The Middle Mind: Why Consumer Culture is Turning Us into the Living Dead

The Middle Mind: Why Consumer Culture is Turning Us into the Living Dead

by Curtis White (Author)

Synopsis

Creeping into art, literature, politics and the media, sliding into living rooms and coming soon to a cinema near you the Middle Mind has arrived. Join Curtis White on a crusade against tedium as he takes on this bland, no-thinking-required product' that passes for culture in America and that we've signed up and paid for in full too. It's not about high- or low-brow, it's about a mainstream consensus that pleases everyone but moves, challenges or shocks no one: from the Hollywood machine to cultural theory equating Madonna with Milton, from free market ideology to TV arts programmes, New Age self-help and Oprah's Book Club. This is a book for anyone who thinks culture should be a force for change, not just something to acquire and consume; who wants to reclaim the destabilizing power of the imagination and start thinking for themselves.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 224
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 24 Feb 2005

ISBN 10: 0141016752
ISBN 13: 9780141016757

Media Reviews
Cogent, acute, beautiful, merciless, and true. -- David Foster Wallace, author of Infinite Jest
Hot diatribe. -- Rolling Stone
A splendidly cranky academic. -- Molly Ivins
Curt White gives name to an ugly soul-killer already in our midst. --Greg Palast, NYTimes bestselling author of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
The trouble with Middle Mind is that it neutralizes genuinely useful insights that don't look like anything instantly recognizable. --Andrei Codrescu, author of The Disappearance of the Outside
A sharp, erudite and witty text that... could help set our country on a path to a saner future. --John de Graaf, co-author of Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic
Hot diatribe. --Rolling Stone
A serious effort to understand a serious problem and should find a prominent place in every American library. --Library Journal
A splendidly cranky academic. --Molly Ivins
The Middle Mind is a strong, knowledgeable, entertaining (and imaginative!) argument --John Barth
Cogent, acute, beautiful, merciless, and true. --David Foster Wallace, author of Infinite Jest
The most inspiringly wicked social critic of the moment. --Elle
Author Bio
Curtis White is an acclaimed social critic and essayist whose work appears regularly in Context, Harper's and The Village Voice. He is a professor of English at Illinois State University and lives in Normal, Illinois.