Reviews for The third way

The average rating for The third way based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-12-07 00:00:00 Barry Melnyk Quite useful AND enjoyable, but for some reason I put it down two years ago and only returned to it this past weekend. Re-reading through my previous underlinings, it struck me just how forcefully White eviscerates America's pretensions to have inherited the mantles of either the Enlightenment, or Christianity: America, rather (and by barely-attenuated extension its client states, Canada, etc., I should guess), is a hypocritical plutocracy which cloaks its rapacious imperial machinations in the language of these two traditions, whilst increasingly attending to less than zero of their substance. The critique is most solid in its analysis of particularities on the American scene (ca. the Bush years, which are only amplified by the nightmare of our 2020 present), rather somewhat weaker on certain theoretical levels (e.g. his critique of Marx's supposed mechanistic thinking is a bit of a caricature, and his outright dismissal of leftist political activism seems to make him seem a bit trapped in the amber of 1968 and all that). But he is really good at bringing Thoreau, Emerson and Ruskin (and even Jesus, though not his followers!) to bear on the problems of the present. I hope to write about it after reading his new book, Living in a World That Can't Be Fixed: Reimagining Counterculture Today, shortly. His solution for the present? In his final chapter he interviews three visionaries who have tried to imagine and/or put into practice different ways of being in the world, vis a vis the work day under capitalism, built space under capitalism, and food production under (you guessed it!). I hope the new book contains more of that disobedient thinking, as it is sorely needed. White's epilogue does hint at it: In the introduction to the paperback version of my book The Middle Mind, I responded to a question that had been hurled at me by many of my readers. "Fine. Now, what am I supposed to do?" [...] I suggested, and suggest still, three things.Misbehave. Make something beautiful. Try to win. Is that a politic or an aesthetic? Is it Christian? Is it even spiritual? For me, it is simply the expression of a loyalty to life in a context that in myriad ways tempts us to be disloyal to life. I am now sorry that I waited two years to finish this book, but it tees me up nicely for the next one, mentioned above, which just came out this past summer. I am now definitely a fan.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-06-10 00:00:00 Rebecca Smith I dogeared a lot of pages in this book, as it has some great things to say about alternate living strategies (not lifestyles), the closeness of left and right in politics, the demands of authority that everyone be either a servant or a commodity producer (of even the most radical thoughts), and of the roles of Art and the Spirit of Disobedience. Curtis White interviews three 'outsiders' at the end, and in this he provides examples of those who are thinking in more healthy ways of our relationship to each other, to Nature, and to our own internal needs. He makes the point over and over that workers have, to some degree, internalized the requirements of their bosses, which it's good to be reminded of. The interviews at the end, while interesting, remove some of the momentum from this combination of wit, humour, intelligence and spleen, but I can see why he included them. A very good book -- yet another good book by White. Highly recommended.