White, Curtis

Argues that the entertainment industry, academic orthodoxy, and political ideology have fostered the creation of the middle mind--a failure of imagination and acceptance of mediocrity in mainstream America, and looks at the manifestation of the middle mind in several areas of popular culture.

In March 2002 Harper's ran the author's controversial essay attacking Fresh Air radio host Terry Gross (a "schlock jock"). The article sparked outrage at the author's choice of sacred cow to savage. The author fleshes out that piece into a book-length attack on the pseudo-intellectual tendencies of mainstream America. "The middle mind" describes the large segment of folks who claim to be interested in art and ideas, but who would never permit those influences to budge their complacent assumptions about postindustrial life. The author investigates the role of the middle mind in the arenas of "entertainment, intellectual orthodoxy, and political ideology." The middle mind "offers us an art and a cultural commentary that is really just more commercial product.