The above image is the result of my Political Compass test. I’m not screwing with you – that’s where the test placed me after I answered all the questions honestly. I thought I was a right-wing nutjob, and I imagine most of you did too, but evidently I’m further to the left then Barack Obama. Apparently, I’m not allowed to believe that people can be moral without being religious – or that extramarital sex doesn’t automatically consign people to the second circle of hell – and be a conservative.
This test is stupid. It identifies neoliberal, free trade economics with the right, nevermind that most true paleocons, alternative right types and far right whackjobs are protectionists. (It’s the Trotskyite neocons who are gung-ho about free trade.) Its authors are under the delusion that the political spectrum has shifted to the RIGHT in the six years since we went from Bush’s second term to Obama’s first (and hopefully last). And who cares about how corporations are using third-world plant genetic resources anyway?
I was inspired to take the test after taking ANUS’ bogus political quiz, which reveals this interesting post once you’ve “completed” it. Excerpt below:
All identities expressed through consumerism function like opium that capitalist democracy produces to enslave it’s followers. But whether you’re punk or emo, juggalo or gangster, rasta or raver or just a concerned housewife, you’re still being part of a system that’s putting everyone in a blender and mixes them up to be mere statistics. The political system of democracy works the same: it offers a sense of individuality but underneath the charade and petty arguing we’re all faceless robots serving the same machine. Decisions that change the world aren’t made in the political arena, politicians go with the flow that’s why they never change the tide. What drives and artificially unifies our ugly modern societies are the multinational companies that produce the symbols, slogans and icons that people sheepishly follow, believe in and worship. The ancient laws have been replaced with the dogma of humanism, ethnic cultures are dying while liberal fashion dictates us from Hollywood: consume – believe – be pacified – repeat.
The dark truth is that while we all like to assign labels to ourselves to feel good, deep down inside we are all pragmatists who will support whatever benefits us at the time. You’re a Tea Partier until you lose your job and the government is the only place hiring. You’re for gay marriage until you have kids and witness a bunch of lispy, leather-clad girly men grinding on each other at the local pride parade. You’re for diversity until you get jumped by a gang of black thugs who hate you because of the color of your skin. You’re against feminism until you want sex with no strings attached.
Hypocrisy, thy name is man.
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
I was almost exactly in the middle too. The test just isn’t meant to cover outliers. It’s like asking if you’re gay or straight when you’re really into something weird like this: http://www.straight.com/article-142931/dinodragon-and-robot-porn
The test skews results to the lower left, in part due to inclusion of questions that are only tangentially related to politics from Adorno’s F-Scale. None of the politicians presented would actually get the scores supposedly assigned to them, with the possible exception of Adolf Hitler.
http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=4.00&soc=6.41
I scored “only” 6.41, and it’s very rare I encounter people more right-wing than I.
I scored as slightly right wing, but there’s no doubt that the questions on this thing skew to the left. The guy who wrote this is obviously a liberal, trying to be “fair”. Utterly worthless…
These political “quizzes” are all rigged. I remember having to take one in my 11th grade political science class. Now this was during the 2000 elections so talk of coservative vs liberal was heavy. After going to the teacher provided quiz site, it told me that I was a slightly right leaning moderate. It told everyone else in my class roughly the same thing.
As I looked through the actual website, it turns out that it was a website by, for and about leaf leaning independants. So the majority of my class walked out of class believing that they were some form of moderate with a slight edge either right or left and reevaluated their opinions accordingly.
I consider myself a mix of paleoconservative and libertarian, and I am a self-described Christian HBDer. Although I know I disagree with you on a number of issues, my score was almost the same as yours – just a little further to the right and little north economically. Yet even years ago, before my political and religious transformation, some socialist relatives considered me “slightly to the right of Genghis Khan.” The questions were obviously skewed (quite heavy-handedly, too) and the test is worthless.
I consider myself a libertarian. On this test, I come out about 2 squares below the middle and about 3 squares to the right. Apparently, Gandhi is more libertarian than I am, but more left as well.
I think most people who take this test will come out somewhere in the middle (like myself).
I am a self-described Christian HBDer.
I’d love to know how that works out. Not in the sense that Christians don’t believe in science, but more in the sense that religious belief in Jesus would prohit one from supporting this specific type of science. Mind you, I’m Catholic, so HBD writing pro-HBD statements induces massive amounts of guilt within me.
“This test is stupid.”
Yep.
Funny, I always scored a bullseye as well.
Left/Right: 5.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.95
I’m in the upper middle part of right-libertarian square (which I pretty much agree with). “Right” and “Left” should be renamed “pro-market” and “anti-market,” if you view it from that perspective, then Ferd’s scores make more sense as he’s somewhat authoritarian and a free market moderate.
A fun political quiz is the Facism scale test which several of the Politcal Compass questions where based on. For reference, my score was 2.4, making me a “liberal airhead.”
I took it, and though I’d classify myself as a Red Tory / paleoconservative, with a few libertarian tendencies re: pot and privatization, nevertheless, I’m classified by my answers, according to them, as leaning slightly left and slightly more authoritarian, in about the same place as they place the current Pope, which amuses my Scotch-Irish Protestant self to no end.
Most of these political quizzes are B.S., because they don’t allow for nuance, and their questions are such that one’s answer, without further qualification, can easily be misconstrued. Like the question “It’s natural for children to keep some secrets from their parents”; well, of course it’s natural; kids do so. But ought they? Such nuance and qualification are excluded by the multiple choice agree / disagree / strongly / not-so-strongly four choices.
And they never factor one’s self-identification in, which ultimately is more important, because THAT determines how, or even if, one votes. And of course, usually, they have built-in bias, based on their own bias; one notable exception, I’ve found, is this one, created by a Lew Rockwell paleo-libertarian columnist, Daniel McCarthy; it is fairly nuanced, and surprisingly accurate, I’ve found in my case, no matter how many times I’ve taken it, even if I tweak my answers slightly each time. (I’m sure others may find it less so, but that’s been my personal experience.)
‘Ey-ya Ferdinand Bardamu,
I see that you’re referencing the “American Nihilist Underground Society” a lot lately and through your referencing them, I’ve come to start reading the works of Vijay Prozak — and agreeing with him significantly.
Though, I have to admit that despite his “lack of belief/nihilism” a lot of his prescriptions for a more tolerable collective existence are based on fallacies.
It’d be interesting to see you do a post on where you agree and part ways with Mr. Prozak.
[Post-Script]
It is also funny — As an intelligent young black man, I find myself in general agreeance with the “extreme” policy measures proposed by Paleo-Conservatives of the Takisphere, Roissysphere, Manosphere, Alt-Conosphere, etc.
All until the the thinly veiled near genocidal, economic disenfranchisement and/or ethnic cleansing measures for ALL black Americans (There never seems to be a distinction made for those who are beneficial and contributing citizens.) are proposed.
I feel the contending emotions that pro-Semitic or Jewish Paleo-Con bloggers like Half Sigma, Mencius Moldbug, Fred Reed and Steve Sailer may feel when the same terribly impractical and short-sighted measures are proposed against the imaginary “Zionist threat”.
I hope to get a dialogue started about this matter someday among objective and practical Alternative Conservatives, but for now I just wanted my views to be voiced.
You’re against feminism until you want sex with no strings attached.
This last part I don’t agree with. Most people in the Game community are against feminism, even if we personally benefit from this particular side effect of it. Note that there are other side effects that we lose from (as Roissy keeps pointing out).
[Creative license. - ed.]
Will,
McCarthy’s test now seems a little dated with references to Napster and the No-Fly Zone. I’d also say that lot of conservatives and neoconservatives are now more open to gays serving openly in the military.
The dark truth is that while we all like to assign labels to ourselves to feel good, deep down inside we are all pragmatists who will support whatever benefits us at the time.
Does that include nihilists, or did I just blow your mind?
[LOL. Most "nihilists" are fatalistic whiners. - ed.]
Still, Sparks123, I doubt you can find any other political quiz that’s half as good as McCarthy’s, which allows weighting of answers, and is fairly wide-ranging, with questions concerning not only economics and social issues, but also issues concerning foreign policy and war.
I doubt American paleo-conservatives are any more happy to have gays serving in the military; though in general, they want less military adventurism abroad, anyway; as for the neo-conservatives, yes, no doubt they have continued their downward spiral of decadence, and will happily take whichever fools want to be cannon fodder for the Empire. As for Napster, true, it’s long gone as a specific issue, but I think downloading and filesharing in general is as much revealing of what one thinks of copyright, property, and theft, as it was back then.
Ruby,
While I agree that nearly all on the alternative right support economic disenfranchisement of negroes, inasmuch as the rise of the negro middle class is to a significant degree based on racial preferences, please let me know who exactly is supporting ethnic cleansing. Most on the alternative right as far as I can tell defend negroes as authentically American, as opposed to hispanic immigrants.
Once you move in the very far right, populated by people like Willis Carto, then you’ll find people who support ethnic cleansing.
Thorfinnssonn,
A lot of the commentators who move between the Alternative Right and White Nationalist communities [VNN, Stormfront, etc.] support displacement, African repatriation and deracination measures for black Americans.
A few actively support ethnic cleansing measures in case the former policy proposals meet with resistance.
I think none of the previously mentioned plans will ever see serious contemplation by the public at large as long as western civilization still has some semblance of cohesion, but it really is to the detriment of the Alternative Right’s desire to appeal to mainstream sensibilities that such plans are still thrown around with seriousness.
Ruby, you’re assuming Altright wants to appeal to “mainstream sensibilities.” First, you need to define mainstream, and secondly most Altright positions are designed to appeal to the minority of whites who acknowledge racial and cultural reality, not the general public’s manipulated sensibilities.
As far as a fantasy future America, the potential inclusion of any minority (black, Asian, Jew, Muslim, etc.) who meets your definition of “beneficial and contributing” then includes such people’s offspring. Who knows the political opinions of the children of someone like Thomas Sowell or Walter Williams? Conservative or libertarian political beliefs, just like capitalism or Christianity, are always one generation away from extinction. As far as an “objective dialogue,” spare me.
Sheila,
I really don’t see how some of the proposed policy changes that the Alt-Right seek to act on can happen without persuasion of the mainstream (Defined as within the information cycle of the mass public noosphere.).
Unless you see some means that an extreme political minority could act on changing the fundamentals of western civilization without being met with coercion or force?
Far be it from me to encourage you to troll on another Altright or traditionalist website, but go read the essay on “The Remnant” at Vanishing American. She says it far better than I could. Of course, you could also read up on the history of the American revolution, the Russian revolution, or any other genuine (i.e. non afrocentric) political history. End of discussion.
Still, Sparks123, I doubt you can find any other political quiz that’s half as good as McCarthy’s, which allows weighting of answers, and is fairly wide-ranging, with questions concerning not only economics and social issues, but also issues concerning foreign policy and war.
A lot of the questions and answers are flawed. I don’t think that supporting intellectual property rights makes a person less libertarian. The Confederate flag question was irrelevant and not directly related to ideology; there are Russell Kirk-style paleos who wouldn’t be pro-Confederacy and there a lot of people in the South who support Confederate symbols but also supported the Iraq War and support Israel and so couldn’t be considered paleos. The best political quiz I’ve seen is at moral-politics.com. It’s more ideological diverse and asks more philosophical, broad-based questions.
Sheila,
If your namesake lines up with your gender, then I must say you’ve argued stereotypically like a woman.
Full of fallacies, insults, accusations of trolling and half-logical statements.
[Note: Both the American and Russian revolutions succeeded BECAUSE they appealed to the majority.]
And whoa-oh! That little bite at the end implying that I’m exclusively Afrocentric; Then followed by a proclamation for the conversation’s end once I challenge your ideological entrenchment and ask you to justify your beliefs.
I’ll do you a boon — As far as I’m concerned, my dialogue with you has ended.
Would anyone else not intellectually dishonest, lazy and half-assed like to discuss my previous posts?
Thanks for the tip, Sparks123; interesting quiz there at http://www.moral-politics.com. A different approach, to be sure; I suppose avoiding labelling problems by coming up with some of their own terminology. Indeed, allows for much nuance. I wish it had been a bit longer, though, to allow for even more. As it happens, it didn’t place me quite where I see myself, but right next to it, so I guess that’s close enough.