Political Compass test
http://www.politicalcompass.org
This is really good for a “take a test on the Internet” test. I usually hate those, but these questions were really deep, and I really had to think about some of them a bit.
It’s very much along the lines of the thesis of my post on Notes from a curmudgeon / book idea.
Take the test and post your results and comments below.
My results for the Political Compass test were:
Economic Left/Right: -3.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.62
Debra Jean’s was:
Economic Left/Right: -2.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.56
(which basically means we’re both left economically and libertarian socially. But she believes a tiny bit more strongly than I do that “people should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps” and I believe a tiny bit more strongly than her that “many people are idiots and need to be herded strongly away from impinging on the rights of others”.
Test opens with descriptor:
Welcome to The Political Compass
There’s abundant evidence for the need of it. The old one-dimensional categories of ‘right’ and ‘left’, established for the seating arrangement of the French National Assembly of 1789, are overly simplistic for today’s complex political landscape. For example, who are the ‘conservatives’ in today’s Russia? Are they the unreconstructed Stalinists, or the reformers who have adopted the right-wing views of conservatives like Margaret Thatcher ?
On the standard left-right scale, how do you distinguish leftists like Stalin and Gandhi? It’s not sufficient to say that Stalin was simply more left than Gandhi. There are fundamental political differences between them that the old categories on their own can’t explain. Similarly, we generally describe social reactionaries as ‘right-wingers’, yet that leaves left-wing reactionaries like Robert Mugabe and Pol Pot off the hook. ….
January 6th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Economic Left/Right: -6.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.46
in between Nelson Mandela and HHDL.
January 6th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Hippie.
lol……
January 7th, 2008 at 3:44 am
Economic Left/Right: -6.62
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.72
Looks like you have a load of hippies reading your blog.
January 7th, 2008 at 4:24 am
Economic Left/Right: -6.62
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.03
I do agree that the “left/right” distinction is probably only good when talking about economics, and doesn’t say much about social issues.
I would vote for Michael Dean though!
January 7th, 2008 at 11:18 am
“Looks like you have a load of hippies reading your blog.”
Most of my friends are left of me.
I thought I’d be less far left. But I think some people should be ground into cat food. (repeat violent offenders, repeat drunk drivers, sociopathic gangstas, etc.)
January 7th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Economic Left/Right: -4.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.44
January 8th, 2008 at 2:57 am
Here the rub. I can NOT even imagine a person in those other quadrants up there. They must be the people driving BMW’s with tinted windows. I honestly dont know,
Cause i cant EVEN imagine anyone that SQUARE.
It would be actually frightening to meet one. Are they like…. ‘pod-people”????
MWD, please grind THEM into cat food. it would definitely definitely be a better world if you did…
January 8th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Lol…..It will be hard…..The folks with the fancy cars own the means of production for the grinding!
p/s. I made a typo above (and corrected it): Most of my friends are left of me. Not right of me. I guess that’s why I call myself conservative. (also because I’m more conservative than I was when I lived in the hood.) I am actually left of much of society, it seems from this test. Just not as far left as the rest of my friends, who seem to be hippies. lol…..
January 9th, 2008 at 12:01 am
Economic Left/Right: -1.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.90
Not quite the hippy some of you are, but I have slid a long way from right to left during the past 20 years.
January 9th, 2008 at 12:04 am
I’ll meet ya halfway, at least, in a few years.
MWD
February 4th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Economic Left/Right: -8.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -8.51
Wait, did I win or lose!?
February 4th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
I Forgot to sign that post.