Preposterous

Preposterous is a word we use when a thing is perceived as outrageous, ridiculous, absurd, off the wall and perhaps even crazy. For example, at one time, not so long ago, it would have seemed preposterous that a black man could be President of the United States, or that a Hollywood ‘B’ actor could be President. Now it doesn’t seem so preposterous that Michelle Bachman or Rick Perry might be President. It scares the hell out of me, but it no longer seems preposterous.

Jesse Jennings says preposterous originally meant incorrectly sequenced, or reversed, like the cart before the horse or the tail wagging the dog. Boy, is that true in the cases of Bachman and Perry, especially if you consider voting patterns in the US over the last few decades. Most people, people that would not put the cart before the horse, have dropped out of the political system in disgust and don’t vote. Only approximately 45% of those eligible to vote, eligible, vote. That leaves the field, especially the primary field, to the extremists, so we get the tail, and a dirty nasty tail it is, wagging the dog.

If we want things to be different, if we want people to vote and have an inclusive, compassionate democracy that represents most Americans, not just the extremists and the establishment of wealth and power, we have to think about American democracy differently, and understand the original meaning of preposterous. We need to face the fact that we’ve got things reversed with the cart before the horse and the tail wagging the dog. We’ve got to see that we’ve got the order of the creative process wrong, going from the outside in, instead of the inside out.

The true meaning of preposterous is: be, do, have, not do, have, be, the order we do things in now. The conventional view is that things happen and then we think about them, rather than thoughts generate things. This view also says that if we do something, then we can have something and be something different. For example: I do – I work hard, then I have money and I can be happy. That’s the preposterous way of thinking, the out of order way of thinking. The correct order is: be happy first, then do something from there and have work or something that makes you happy. Be, do, have, instead of do, have, be.

So in politics we need to be the best Americans we can be, living up to our ideals, not blaming, demonizing and attacking; do - get involved in the system and vote from that place; and we will have the inclusive, compassionate democracy that represents most Americans, not just the extremists and the establishment of wealth and power, that we want.