Left Behinds: Where Left Behinders Fall on the Political Compass

Sunday, April 16, 2006

Where Left Behinders Fall on the Political Compass

I just took this test to see where I fall on the political compass, and as I (and no doubt legions of Buddhists) have long believed, I am a good candidate to be the next Dalai Lama. I am as socially libertarian/anarchist as the current Dalai Lama, but slightly to the left of him economically.

My results are (click there for a graphic):
Economic Left/Right: -8.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.72

I am very proud to say that I am the exact opposite of George W. Bush.

This indicates that I am somewhat less anarchistic than "the extreme bottom left [which believes in] voluntary collectivism at regional level, with no state involved. Hundreds of such anarchist communities existed in Spain during the civil war period."

I took a test very much like this when I was 16 and was deemed an anarcho-syndicalist. It sounds like in the ensuing years I have learned to love the state a little bit.

How do the rest of you score?

Tags: culture, dalai lama, dolly parton, socialist

10 Comments:

At 5:07 PM, Antid Oto said…

Economic Left/Right: -6.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.79

I took this test about 18 months ago, before the 2004 elections and got about the same, but that's hardly surprising.
At 7:30 PM, Solomon Grundy said…

Heh, that's funny, Bird, I used the same language-parsing tactics on those questions. Which is probably why we have almost the same, pinko but not quite Spanish anarchist results.

Also, the results from you three correspond pretty well to what I would have guessed. Birdknowledge and I are basically identical, Neda (an entrepreneur, after all) is more economically centrist but still lefty, and Oto is a little more economically centrist and socially libertarian, though not terribly different.
At 9:44 PM, Josh K-sky said…

Your political compass
Economic Left/Right: -9.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.23

Goodness, I'm pink.

I think I may have exaggerated my lefty credentials in order to register my objection to the premises of many of the questions. That, or I took the test as if I believed in the revolution but live as if I've, er, left (it) behind (me).

**dude -- until this moment I did not get the sense of the blog as meaning, to leave something or someone behind. Curse you, gerontion.
At 5:40 PM, Solomon Grundy said…

Gives too late
What's not believed in, or if still believed,
In memory only, reconsidered passion.

That reminds me of the first time I had sex with a certain friend of mine, a couple years after my intense interest in doing so had waned.
At 6:24 PM, Josh K-sky said…

It makes me think of how after spending my youth pining for sugary cereals, I don't really want them that much.
At 3:20 PM, Solomon Grundy said…

It's never too late to procrastinate.

I just took it again, and my results were slightly different. Economic Left/Right: -8.13
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.59
I can't quite imagine someone not ending up in that quadrant. The questions are sort of liberally biased, I think.

By far my favorite question was:

When you are troubled, it's better not to think about it, but to keep busy with more cheerful things.

I took "more cheerful things" to mean "a martini," and therefore answered STRONGLY AGREE.
At 7:07 PM, Antid Oto said…

Try this one. It's like a libertarian's wet dream.
At 2:31 AM, Solomon Grundy said…

That one was depressing. Whenever I got lots of points, it was for all the wrong reasons.
At 10:15 AM, Vigilante said…

Economic Left/Right: -4.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.85
Equidistant between Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama
At 1:42 PM, Solomon Grundy said…

Nice.

As a friend of mine pointed out, while taking that quiz she kept waiting for the punchline. The questions were so biased yet so seemingly unaware of the bias.

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Sunday, April 16, 2006

Where Left Behinders Fall on the Political Compass

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