« Are Iraq Attacks "Terrorism" | Main | Dean and Confederate Flag »

November 04, 2003

Update on Political Compass

Well Deltoid has made a chart of where all bloggers who have posted their Political Compass results lay on the political spectrum.

Based on my results, I'm proud to note that I ended up more economicly left and libertarian than all other bloggers, save Brian Leiter, who tied me in the bottom left corner. Our opposite number is the Angry Clam who, as the most economically rightwing and authoritarian blogger to report his results, wins the upper-right corner. (Is there some kind of elaborate political Hollywood Squares we could play with this graph?)

Update: Sadly, Brian and I have been outflanked on the libertarian side by Chun the Unavoidable who has assumed the absolute lower-left corner of left-libertarianism.

Julian Sanchez, while complaining about certain aspects of the quiz, praises the idea of a 2-D version of the political spectrum to escape the misguided emphasis on the 1-D "left-right" spectrum. Yet, an interesting reality is that-- at least among bloggers -- the results in the chart show a pronounced 1-D spectrum diagonally from left-libertarians up towards right-authoritarians. There are almost no bloggers in the upper-left and lower-right sections-- Julian being the closest to a right-libertarian registering on the site, and there are no left-authoritarians (save one lefty showing mild authoritarian traits).

In an odd way, this exercise, rather than showing the value of the 2-D spectrum, may be highlighting the utility of the existing left-right spectrum, despite the mix of libertarian and economic issues involved.

Posted by Nathan at November 4, 2003 10:12 AM