The Middle Mind

So much of what Curtis White says in the final third of this book is brilliant and had me furiously taking notes. He also infuriated me and tried my patience with the first two thirds of his book while he complains about what I have long abandoned as hopeless mediocrity. In his characteristically cranky white boy way (by which I mean he references mostly works by white guys and gives grudging lip service to feminism, queer theory and minorities), he gives the impression that he is struggling in quicksand to free himself from the very culture he is complaining about.

The Middle Mind is what ails us says Curtis White, who characterizes this condition as a lack of imagination and therefore an inability to think and as a result make change happen. He lays out his thesis in a systematic and somewhat exhaustive way to show how the imagination has been co-opted by various sectors of society including the entertainment industry, the academic institutions, the military industrial complex, technological innovation, capitalism, the New Age spiritual movement and the art world. Ultimately he identifies that it is art (both high and low) and philosophy, that will best serve us as the vehicle for cultivating imagination in our culture.

He chooses art for the job by which I gather he means art that has been imbued with meaning and context, but not so controlled that the sublime and unexpected cannot slip in. I was illuminated by his description of how consumerism has robbed us of historical perspective and context. This is why we can't seem to think things through to their logical conclusion. We are made to be satisfied with a surface level of critieria and ethics. We are encouraged to be "stupid/smart" so that we contribute to the market (ie capitalism) through innovation, but don't question the status quo.

He tells us that "art reminds us that change is real and the possible is possible". He specifies that it is the job of art to remind us of justice, freedom and creativity—the promises of the Enlightenment. Art should "critique and imagine alternatives to the social status quo. Art is at work only when it is biting the hand that feeds it."

This last concept was particularly empowering for me because I've always felt that way about art and the market for art. The book was most useful in how it got me thinking about "being the change I want to see" but not that rah rah solution oriented, techno-wonderful, change, more subversive, gritty, badly behaved, unpredictable and revolutionary in meaning. Fodder for my next essay.