Where are you on the political spectrum?

[Batman]

Spoiler: Click to see the Political Compass

So there have been several threads like this in the history of the forum (I’m probably responsible for most of them), but I like to redo this every so often because political opinions are apt to change considering people and their convictions in general are apt to change with time. More education and new experiences have a way of altering how we see society, politics, and economics. So forgive the repetitiveness, but I really enjoying thinking about political typology and seeing where my internet friends and acquaintances (i.e. you guys ) fall on the political spectrum. Plus there are plenty of new members who might not be aware of these tests who may find these evaluations informative.

Most people know where they stand in the political spectrum without having to take a test of course. If you don't want to take any of these tests, you are still free to discuss where you are on the political spectrum in the comments. These tests are mainly just for fun. They can be handy for people who are not sure how to identify themselves politically, but for those of us who already know where we are in the spectrum, it can be an exercise to see how consistent these models are with our views.

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Note: I’m putting this in General Discussion for two reasons. 1.) More people will see it in this subforum. 2.) I really don’t want this thread to be a debate thread. This thread isn’t intended to start discussion and debate about what’s right or wrong about political views; it’s merely a survey of opinion. That’s not to say you can’t discuss things, but don’t use this thread as a place to debate politics. A sister thread can easily be created in the MD for debate purposes.

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Please take the evaluations below. The whole process shouldn’t take any more than about 10 minutes.

This one is called the Political Compass test and its designers use a unique method of measuring political opinions by expanding the classic left-right economic scale to include both economic and social issues as scales on different axes, demonstrated graphically on a Cartesian plane. It’s not enough these days to say that you subscribe to the left or the right. You could certainly be either on both social and economic issues, but you can also be a leftist on one of the axes and right-wing on the other, or of course you could fall somewhere in between (it should be noted that the left and right-wing politics we’re familiar with in Western democracies only represents a small fraction of the full political spectrum, so American democrats and republicans for instance will usually just occupy different points in the same quadrant). While this test and its compass model is far from perfect, it certainly more accurately describes political worldviews than traditional approaches given its double-axis approach. Please post your graph using IMG tags when you’re done so we can all see where you fall.

There are lots of interesting things on that site such as compass results for certain political parties and politicians, reading lists for different ideologies, and so on. Also, be sure to check out the compass FAQ if you have any questions about the test and the creators’ approach.

Click here to be taken to the site’s home page description, here to be taken to the analysis page that explains the system, and here to be taken to the site FAQ which further explains the compass model, the test, and concerns users might have.

When you’re finished with that, also take this quiz if you want. This one is very similar and based on the same model, but asks different questions and delivers perhaps a slightly more detailed result. The result of this test should be pretty close to the result you got in the first test. Please post your graph using IMG tags when you’re done. Also make sure you post your Foreign Policy and Culture scales as well.

If you do both tests, you may want to average your scores and use this link to build what is likely to be your most accurate graph. Please post this one as an image as well.

For those of you who subscribe to more traditional mainstream American political orientations, feel free to take this test as well. That site also has tests designed for mainstream political orientations in Australia, Canada, the UK, and India. You can find those at the bottom of the website's home page.

Also check out the spoiler for several more tests that I've found on the web. While not an exhaustive collection by any means, these seem to be the most popular after the ones mentioned so far:

Spoiler: Other tests

Some of these tests are okay, but I consider most of them pretty broken in their approach, some of them more so than others. I've simply blindly included some of the most popular tests on the web.

For more information about political spectrum models, see here. For more information about the Political Compass model that I think is best, see here.

Political Test
The Politics Test
Best Political Quiz
Political Survey
Your Morals
The Political Objectives Test
Are You a Liberal, Conservative, or Centrist?
Nolan Chart Survey
Collection of links related to Nolan Charts
The Enhanced-Precision Political Quiz
The World's Smallest Political Quiz
Ideolog12 test
The Rational Spectrum

After all that, do you agree with your results? Also please briefly describe what political ideology/party/etc. you consider yourself an advocate of or are sympathetic to. You don’t have to explain why you are what you are if you don’t want to (but if you want to that’s great), just mainly what you consider yourself.

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I’ll do mine as an example:


Political Compass test:

https://www.politicalcompass.org/yourpoliticalcompass?ec=-8.5&soc=-8.51

Political Spectrum quiz:

http://www.gotoquiz.com/politics/grid/5x36.gif

http://www.gotoquiz.com/politics/grid/n29.gif

http://www.gotoquiz.com/politics/grid/c7.gif

Average chart:

Economic = -8.12 / Social = -8.21

https://www.politicalcompass.org/crowdchart?name=Batman/Loz&ec=-8.12&soc=-8.21

isidewith.com’s political/election quiz:

N/A. This quiz is impossible for me to do considering I fall so far outside its spectrum.


Overall, I think these results pretty accurately describe my position in the political spectrum. I see myself being pretty much -10 or very near it on both axes, so I'd consider myself inhabiting the far bottom left corner square. The tests have me a tiny bit less communistic and anarchistic than I'd like, but I'm not going to complain; it's close enough. It's not bad for tests with just a few dozen questions each.

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What I consider myself:

I am an anarchist, specifically an anarcho-communist. I support the umbrella movement of libertarian socialism.

Spoiler: More detailed description

This is something I wrote for my NationStates factbook. It's meant to be read by other anarchists, so it's a little technical. I just figured I might as well post it here.

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My political, economic, and social views follow naturally from certain fundamental philosophical persuasions I have (mostly in the context of the analytic and continental traditions), from metaphysics to epistemology and ethics, with a strong focus on using scientific methodology to empirically examine the foundations of human society and the conditions that create social realities (which leads me to Marxian and libertarian/anarchist approaches). While I'm heavily influenced by varieties of Marxism, I find the political foundations that exemplify my current anarchist and socialist values ultimately originating from the Enlightenment and what I think is a rational and morally consistent extension of original unreconstructed classical liberal and radical humanist ideas in an industrial (and a potentially post-industrial) context. Therefore, my political orientation is founded on left-libertarianism in the philosophical anarchist, socialist/communist anarchist, individualist anarchist, and libertarian Marxist traditions.

With that in mind, I more specifically define myself as a typical libertarian socialist. I'm a social anarchist in a fairly traditional sense (I'm not a post-leftist, primitivist, pacifist, or insurrectionary illegalist for instance; however, I'm certainly not opposed to positive unorthodox or post-classical anarchist trends and developments: I'm an anarcha-feminist/queer anarchist and a proponent of green anarchism through currents like social ecology for example) and I most support the anarcho-communist (non-platformist) approach to building, carrying out, and sustaining the revolution and the ideal successful anarchist society. But I ultimately give my full support to all kinds of social anarchist tendencies (all of them sharing far more in common with one another than what they disagree on), including anarcho-syndicalism, anarcho-collectivism, and mutualism, among many others including but not limited to communalism and libertarian Marxist tendencies such as council communism, situationism, and autonomism. As such, I support the position of anarchism without adjectives, in that I recognize that there are several tendencies of anarchism that can rightly call themselves "anarchist" even if I believe they are heavily flawed (ex. individualist anarchism and post-left anarchism) and I wish to discuss, debate, and work with those advocating these tendencies. However, I totally reject any sort of right-wing libertarianism as being actually libertarian or anarchistic in any way, such as the contradictory and self-refuting philosophies of "anarcho"-capitalism, minarchist laissez-faire, Objectivism, American-style libertarianism, the Austrian and Chicago school economic traditions, etc., all of which I believe are entirely authoritarian and completely incompatible with anarchist theory and practice.

I'm also a technological utopianist and an anarcho-transhumanist. I support people using and advancing technology and science to liberate themselves in a truly utopian fashion if possible, through the gradual creation of a post-scarcity and potentially post-human society where the conditions for scarcity and authoritarianism are made forever obsolete -- always respecting those who wish to oppose transhumanism and post-industrialism for themselves though of course, this being a natural extension of the overall goal of protecting any individual's or community's rights to choose for themselves their own way of living and organizing.

 

[kodachrome]

Here's mine.

Probably about right, I guess, but with a heavy dose of apathy mixed in. I used to be pretty passionate about politics, but tbh nowadays I really only care about economic issues, and not enough so that I want to engage people on it and run the risk of confrontation.

I suppose I'm not entirely apathetic, though; I care enough to not vote. No one represents my views, so why bother? I find Republicans' stance on social issues offensive, and Democrats have zero fiscal sense. I'd see more of a point if I weren't forced to pick between two equally unpleasant choices.

One note aside... I've taken the first test before, and the question "Those who are able to work, and refuse the opportunity, should not expect society's support" has always bothered me. Who exactly is going to say they disagree with that? It's a really poorly worded question.

 

[Stitch]

 

[CrimsonCavalier]

I suppose I can't argue with the results, though I don't like the way some of the questions are worded. I answered them in the way I thought they meant them, not literally, because some of my answers would have been different.

Anyways, here goes:

https://www.politicalcompass.org/yourpoliticalcompass?ec=4.0&soc=-1.79



And

Discussion:

I'll open up with saying that political parties and partisanship are both extremely stupid. The two-party system in the US is beyond idiotic. It does nothing but create a hostile environment that further breeds an "us versus them" mentality. It's the worst.

I suppose I agree with the charts. Socially speaking, when it comes to basic human rights (such as gay marriage) I lean towards the American Democratic Party. However, I'm for the least amount of government possible. The American Democrats, in my opinion, are a party of victims and lazies who want handouts. The American Republicans are stubborn people living in the past, unwilling to accept change, and they rely on "feelings" and "beliefs" way too much, instead of facts. I dislike them both immensely.

I believe in individual freedoms and rights (such as the right to marry another guy, if that's what you want to do, unlike the Reps), where everyone has the same opportunities to succeed (equality of opportunity), but where your personal hard work, skill, ingenuity and effort get you ahead (i.e., not equality of outcome, like the Dems seem to like). I believe in personal responsibility as well, where you live with the choices you make, and you don't get to abort them just because you decided that this isn't what you wanted after all. I believe that if you don't put effort in, you shouldn't expect handouts; therefore, I disagree with the "participation trophy" crowd.

Essentially, I believe the job of government is to protect the citizenry and provide basic services. The smaller the central government can be, while still performing its basic functions, the better. And the government has no right to interfere in my personal life (religion, sexual life, etc..)

I find the American Democrats are headed towards more and more government interference, regulations, and what seems to be some sort of welfare state. The American Republicans, on the other hand, refuse to accept social change, are extremely hypocritical when it comes to individual rights (they will say they are for them when it comes to owning guns, but against them when it comes to gay marriage), and can't be trusted to not let their religion influence the way they want the country to be run.

 

[Dan]

Right authoritarian here, where are my allies at?

 

[Seth]

 

[Jirohnagi]

This seems like it's designed more for americans than anyone else. All i know is politically i am a rock at the bottom of the sea, i get the undercurrents more than the over currents

 

[Seth]

This seems like it's designed more for americans than anyone else. All i know is politically i am a rock at the bottom of the sea, i get the undercurrents more than the over currents

The site itself has graphs for several countries including the UK, it's pretty universal. Libertarian Left is Libertarian Left no matter where you are.

 

[Jirohnagi]

The site itself has graphs for several countries including the UK, it's pretty universal. Libertarian Left is Libertarian Left no matter where you are.

I am still a rock at the bottom of the sea Seth my statement stands. Cuz i have no clue what any of those things mean. YAY I AM A ROCK

 

[Squirrel]

I only did the second one so here it is:

 

[Curmudgeon]

i've already done this test a dozen times so i'll just toss the "famous people" chart up for reference (it was the first assignment when i taught summer government). I'm a shade right of Gandhi.

 

[Dio]

 

[Zonda]

Well, based on a quiz I took 3 years ago, I'm pretty much right in the centre.

 

[DJ Twitch]

I was expecting to be farther to the right, but here's mine

 

[Salem]

I used to do these kind of tests a lot, My views varied during the years but it has always been in the south right area, it tends to stay near the center.

If I do some different test my point will in a slightly different area, but it's usually near to it.

@Batman Do you plan to make one huge graph with all of the ZD member's points in the graph?