cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/17821633
Take our quiz to find out which one of our nine political typology groups is your best match, compared with a nationally representative survey of more than 10,000 U.S. adults by Pew Research Center. You may find some of these questions are difficult to answer. That’s OK. In those cases, pick the answer that comes closest to your view, even if it isn’t exactly right.
Outside left. Funny that they put it near the center given I tend to think of myself well to the left of the Democrats.
I got that too. I feel like it’s just what they do for answers that are broadly Leftist + hates Dems
I expected a bit more competency from pew research, but it seems that this quiz misses the mark quite badly.
Your best fit is… Progressive Left … along with 6% the public
Woohoo. Let’s go my fellow 6%ers.
Disclaimer: I’m not American.
same. who the hell is upset at hearing a foreign language in public? Wishing someone bon appetite just driving the right to insanity?
apparently, depending on the language used, it will drive the easily angered on the right to insanity
Beats me, I’m in a border state and it’s not even remotely uncommon to hear people speaking Spanish. I do my best to speak it back.
Hah, hello neighbor :D
I’m curious how universal these political typologies could be made. I’m sure this one might apply a great deal to a number of western countries, if you change the names accordingly, etc.
Yeah, as a very general tool I think they work somewhat interchangeably among similar countries, though this one has a few specifically US-centric questions that were more difficult to answer. (I just pretended I was American for all of them.)
It absolutely has its faults, but I’ve always found the two-axis political compass to be the best at more generally arriving at a person’s ideology outside of country-specific questions. I take that every few years and keep screenshots of my results to track my trajectory.
As a related point of conversation, something I’ve always had trouble with a lot of these tests is whether I should answer based on my philosophical or practical beliefs, as there’s a bit of a divide there at least for me. Furthermore, the simplified nature of these tests can’t really paint a full picture of an individual’s beliefs. While any tests will place me on the left libertarian end of the spectrum, my beliefs aren’t quite so binary. I consider myself a leftist, but the political philosophy that shaped my beliefs runs the gamut from anarchism & Marxism to classical liberalism and even select conservative philosophers (albeit from previous eras, and I do mean select).
A good rule of thumb is to measure twice, cut once, so perhaps give it a try twice: once where you answer philosophically and once where you answer practically?
I’m due for taking it again, myself, but I generally consider myself a radical moderate (I’m all for system-wide changes) and I think Pew described me as “faith and family left” when I last took the test.
That’s not a bad idea to take it separately for both my frames of mind.
I hear you on being a “radical moderate”. Maybe 7-10 years ago I had a period where I thought of myself as a centrist because, despite being generally quite left-leaning, in certain areas I sit more toward the middle. I’ve since refrained from referring to myself in that way as the Overton window has shifted do far right that I no longer feel it’s correct. Furthermore, I see centrism these days (and in retrospect, back then too) as the domain of fence-sitters.
Philosophically I’ve “identified” as an anarchist since my teens and many years later that still forms the core of my beliefs. However, I’m also rather pessimistic about people as a whole and believe humanity hasn’t reached a point where that’s feasible outside of small dedicated groups of like-minded people (like communes or worker’s co-ops). In my opinion, the average individual is either too self-interested or naive at this stage of our social development. Thus, if anarchism were suddenly attempted on a national scale it would inevitably devolve into strongmen rising up and returning us to something like feudalism. (The same direction I feel we’re heading under unfettered capitalism.)
However, I also don’t trust the state to have too much power and am thus not explicitly a socialist (outside of my philosophical belief in libertarian socialism as an anarchist). As such I find a market-based economy acceptable so long as it’s very-well regulated to protect people from the whims of corporations (who I trust least of all), and with an extensive social safety net (or better yet, UBI) to go with it. Functionally, in practice, I’m on the left side of social democracy with a touch of Marxism thrown in, but in a few very specific economic areas I lean more to the right. There’s way more to it than that, but as you can see I’m all over the place and as much as I find political tests fun, none can ever properly place me on their spectrum. I suspect I’m not alone - people who give this stuff a reasonable degree of thought are unlikely to be so easily packaged up into neat little boxes.
Anyway, thank you for posting this quiz, and I genuinely appreciate the conversation. I have a degree in political science but don’t get to discuss it as much as I’d like these days other than the few times a year I get together with friends. (Or with friendly strangers online.)
You are very welcome!
I’m glad to be able to be of appreciation, as I know how that is - looks like you are in the right place to discuss political science though!
In the interest of conversation, maybe you can explain or point me to an explanation of why Anarchism vs. Marxism is considered “idealism vs materialism” in sociology?
In Psychology, we had an “idealism vs materialism” debate, but it is mostly resolved with a sort of “idealistic materialism” or “materialistic idealism” where, essentially, “idealism <=> materialism”, as I understand it.
I’m curious about what the current state of the art is, in that debate!
Either way, I’ll definitely spend some time in !politics@lemmy.ml checking things out.
That’s a very interesting question, but unfortunately one I don’t have much input on myself. I’ve always understood materialism as a belief that everything can be, in theory, explained by science (or in the somewhat-related Epicurean understanding that everything is comprised of atoms). As such, its counterpart would be something along the lines of spiritualism rather than idealism. I’m certain that my understanding of materialism must be a specific definition of perhaps a different concept entirely than that which you’ve brought up. I don’t have a great deal of formal knowledge of sociology or psychology. Likewise, I’ve studied a fair bit of political philosophy but nothing that I can think of which touches on this specific topic. Nonetheless, you’ve piqued my interest and I expect I’ll be heading down a rabbit hole tonight.
Well, please do share what you find!
You are on the right track w/ idealism vs materialism in psychology, at least.
The question there arose from the brain: how do you rectify the mind/soul with the brain/body? Dualism apparently fails (the idea that there is a separate mind from the brain) which leaves only some form of monism. A sort of hybrid materialism-idealism seems to make the most sense, where consciousness is a property of the universe, like time or space, and different entities have differing consciousnesses. In that sort of a philosophy, when talking about the brain of a person you are equally talking about the experience that person is having, just in different terms.
I suspect that in sociology that would be some sort of unified anarcho-marxism, if such a thing exists. The atomic theory of society seems to be the thing where they are working on unifying language. If society is fully atomized, asking whether a new society arises due to free choice or resource demands is like asking whether rivers rise due to rain or sewer overflow, if that makes sense?
Your best fit is… Outsider Left … along with 10% the public
¯\_(ツ)_/¯Pretty accurate for me
TIL I am a centrist.
Wow. Stressed sideliner. Sounds about right.
Hmm… outsider left. And yet I’m pretty conservative in my own country.
I think “Outsider Left” may have subsumed “Faith and Family Left” in the new version of the typology.
