ABSTRACT
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?” At first, my response was like Voltaire’s response to the criticism that he had nothing to put in the place of the Christianity he vilified: “What! A ferocious animal has sucked the blood of my family; I tell you to get rid of that beast, and you ask me, what shall we put in its place!” (quoted in Gay, 391). But eventually I came up with a little formula that perhaps at the time was just a way of getting me off the hook but that—after these interviews and the long thinking-through and writing of this book—seems to me pretty much on the mark. I suggested, and suggest still, three things.
