The missus and I are off to a Halloween party. But before I go I'll tag along with Leiter, Bertram, Yglesias and others by up and taking my political compass test. Here I am. Equal parts moderate lefty and libertarian. I think that's a bit off. I should be one notch more libertarian and one notch less lefty. And who figured the Dalai Lama for a libertarian on their little chart? Oh, well. Glad I'm not sitting next to Mugabe. On the other hand, I'm doomed to vote for Kucinich or Sharpton, a proposition subject to grave doubt. As Leiter observes - it's damn obvious - a substantial number of the questions are so ambiguous as to be worse than useless. It always surprises me when people put so much technical work into surveys or little tests like this then don't bother to iron out simple problems with word choice and phraseology that are bound to lead to bad data.
Actually, this test has been around for quite a while, and part of the point is to ask leading questions that produce a large number of apparent libertarians. It's a political recruiting tool more than anything else.
Posted by: Cosma | October 31, 2003 at 09:39 PM
After having taken the test, I wondered whether one could only answer "Strongly" to each question. That is, the questions are structured in such absolute terms that they don't allow shading in their answers. I regret having not answered "strongly" in all cases, because my implicit moderation of the answer is not allowed by the totality of the questions. Anyway, I'm with Nelson.
http://www.digitalronin.f2s.com/politicalcompass/questionnaire.pl?page=printable_graph&X=-5.50&Y=-3.44
Posted by: woof | October 31, 2003 at 10:23 PM
I've never liked these tests. Not necessarily because they are inaccurate--though I agree with the criticisms made in these comments here--but because they always emphasize what I already know: that almost everybody, when put to the test, expresses libertarian rather than communitarian sympathies; and that almost nobody ever joins me in the upper-left hand corner. And then the test makes me feel even better by telling me that if I happen to believe that social cohesion and personal happiness requires a defense of both economic equality and civic morality, then I must be cut from the same cloth as Vladimir Lenin. Delightful.
Economic Left/Right: -6.25
Libertarian/Authoritarian: 1.56
(More on my view of these tests here: http://philosophenweg.blogspot.com/2003_09_01_philosophenweg_archive.html#106452049985483597)
Posted by: Russell Arben Fox | October 31, 2003 at 11:30 PM
That's funny, I thought some of the propositions were designed to scare people into the upper left, because only a monster would agree with ``The rich are too highly taxed'' or ``An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,'' or disagree with ``globalisation ... should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations'' or ``Governments should penalise businesses that mislead the public.''
And I wonder how these are scored for political content: ``When you are troubled, it's better not to think about it, but to keep busy with more cheerful things.'' ``Astrology accurately explains many things.'' ``No one can feel naturally homosexual.''
Posted by: Anton Sherwood | November 10, 2003 at 09:24 AM