Post your political compass result.

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Kinda like how people think I'm William F Buckley because I like guns and dislike regulations, when I also want total drug legalization and some sort of guaranteed income? At least that whole 'married a black woman' thing keeps them from trying to call me a racist too...

Pfft, everyone knows that's just camouflage.



Meaningless, no. Nebulous and out-dated, yes. They're just not commonly used in their 'correct' contexts, possibly due to dichotomous political system of the US. There's even that awful infographic that's been doing the rounds for a few years, which suggests that broad demographic traits fall into one of the two camps, left or right.

That's probably what it is. Protectionist certainly on the scale of nations, less Leftwards-inclined on a smaller scale. I can thank Thatcher and Reagan for trying to replace God with Adam Smith's invisible hand and making the mainstream Right (which is what this questionnaire presumably tests for) all about seeking economic utopia.

You seem right of center to me.

But you're in the UK if I am not mistaken.

The political spectrum is a little different in the UK/Europe from the US. Maybe a UK right of center person can correctly register as left of center on a test based on the American political spectrum.

Oh, I'd totally do it. Just haven't had any reason to thus far.



The test is from the UK, if I'm not mistaken.

Former Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron was popularly considered right wing. He taxed high earners at 45%, kept free healthcare for all, and legalised gay marriage.

Democratic President Barack Obama is popularly considered left wing. He taxed high earners at 40%, expanded free healthcare + insurance coverage, and supported the legalisation of gay marriage.

this is mostly based on how i think things should be, though. realistic answers depend on specific context. time and place and scenario. for one thing, as far as i'm concerned, corporations shouldn't exist. but they do, and if they didn't exist, then something similar would

i have no faith that government politics and wide-scale economic systems can ever be anything even resembling what i think of as ideal. and sometimes measures that go in the opposite direction of what i see as ideal are more consistent with the overall scenario and have a better potential for positive outcomes

i think besides being biased toward ideal views (detached from reality), this test is also very limited. it only seems to focus on matters that tend to be the center of polarized debates in the u.s., and it doesn't seem to translate well globally

Your Political Compass
Economic Left/Right: -2.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.79

(I've already added my result to Viper's "group graphic".)

This was actually quite surprising, to me----cuz, every test I've EVER taken, has put me on the RIGHT. I'm thinking a mirror-image of this result----meaning, the exact same spot, but on the RIGHT----fits me better. When I kept reading down my Result Page, though, I realized that the test is generated from the U.K.; so, that seems to mean that their definitions are a bit different, from the U.S.

Being so close to the center, in both regards, is okay with me, though; cuz, IMO, that means I'm not restricting myself----like, rigidly left, or rigidly right.

okay i'm curious. does anyone know where this (just the section "themes") fits into this 2-dimensional model? (ignoring the quiz. just the model itself). or does it simply not fit into it? (meaning that it's talking about things that would be expressed in dimensions other than left/right and libertarian/authoritarian)

especially this:

"more concerned with what government should not do rather than what kind of government should exist"

It was 50% though before as far as I know, so it would make sense if it was lowered comparatively.

Zhuangzi espoused apolitical nihilistic detachment from reality. His philosophy isn't concerned with what government should or should not do, he'd suggest you shouldn't involve yourself either way in any 'artificial' social construct.

So no, it doesn't fit into it.

that's what i suspected (although maybe there's some connection with the idea of a libertarian political philosophy? it seems intuituve to me that it's somehow the opposite of authoritarianism, but i don't really know what the word "libertarianism" itself is supposed to mean)

that philosophy matches very closely with my own concept of ideal. but then there's a problem: this isn't china 2300 years ago anymore... once urbanization has taken place, there's no turning back. or, maybe in a distant future there could be. but it's not something you can predict or even work towards. if a reversal is going to happen at some point, it will only be because of major collapses

"until then", being either knee-deep in social constructs and institutions (or fighting against them, which isn't entirely different) is inevitable for the vast majority of humans, especially in urban environments. for me, it raises the question: is it possible to have a pragmatic philosophy that effectively limits, in a sustainable way, the influence that formal power structures have on your life? or is some level of active ongoing involvement in politics the only way to prevent even further influence?

Well libertarianism could be defined as authority over self, but necessarily applying to everyone, therefore it requires a social contract between individual self-governing agents to establish boundaries. Most libertarians, to my knowledge (and certainly most if not all I've spoken to), are "minarchists" in that they believe there should be a very limited government to govern this social contract by enforcing legal and "natural" rights.

What Zhuangzi espoused was anarchism, which (though some might disagree) is conceptually different from libertarianism.

I'm not sure that it would have been desirable, even 2300 years ago, to live according to "natural spontaneity". Of course, Zhuangzi didn't get to see the benefits of capitalism, the wonders of the internet, etc. It may have made more sense in its historical context, as you suggested.

I think that being embroiled in social constructs is an emergent property of our evolution as a social animal. Without the tendency to form hierarchical societies, we arguably would not be what we think of as "human". The pragmatic choice would be to take the path of least resistance rather than trying to change the very nature of who and what we are.

Economic Left/Right: -7.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.9

Still can't quite touch me, auntblabby.