Where do you score on this political compass/test?

[ddt]

Trust a Nederlander to be more left-wing than me.

I haven't seen your graph, so I can't judge. But it's a misconception that Dutch are left-wing - as on the economic axis. We only once had a government that can be dubbed "left" (Den Uyl, 1973-1977). It is true that Holland is more progressive when it comes to personal freedoms, so more to the "libertarian" side on the vertical axis.

 

[ddt]

there isn't. never said there was.

So what did you mean with "I think I'm a bit more law-abiding/respecting than my results say"? Where does law-abiding show in the compass? I can't see it either in the vertical direction. To put it in extreme: an East-German border guard who shot people scaling the Berlin Wall was also law-abiding.

 

[ddt]

Some of the questions have been lifted literally from the "F-scale", a test designed by Adorno et.al. to measure authoritarian personality. An on-line version of the F-scale test can be found here.

 

[Thunder]

So what did you mean with "I think I'm a bit more law-abiding/respecting than my results say"? Where does law-abiding show in the compass? I can't see it either in the vertical direction.

Authoritarians are a bit more respectful of law than Libertarians.

 

[applecorped]

Stupid, leading questions. Reminded me of the Scientology personality test I took as a goof once.

For fun:

 

[Thunder]

Stupid, leading questions. Reminded me of the Scientology personality test I took as a goof once.

For fun:

Jawohl, mein Herr.

 

[dtugg]

 

[ddt]

Authoritarians are a bit more respectful of law than Libertarians.

Only seemingly so. They harp more about the amount of petty theft and "law and order", but in power, they flaunt the law themselves and illegally detain people.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

With the usual caveats about leading and badly-phrased questions, and not being able to give my real answers, it turns out that I'm more of a leftie and anti-autoritarian than Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and the Dalai Lama:

King me!

 

[Thunder]

Only seemingly so. They harp more about the amount of petty theft and "law and order", but in power, they flaunt the law themselves and illegally detain people.

and they retro-actively change the laws, to make their criminal actions legal.

 

[X]

The fact that there is no "Don't know" or other middle option is deliberate, as they say in the faq. People in such quizzes with multiple choice will often pick the middle option simply because they haven't really thought about it, but their answer may be revealing. The faq also gives reasons for some other things that people often complain about.

There were a few questions I would have happily gone with a "Don't Know" answer on.

Not because I hadn't thought about the issue, or was uninformed. Rather, because some of the questions were rather poorly worded. There were quite a few that left many possible interpretations, some of which I would agree with, others which I would not.


That said, I wound up in the lower left quadrant (again). I didn't save the picture.

I'm about halfway down the vertical axis, and 1/3 the way out on the horizontal.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

Greetings, Comrades!

I look forward to joining arms with my fellow proles in the coming revolution!

 

[Rat]

I haven't seen your graph, so I can't judge. But it's a misconception that Dutch are left-wing - as on the economic axis. We only once had a government that can be dubbed "left" (Den Uyl, 1973-1977). It is true that Holland is more progressive when it comes to personal freedoms, so more to the "libertarian" side on the vertical axis.

True, but I think if you asked most Americans, they would consider every one of your governments since at least WWII to have been left wing; just some of them further left than others.

 

[ingoa]

Every year I am quite consitent....

ETA: In an European test I would be almost right in the center. Maybe even a little bit to the right.

 

[Mark6]

Stupid, leading questions. Reminded me of the Scientology personality test I took as a goof once.

Leading questions, yes. Stupid, no. I would say they are phrased very intelligently for their purpose -- which is to lead people to left-leaning answers. Pretty much the only way to end up anywhere BUT lower-left quadrant is to select some answers to mean "both", the way Beerina did with "transnationals vs people" question.

It's underhanded and dishonest, but not stupid.

 

[gumboot]

I agree with others on the poorly written questions. In particular, many of the questions relate to how you feel about "how things are now", yet obviously that can vary enormously from country to country. For example the "the rich are taxed too much" statement is entirely dependent on which particular tax jurisdiction you're talking about. The same person would give hugely different answers depending on which country they answered for.

 

[Pardalis]

That said, here is my graph

Greetings, Comrades!

You guys think it's healthy to be that far on one side?

You almost seem proud of it.

 

[Rat]

Leading questions, yes. Stupid, no. I would say they are phrased very intelligently for their purpose -- which is to lead people to left-leaning answers. Pretty much the only way to end up anywhere BUT lower-left quadrant is to select some answers to mean "both", the way Beerina did with "transnationals vs people" question.

It's underhanded and dishonest, but not stupid.

And yet several people just in this thread were not in the lower-left. Astounding.

What I most wish is that I could make my 18-year-old or 16-year-old self take the same questions. I'm fairly sure I used to be an absolute Nazi, and I thought most people drifted to the right as they got older.

I'd also like to know more about what problems people have with specific questions. I guess it would be not on to copy them wholesale for analysis, but certainly most of them I found I could answer with little hesitation, so I'd be interested to know which ones seem to be contentious. Without doubt, I could parse some questions in more than one way, but in most of those cases, it seemed fairly obvious how the question was intended, so it'd be good to know if others interpreted them differently.

 

[Rat]

You guys think it's healthy to be that far on one side?

You almost seem proud of it.

Do you think it's healthy for all three of the 'big' parties in this country to occupy a relatively small area in the top-right? At least they are according to the analysis of a relatively anonymous interpreter of their views.

 

[gumboot]

I'd also like to know more about what problems people have with specific questions. I guess it would be not on to copy them wholesale for analysis, but certainly most of them I found I could answer with little hesitation, so I'd be interested to know which ones seem to be contentious. Without doubt, I could parse some questions in more than one way, but in most of those cases, it seemed fairly obvious how the question was intended, so it'd be good to know if others interpreted them differently.

Well how about we start with "the rich are taxed too much". I have major issues with that question. I've explained them - it's entirely dependendent on where you live and what tax rates are like there.