can posit any radical idea they want, so long as it does not threaten the basic system currently in place. Thus people wax philosophical about technological marvels without questioning the first principles of a technocracy, and artists are employed by multinational corporations in Hollywood and Silicon Valley to apply their creativity safely within the bounds of acceptable discourse. White seeks to set us free from this perspective in a set of sharp (both in the sense of cutting, and in the sense of insightful) essays in which he seeks to deconstruct this safe shallows of the imaginary, and to point, vaguely, forward toward a recovery of the full imagination, art, and the sublime. Here is meat, not milk, thought for chewing and wrestling. There is no better kind.
December 21, 2008
I confess that I only got this because I read that he takes on Fresh Air and Terry Gross and I was excited to read criticism of that lousy program.
Anyway, like other philosophy/etc. books I've read, he seems to say a lot and not really say anything new. If I figured the main thesis right: art is good and beautiful and can save us and the environment (because the thinking and creativity required for art can do anything, yah), but most of our culture isn't art at all but mediocre entertainment and that is why we suck.
Well, close enough, I think. Why does there have to be a hierarchy of worth in art anyway? Why not connect our hierarchical, competitive way of organizing society to our suckiness?
Now, I won't defend crappy reality tv shows and bad music, but it is a judgment call and to each their own, right? That said, stories are important, but it isn't just art that tells them (or crappy video games and tv) but every insitution in our culture.
Whatever, I'm rambling. I guess I just didn't find much worthwhile here and that probably proves that I'm in the middle-mindset like everyone else.
Anyway, like other philosophy/etc. books I've read, he seems to say a lot and not really say anything new. If I figured the main thesis right: art is good and beautiful and can save us and the environment (because the thinking and creativity required for art can do anything, yah), but most of our culture isn't art at all but mediocre entertainment and that is why we suck.
Well, close enough, I think. Why does there have to be a hierarchy of worth in art anyway? Why not connect our hierarchical, competitive way of organizing society to our suckiness?
Now, I won't defend crappy reality tv shows and bad music, but it is a judgment call and to each their own, right? That said, stories are important, but it isn't just art that tells them (or crappy video games and tv) but every insitution in our culture.
Whatever, I'm rambling. I guess I just didn't find much worthwhile here and that probably proves that I'm in the middle-mindset like everyone else.
February 13, 2008
White is really smart. And he's right on target. About half the time.
He can't seem to break out of the indignation that the world around him isn't as avant-garde as he needs it to be. Middlebrow isn't as bad a thing as he wants to make it out to be. Frustrating, yes. Bad, indeed. Harmful, cheap, etc.
But it does give people a more than your daily dose of insight and opportunity for investigation.
I read this so long ago, I can't remember too much of his specifics.
I remember being vehemently in agreement almost every other page, with the next page being totally off the mark.
Of how many books can this be said?
March 26, 2008
I remember reading this book. I remember enjoying it. I don't remember what it's about. Social criticism of some sort. Quoted a lot of academics and poets. Seemed to make too much of whatever it was about. Or not.
June 15, 2007
Senility: At some point the wisdom of a fiery veteran becomes the bitter raving of a crazy old man.
August 31, 2023
White was ahead of his time in finding political refuge in pop art criticism, and he's full of interesting ideas about things we still talk about, but they are ludicrously overvalued ideas. He's spinning his wheels. Practicing Buddhism the right way, appreciating art the right way, having the right ideas- these things alone won't take you very far.
For all the time he spends outlining the abject failure of 60s counterculture, he sure does favor it to the present. Repression is unnecessary now with the stupefaction of the masses perfected. He finally admits the material conditions aren't right either. If the imagination he celebrates can only be "pragmatic" and actualized in circumstances without repression, and we aren't even being repressed, I'm not sure what is stopping us.
The last I checked leftism in post-Reagan America mainly existed on paper, on campus. There was never a shortage of ideas or thinking and they have increasingly penetrated popular thought. Popular culture doesn't even enact ideology, it's downstream from it, but White insists those forces can be harnessed for the good of all. In the era of peak content, I call bullshit.
In raw numbers, there are more art scholar types of White's ilk than ever before. We're picky, we're snobs, we curate, we decipher, and we expound endlessly about art. Read your Marx and your Adorno and whine at the television. You too can start your socialist podcast. That's White's legacy here.
Maybe the class of people involved, similar in age and temperament to those failed hippies, are incapable of spearheading revolutions regardless of their cultural acumen. Those feats are typically carried out by brutalized workers, weary soldiers, and famished peasants. That discrepancy seems obvious. White seems to know it. The only thing he can place his faith in is Radiohead, Adbusters, the Rainforest Action Network, and himself. He considers this group to be martyrs for a better tomorrow.
America's decline is dispiriting, its prosperity was dispiriting, but those positions on the ladder aren't very far apart in a global or historic context. Only someone experiencing it in real time might latch onto it so rabidly. How else could you ever come to consider this country the site of change? White understands the extent of military domination and the carceral state in America. His revolution of the mind and heart being championed was more acceptable in the grips of LSD than here in the realm of serious argument. I think he defeats himself in the course of making it and time has born that out as well.
Finally, on his close reading of Saving Private Ryan, I think White misses how Ryan's picturesque daughters, striking pure blonde Aryans, might be ironic spoils of war. The films opens on the flag then Ryan and his progeny gathering in a graveyard to mourn. The film closes with the sun setting on this same scene, a funeral for a false legacy. Ryan, having finally embodied the spirit of total eradication, has preserved those Nazi ideals (genetically, imperially) if not their methods. That is America.
I would still welcome White's interpretation of the film Eagle Eye which I think is truly the most haunted thing Spielberg has ever laid a finger on. White is riveting when he's sinking his teeth into specific works. It's his own ideas that are sprawling and fanciful and contradictory. Unfortunate.
For all the time he spends outlining the abject failure of 60s counterculture, he sure does favor it to the present. Repression is unnecessary now with the stupefaction of the masses perfected. He finally admits the material conditions aren't right either. If the imagination he celebrates can only be "pragmatic" and actualized in circumstances without repression, and we aren't even being repressed, I'm not sure what is stopping us.
The last I checked leftism in post-Reagan America mainly existed on paper, on campus. There was never a shortage of ideas or thinking and they have increasingly penetrated popular thought. Popular culture doesn't even enact ideology, it's downstream from it, but White insists those forces can be harnessed for the good of all. In the era of peak content, I call bullshit.
In raw numbers, there are more art scholar types of White's ilk than ever before. We're picky, we're snobs, we curate, we decipher, and we expound endlessly about art. Read your Marx and your Adorno and whine at the television. You too can start your socialist podcast. That's White's legacy here.
Maybe the class of people involved, similar in age and temperament to those failed hippies, are incapable of spearheading revolutions regardless of their cultural acumen. Those feats are typically carried out by brutalized workers, weary soldiers, and famished peasants. That discrepancy seems obvious. White seems to know it. The only thing he can place his faith in is Radiohead, Adbusters, the Rainforest Action Network, and himself. He considers this group to be martyrs for a better tomorrow.
America's decline is dispiriting, its prosperity was dispiriting, but those positions on the ladder aren't very far apart in a global or historic context. Only someone experiencing it in real time might latch onto it so rabidly. How else could you ever come to consider this country the site of change? White understands the extent of military domination and the carceral state in America. His revolution of the mind and heart being championed was more acceptable in the grips of LSD than here in the realm of serious argument. I think he defeats himself in the course of making it and time has born that out as well.
Finally, on his close reading of Saving Private Ryan, I think White misses how Ryan's picturesque daughters, striking pure blonde Aryans, might be ironic spoils of war. The films opens on the flag then Ryan and his progeny gathering in a graveyard to mourn. The film closes with the sun setting on this same scene, a funeral for a false legacy. Ryan, having finally embodied the spirit of total eradication, has preserved those Nazi ideals (genetically, imperially) if not their methods. That is America.
I would still welcome White's interpretation of the film Eagle Eye which I think is truly the most haunted thing Spielberg has ever laid a finger on. White is riveting when he's sinking his teeth into specific works. It's his own ideas that are sprawling and fanciful and contradictory. Unfortunate.
April 19, 2023
Quite excellent analysis of how artistic and literary discourse has been impoverished in contemporary America. I appreciated the author's critiques of Saving Private Ryan and American Beauty. Both films maintained a veneer of being art films; however, White elaborately identifies many of the issues I had with both films in ways I hadn't had articulated until now. The author critiques both the Left and the Right for simplicity of thought.
His critique of Richard Florida's creative class was also well taken. [White may have bemoaned Florida's assertion that the SF arts scene exists to 'service' the creativity of Silicon Valley, but what would Florida or White say now knowing how much the arts have been decimated in SF?]
I very much appreciate White's snarky and acerbic tone, as he continues to advocate for imagination and contemplation.
That the author is head editor of Dalkey Archive publisher colors my understanding of this book.
Worth a reread down the road.
His critique of Richard Florida's creative class was also well taken. [White may have bemoaned Florida's assertion that the SF arts scene exists to 'service' the creativity of Silicon Valley, but what would Florida or White say now knowing how much the arts have been decimated in SF?]
I very much appreciate White's snarky and acerbic tone, as he continues to advocate for imagination and contemplation.
That the author is head editor of Dalkey Archive publisher colors my understanding of this book.
Worth a reread down the road.
March 12, 2025
Thoroughly enjoyed the author's critique of the "then" state of art, education and culture in the USA in the aftermath of 9/11. This book should be re-read now, because it has become even more pertinent with the increasing reach of "anti"-social media, AI and withering democracy. White is merciless. Many of us, reading this book, will be dismayed to find ourselves in his cross-heads. The fact is, it is up to us to fix our middle-mindedness, not just in the USA, but everywhere.
February 8, 2025
Interesting but rambly and his hypothesis while fascinating is not well rounded out. I wanted very much more from this book. He is no doubt well read and follows culture but the audience for this book is small.
November 20, 2024
Enjoyed this! Reading 20 years down the line, I think his thesis has been mostly proven correct!!! Which is saying something. My only detraction is how short this book is.
October 22, 2024
Can’t convey how much I needed a paradigm to express my horror at the glowing reception of films like Everything Everywhere All at Once by those who I assumed had some faith or reverence for art. In a world where the chronically online are desperate to prove their worth through irony and witty cultural commentary, there's an outpour of media being produced to cater to this exact subset of individuals. Whatever "art" is produced with this consumer-base in mind is formulaic and easily digestible while maintaining the guise that it's *saying something* about *society*. It’s also obvious that there's an intended audience ripe for middle mind marketing who will go out and spend their money to have their beliefs spit back at them with a little extra glitter mixed in for good measure.
I was born at the turn of the millennium and a few of White's references went over my head, but it's just as easy to paste in any number of current cultural touchstones (The Daily Show, you name whatever popular podcast, Ted Lasso, the list goes on...) and marvel at the accuracy of White's analysis. Not to mention he's funny as hell. It's remarkable how he's able to touch on such a diversity of subjects via the connective tissue of the Middle Mind. War, technology, climate crisis, traffic deaths, the university, poetry, the nature of artistic expression, the absence and presence of God: each idea is given care and space for interpretation. There's no jargon, no posturing, and by the end of the book I was in tears, flooded with inspiration to make something sublime and unrecognizable.
There's something undeniably depressing about reading the more optimistic sections of the text 20 years after its composition and seeing countless examples of the evolution of the Middle Mind rather than evidence of its destabilization. At the same time I'm surrounded by hope in the form of transcendent music, literature, and films that continue to reveal themselves and reach the hearts and minds of people like myself one way or another…
One could view the book as a failure: a call to revolution which is ultimately obscured by the shadow of its own Leviathan. In any case it’s an article of clarity and truth that will serve as a continual lens to our culture, even as that culture mutates beyond recognition.
Thanks, dad, for the book. I'm filled with gratitude to have been born into a home where critical thinking is encouraged alongside reverence for the sublime, that which moves beyond meaning and towards the unknowable. May this beast of a culture continue to leave room for the imagination to wander... for little poets to be born and reinvigorate the dry fruit of modern life (without falling into the trappings of academia). The least we can do is remain vigilant in the face of constant attempts to manipulate and silence our dissent. Reading this book is an opportunity for just that, and will start us on the journey to one day answer William Carlos Williams's question, "What would have happened in a world . . . lit by the imagination?"
I was born at the turn of the millennium and a few of White's references went over my head, but it's just as easy to paste in any number of current cultural touchstones (The Daily Show, you name whatever popular podcast, Ted Lasso, the list goes on...) and marvel at the accuracy of White's analysis. Not to mention he's funny as hell. It's remarkable how he's able to touch on such a diversity of subjects via the connective tissue of the Middle Mind. War, technology, climate crisis, traffic deaths, the university, poetry, the nature of artistic expression, the absence and presence of God: each idea is given care and space for interpretation. There's no jargon, no posturing, and by the end of the book I was in tears, flooded with inspiration to make something sublime and unrecognizable.
There's something undeniably depressing about reading the more optimistic sections of the text 20 years after its composition and seeing countless examples of the evolution of the Middle Mind rather than evidence of its destabilization. At the same time I'm surrounded by hope in the form of transcendent music, literature, and films that continue to reveal themselves and reach the hearts and minds of people like myself one way or another…
One could view the book as a failure: a call to revolution which is ultimately obscured by the shadow of its own Leviathan. In any case it’s an article of clarity and truth that will serve as a continual lens to our culture, even as that culture mutates beyond recognition.
Thanks, dad, for the book. I'm filled with gratitude to have been born into a home where critical thinking is encouraged alongside reverence for the sublime, that which moves beyond meaning and towards the unknowable. May this beast of a culture continue to leave room for the imagination to wander... for little poets to be born and reinvigorate the dry fruit of modern life (without falling into the trappings of academia). The least we can do is remain vigilant in the face of constant attempts to manipulate and silence our dissent. Reading this book is an opportunity for just that, and will start us on the journey to one day answer William Carlos Williams's question, "What would have happened in a world . . . lit by the imagination?"
November 18, 2013
Let's see...how to describe this book - maybe steaming pile of shit sums it up nicely. In fairness I got what I deserved, because I only picked this up to read his evisceration of the vapid Terry Gross of NPR Fresh Air fame. The author, writing from a leftist ivory tower, posits the 'orginal' idea (note the ironic quote marks) that entertainment is a tool of capitalism to lull the masses and control what they think. (You don't believe this? Just look at Walt Disney.) How an 'ism' can be so diabolically clever is beyond me, but there is more than a touch of paranoia in this thesis. In exposing this idea, he goes on to excoriate all middle class thinking as stupid because most people are not critical readers of cultural artifacts. (Is the fancy term 'interrogate'? They don't interrogate consumer entertainment choices?) And that is the entire substance of the first part. Everyone is stupid. OK then.
May 31, 2014
It's hard to only give this book three stars, at the same time I want to only give it two. White's writing is keen and his analysis of the lack of hierarchy in cultural critique, the problem of illusions of equality in all things, should be celebrated. However, even for a crank like me, White is too cranky. His whip lash critique takes on issues with an almost whining, bullied tone. That being said, White is no idiot. But unlike cranky professors that can inject a heavy dose of humour and irony, this book feel to far to the cynical side for me. I applaud its critical approach, but it reads more like the story of a hunter shooting down ducks; rather than a philosopher's deconstruction of the problem, or methodical search for a clinical cure.
August 20, 2014
I am not sure why I bought this book other than it was half-priced at the going-out-of-business sale at our local independent bookstore and I found the title intriguing. I agree with the main thesis of the book in that culture in AmeriKa is a mindless,and numbing cultural milieu that surrounds us. I think the author believes he is defining the MIDDLE MIND, but I finished the book not really sure of what it is. I guess it is somewhere between the right and the left, the living and the dead, the sad and the happy, the good and the bad. But really is it? Read it if you dare, slowly, a chapter at a time and then reread. All I know is that there is something very wrong in the country, and this was a stab at trying to decipher what that problem is, but it left me wondering what is next.
Read
May 3, 2013White's concept of "the middle mind"--essentially, a new twist on the old idea of "midcult" art or "middlebrow" thinking--ultimately seems both over-simple and over-familiar, and he doesn't really follow it through. Thus, the book lacks a coherent thesis, instead turning into a loose compilation of rants about things that tick-off White about American life today. However, American life today offers him plenty to work with, and few current ranters can boast his wit, erudition, and penetrating intelligence, making this book worthwhile even if its basic premise lacks substance.
February 28, 2012
Curtis White's "The Middle Mind: Why Consumer Culture is Turning Us into the Living Dead" is an interesting critical approach to the American culture through the analysis of the "Middle Mind" - the portion of American culture that White believes is destroying intellectual thought and critical thinking.
I enjoyed this book, as White's writing is humorous and cogent. However, his arguments often trail off and devolve into tangents, a style that prevented me from enjoying the finer points of the book.
I enjoyed this book, as White's writing is humorous and cogent. However, his arguments often trail off and devolve into tangents, a style that prevented me from enjoying the finer points of the book.
June 7, 2012
An invigorating read! White takes on much of contemporary America, attacking the purveyors of entertainment and the "middle mind" before finally concluding with a call to find the new American sublime. Some of his riffs are a bit dated; I found White's broadsides on Terri Gross and Nick Hornby a lot more interesting than the ones against Dick Cheney and the war in Iraq. But these are quibbles. When White declares, "What waits beyond the lie is the sublime," I feel like shouting, "Amen, brother." Amen.
August 9, 2014
Perhaps five stars is a tad generous. Still, easily four stars for a penetrating analysis of a grave world problem: Media as a form of social control, eliminating thinking, eliminating questioning. Much of the book is "merely" acute (and often witty, even hilarious). But beyond that is really quite profound thought, I feel. I have reviewed the book at much greater length here:
http://corjesusacratissimum.org/2011/...
http://corjesusacratissimum.org/2011/...
September 5, 2016
I picked this up, after having seen Curtis White mentioned in the Paris Review, and with the hope that it would explain why so many Americans are enamored with the walking nightmare of Donald Trump. But I was disappointed. As others have noted, the book starts out strong/interesting, and then fails to hold any coherent structure. The main message I got was that White hates just about everything in American culture (especially Terry Gross, Lord, he loathes Terry Gross) and eschews the unimaginative monoculture. But that doesn't make for a particularly thought-provoking book.
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