Well. Sunday’s post about Time Magazine’s political quiz turned out to be even more amusing and informative than I could ever have predicted:
- We learned that longtime Loyal Reader™ Mr. Born is fully twenty-seven percent conservative—and now I strongly suspect he may be the vector for my 8%. But don’t worry. For everyone’s safety I have banished him until he has the surgery to eliminate this problem.
- Meanwhile, Loyal Reader™ Badland has the opposite situation: Badland scored 2%, and thus probably should not be hanging around a blogger who, at 8%, is FOUR TIMES more conservative.
- I received a very tempting marriage proposal from another 8%-er, NomadUK. Unfortunately it is just not meant to be, as his/our would-be poly partner scored 13%. (Naturally I suspect the pernicious influence of Mr. Born, but cannot as yet prove it.)
I fear that until I get this pestilence eradicated from the Palace, I may have to lock up everyone in quarantine—including, apparently, myself. But the whole exercise got me thinking about another quiz that’s been around for a while: the Political Compass. This one adds another axis to the left-right dimension, and outputs a four-quadrant grid with your position on it. When I took it a few years ago and wrote about it here, my results looked like this:
Iris the Lefty Libertarian. Quelle surprise.
At the time I mused:
I took the quiz years ago, and I do not remember my chart position. It would be interesting to compare it to today, and see whether over time my views have drifted in one direction or another. As you can see, in certain respects there is not much further I can possibly drift.
So I took it again yesterday BECAUSE SCIENCE, but it returned only a blank grid.
I thought there was a problem with the site itself. But no: the problem is that my results are now off the charts:
Economic Left/Right: -18.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -9.03
Technically my social score is on the grid—only barely—but its intersection with my economic score is…way off.
I am left wondering if this shift is because a few years more reading, writing, learning and thinking on my part has led to my feeling more strongly about positions that I previously held more tentatively. In other words, I may have drifted from “yes, I think so” (agree) to “I am quite certain” (strongly agree). In any case, here is what my results would look like if the Political Compass could handle the likes of Your Humble Monarch™:
Whatever you do, don’t tell the NYPD or the FBI. Or CIA. Or anyone at the Federal Reserve, the Bank of New York, Goldman Sachs, Pfizer or CitiGroup. I don’t need their ilk coming ’round the Palace. I already have enough problems with Mr. Born.
Speaking of off the charts, I can’t remember one of your posts generating so many responses. As for my name appearing so frequently, the last time that happened was when an internal Macy’s memo circulated announcing that “the dood stepped down to spend more time with his family”
I’m wanting to take this new quiz, but I fear I might end up being banished not only from Perry Street Palace but from LIBERAL New York, and be exiled to Arkansas or Texas, one of those horrible places.
OMFG. Isn’t “stepping down to spend more time with family” the classic mark of the right-wing conservative?
This goes much deeper than I thought.
So, I’m hopeless I guess. Maybe it is a conservative way to say something but it was their way of announcing I got sacked.
Maybe we should find another topic. How bout we discuss Lawrence Tribe defending coal companies, talk about a liberal/ conservative flip flop. Or should we say “follow the money”
Okay, so Economic Left/Right: -9.38, Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -8.15 — almost outside the fence, but not quite.
I’ll keep working on it!
I remember, that’s one of the tests where some questions really don’t have acceptable answers.
For example, on the first page, the question about race lacks any option to say “race? what race? that’s a bullshit concept”, and in any case I again see no neutral options, for example if I don’t actually have an opinion on any point. Sort of “you’re either for or against us”. Sometimes I don’t want to disagree, but am not enthusiastic about agreeing (or vice versa), the mildest option doesn’t feel particularly mild. Bloody idiot test designers.
Also, while it’s not said out loud, this feels like they think if I disagree with a proposition, I must necessarily embrace it’s opposite, whereas I actually might disagree with that as well and embrace some third option. For example, “A is more important than B”, (implied) “B is more important than A”, actually thinking “they are both unimportant” or “they are about equally important” …
https://www.politicalcompass.org/yourpoliticalcompass?ec=-7.0&soc=-7.13