Get out in the world

The article on the “posting” of America (“In ‘Post’ Culture, the Prefix Is In,” by Mary McNamara, Aug. 31) seemed to end on the question “What is the next movement?” The next movement is movement. When this fad, this cultural concept of posting begins to effect change, then we will know the next movement has begun.

All these post people need to wake up. We’re not post-anything in this country. As a society in general, we’re lazy, repressed and scared, and our media have made us that way. The next movement of movement will start when people pull themselves away from their TVs and computers long enough to think for themselves again. I know that’s a very cliche pre-post idea, but it’s true.

As scary as it sounds, I think in some strange way the advent of reality television marks the first barbaric steps toward the general population owning their own media. Perhaps it’s just like Narcissus. Now people get to watch themselves. Are they so enamored that they will forget that there is an entire world out there?

To all you post idiots out there, are you post-involvement? This “we’re past that” attitude doesn’t include being past reality, does it? I know you don’t have any experiential knowledge because you get everything you know through cathode ray tubes, so listen carefully: Wake up! Quit being post. Start being present! You spend too much time weeding through old bell-bottom Levi’s ruminating about your next tattoos and how it will affect your chakra.

Steven F. Eskay

Los Angeles