My political profile: how Leftist am I (or are you)?

January 30, 2018 • 12:45 pm

You’ve surely heard the old saying, “If you are not a liberal at 25, you have no heart; if you’re not a conservative at 35, you have no brain.” The antecedents of the quote go back to 1875, but when I was younger I thought this was a horrible quote. I would never, I vowed, become a conservative.  And I don’t think I have, though I’ve been accused of being “alt-right”, of helping Trump get elected because I criticized Hillary, and so on.

Still, I worry that I might lose the liberal ideals I had when I was younger, especially now when I spend a lot of time on this site criticizing what I see as the maladaptive excesses of the Left. I told Grania I was worried about this, and she proposed that I locate my position on the political compass. When you go to that site, you’re directed to a six-page list of what seem to be pretty good questions, like these:

I thought very hard before answering them, and, when I was done, I was given this as my position on the two-axis political spectrum:

Well, I’m pretty Left, where is where I thought I’d be, and I’m glad to see I’m more libertarian than authoritarian; in fact, I’m just as libertarian as I am Leftist.  I’m satisfied with this, though of course I don’t know much about the Political Compass. Readers might want to take the test for themselves, see where they place, and report the results below. In fact, I’ll make a poll to help, but add a comment below if you think the answer is close to where you figured.

 

229 thoughts on “My political profile: how Leftist am I (or are you)?”

  3. Economic Left/Right: -2.0
    Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.97

    I appear to be less ‘leftist’ on the economic axis, compared to others here. Perhaps that’s due to my 20 years of working in the chemical industry.

  4. Further left and more libertarian then our host. To think that I voted for Reagan (twice) – I guess I’m the antithesis of the saying.

  6. Economic Left/Right: -6.38
    Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.26

    Pretty much where I thought it would be. A smidge more Left and Libertarian than Jerry.

  8. Economic Left/Right: -8.63
    Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -8.05

    Perhaps it’s something to do with the current political climate in New Zealand !!!

  10. Would be interesting to have a scattergram on the grid of all the partricipants here. Eg. even Michael Fisher, who says he came in the ‘Stalin’ quadrant, was very close to the centre.

  12. Would never be a libertarian, as they do not care what condition our roads will be in or if a fire department will come to their fire.

    1. That really isn’t how it works, that’s like saying all Authoritarians demand allegiance to the state… there is a balance

  16. OK – I did the graph, and sent it to PCC(E) (since I don’t know how to insert a picture here).

  18. (-6.88,-5.69). It’s interesting. I was expecting to be a bit more centrist on both axes. But like someone hinted at earlier, I think I wanted an “it depends” option for many questions.

  19. Economic Left/Right: -5.63
    Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.72

    Pretty centrist Left-Libertarian, I guess.

  20. I propose extra buttons / responses :

    • yes, but
    • it depends
    • I don’t understand

    … I bet that will shift I even further left…

    … come to think of it, what is their equation? They have pages and pages of talk but there should be a simple expression for the numbers… 42, anyone?

  21. I shy away from strongly agreeing or disagreeing about most things. My knowledge doesn’t permit it — too ignorant.

    That’s even the case when I’m reviewing the people who changed my oil, though. I suspect they whip them if all of their scores aren’t “extremely satisfied” but I can’t honestly get beyond satisfied.

  22. Very interesting. I got:

    Economic Left/Right: -6.63
    Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.0

    I think this is about where I expected to be. That said, 2 or 3 questions were on things that I don’t really know much about, which means I essentially had to “guess” based on gut feeling, without knowing for sure what my answer would be were I sufficiently educated!

  23. Allow me to get this political nugget out of my system (so I don’t have to email PCC(E), PBUH)

    I heard recently, (don’t ask how), from a Republican candidate for governor of Florida, in a piece of writing that began with the words “They’re coming for us”, the following deepity:

    “We don’t want power – we want to restrain it.”

    … ahhh, that’s better. Thanks.

  24. -0.5 left
    -0.82 libertarian

    I don’t vote any more and consider stable political states as impossible due to the nature of human beings. I am just thankful for what peace we have had in my lifetime.

    Someone up thread mentioned savagery of corporations. Based on my experience (as an officer and board member), corporations, being a group endeavor, are pretty much amoral, but you do find some pretty predatory types. Mild psychopathy is advantageous for individuals. You had better bet your sweet ass that laws and penalties are needed.

    Frankly, what I find naive on the left is the belief that you can endow the state with enormous power and not find some very dark souls clawing their way to the top.

    Lord Acton said that power corrupts, true enough, but what is more important is that the opportunity for power attracts. The personalities it attracts are not always nice ones, but some are quite well suited for clawing their way to the top (natural selection).

    “It is a characteristic of all movements and crusades that the psychopathic element rises to the top.” Robert Lindner

  26. WoW!
    -7.12
    -7.59
    but I got the feeling as I was answering questions that I was going to be a gun toting
    authoritarian righty. I am really a Liberal
    TEXAN who remembers Gov Richards with fondness.

    1. Me too!

      For those WEIT readers who are not familiar with Ann Richards, she’s the one who said:

      Poor George [Bush], he can’t help it — he was born with a silver foot in his mouth.

  29. Economic Left/Right: -8.25
    Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.95

    Incidentally, the “evolutionary/revolutionary” thing affects my answers because certain things I change when it means “now immediately” vs. “in the limit” (for example on the futility of rehabilitation).

  30. My result:
    Economic Left/Right: 1.25
    Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.33

    I’d wish the two authoritarian right-wingers to come out so that we could give them protected status!

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