Somewhere in my recent wanderings of the vast web-o-space, I found this political testing site which aims to give you a simplified graphic view of where you sit in the political spectrum. Attempting to expand the traditional political view from a simple left/right setting, the test gives results along an economic as well as social scale.
Both an economic dimension and a social dimension are important factors for a proper political analysis. By adding the social dimension you can show that Stalin was an authoritarian leftist (ie the state is more important than the individual) and that Gandhi, believing in the supreme value of each individual, is a liberal leftist. While the former involves state-imposed arbitary collectivism in the extreme top left, on the extreme bottom left is voluntary collectivism at regional level, with no state involved. Hundreds of such anarchist communities exisited in Spain during the civil war period.
You can also put Pinochet, who was prepared to sanction mass killing for the sake of the free market, on the far right as well as in a hardcore authoritarian position. On the non-socialist side you can distinguish someone like Milton Friedman, who is anti-state for fiscal rather than social reasons, from Hitler, who wanted to make the state stronger, even if he wiped out half of humanity in the process.
The chart also makes clear that, despite popular perceptions, the opposite of fascism is not communism but anarchism (ie liberal socialism), and that the opposite of communism ( i.e. an entirely state-planned economy) is neo-liberalism (i.e. extreme deregulated economy).
It’s an interesting expansion from what most folks use in considering political leanings, I think, and while the overall test-to-rating process seems a little simplistic, it appears at least well thought out. And even if the results aren’t that accurate, they should help get a conversation going on political evaluations for those interested in such discussions.
So where do I personally sit in this scale? Well, I fell in to the quadrant where I expected I would be, but not quite as far from either axis as I had anticipated. See my standings below the break:
Your political compass
Economic Left/Right: -0.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.38
So, those that know me – any surprise there? Would you have guessed differently? I try to be more moderate than most folks I know (and more than my wife prefers, what with her being a flaming liberal), but do realize I have far more liberal leanings than I want. I’m working on a more centrist standing, but President Bush has really turned me anti-right on several fronts, and it will take a while for me to moderate some of that. I don’t want to outright call myself anti-authoritarian, but I do feel our government is too hands-on and intrusive in regards to personal rights, protections, and freedoms, which I believe is what pushes me down on the social axis.
As I said above, this may be too simplistic a test to give really accurate or meaningful results, but it does make for a good starting point for those willing to discuss political leanings, views, beliefs, or whatever you want to call them.
[tags]Political test, Political leanings, Social and economic scales[/tags]
Setting the cross section of the grid as 0,0– yours being -0.5,-3 Mine was 2,2.5.
But I don’t feel that way. I think I am pretty socially liberal, and fiscal conservative. But question like these bother me:
A) Our race has many superior qualities, compared with other races.
B) Abortion, when the woman’s life is not threatened, should always be illegal.
C) All people have their rights, but it is better for all of us that different sorts of people should keep to their own kind.
D) First-generation immigrants can never be fully integrated within their new country.
E) In a civilised society, one must always have people above to be obeyed and people below to be commanded.
(There was more but lets work with these)
I have four choices to pick from:
1) Strongly Disagree
2) Disagree
3) Agree
4) Strongly Agree
A) Yes I do think it does, that’s not to say we are better, just better for it. For instance we are not living in tents in the middle of a fucking desert. But the four options I have do not allow me to reflect that.
B) I am unsure of the entire abortion thing, but no I do not think it should be allowed after the first trimester unless the womans life is in danger.
C) Birds of a feather flock together. I am talking “sorts of people” here, not race, but the I feel the question is a double edged sword (just like more than half of them). But they are putting it almost as a Yes/No.
D) No they cannot. But that does not mean I think they do not want to or will not try to fit in, but I do not think they are going to be strapping TNT to their bodies and walking into a Starbucks either.
E) You always need guards watching the guards, no matter how high on the ladder they are.
Bullshit test. Waste of time really. Sorry Randini, but these things piss me off.
/tg
So, did you even read my post, or just see the pretty pictures and jump to the test so you could come back here and make an indignant comment? I said the test was too simplistic to give accurate results, but that it was probably a good conversation starter. So you come back and find the answers insufficient to answer some of the questions. It almost sounds like the options were too simplistic, but you want to have a conversation about some of them.
Even a couple of the questions that you show there could have been answered with the available choices, even if none were absolutely exactly what you wanted. Outside of developing an advanced artificial intelligence, posting essay questions, and evaluating them via AI, there really isn’t much chance of a really accurate political test like this.
Does the test do what I stated? I think so. It got you talking.
However, like most people, rather than discussing intelligently, you got pissed and had to come show off your e-peen? Sorry – if you want to be rigid and thoughtless in anything that can set up political discussion, you can join the rest of my political ignore list. Some people *can* discuss politics after getting an opening without getting upset and dismissive, even when discussing topics on which they disagree with others. For those folks, I think the questions on the test can open up a chance to talk. Even with incomplete answers, some of the questions are worth talking about.
Tim is right. This is bullshit. Most of the questions are bullshit and need to be redone. Abortion is wrong, Socialism is bad, Free markets are good, Libtards need to be defeated……