Mensch tracht, und Gott lacht

Friday, September 16, 2005

The Political Compass

I'm not at home (again, sadly), so I don't have access to my numerical score, but memory sez I came in a few ticks to the east and very close to the horizontal line.

It's called "The Political Compass," and seeks to blow past left and right partisanship, to seek light instead of heat. Seems relevant to the proceedings lately hereabouts.

Take the test first, then read what it's all about. Report your score if the spirit moves you. Labels suck, and there's more to Stalin and Gandhi than Fox News vs. CNN.

6 comments:

Kathy Hutchins said...

Economic: 4.75 (positive means "right")

Social: -1.23 (negative means "libertarian")

Eyeballing the reference chart of famous people, I seem to be a clone of Milton Friedman, which sounds about right, I guess. I'm a little surprised I came up on the libertarian side, even though I am a lot more libertarian than, say, my husband, because usually these tests call prolife views fascist.

Barry Vanhoff said...

I did not like the wording of the questions one bit.

I came out a 4.88/0.88 ... I thought I'd be negative on the 2nd number.

Here's one example of a poorly worded question:

"If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations."

I don't like the use of the word "should" as that implies that there is some sort of governing body making decisions as to who is served.

A simpler (too simple) quiz is here.

James F. Elliott said...

I love this test, always have. Economic Left -8.38, Libertarian -7.28. James Elliott: More liberal than Gandhi. So he'll never hold public office.

Tom Van Dyke said...

Nope.

But I'm still wondering how one enforces communitarianism without resorting to authoritarianism. I mean, you can only sing "Kumbaya" so many times...

Kathy Hutchins said...

I'm still wondering how one enforces communitarianism without resorting to authoritarianism.

I live in close proximity to a subset of what I believe is one of the few groups to have built a successful communitarian community spanning many generations: the St. Mary's County Amish. They are motivated by strongly held common beliefs and mutually agreed-upon norms of behavior, and enforce the behavior consistent with the group's survival by some fairly strict social shaming mechanisms. I don't see how less conformity-enforcing measures could work to curb the natural human tendencies to free-ride the situation, yet these are the very sorts of social fetters that drive people like Tlaloc crazy. (Remember he said he'd rather take welfare from government than a private group, because the group might try to force some religious belief in his face?)

you can only sing "Kumbaya" so many times

Sing it around here more than once, and the discussion will switch to my views on the 2nd Amendment very very quickly.

James F. Elliott said...

I'm more liberal than Tlaloc? Wow.