I think I can safely say that I know myself. I know about my beliefs and opinions, so I thought the Political Compass exercise would be unsurprising, although I was still interested to take the test and see the results. It’s interesting to be forced to take a stand on an issue, since “no opinion” or “not sure” is not an option; there is no safety net in between “agree” and “disagree.” Certain questions held me for much longer than others as I struggled to define in one bubble answer how I feel about some rather complex subjects. For example, should pornography, depicting consenting adults, be legal for the adult population? While I truly despise pornography, its cheapening of sex, and its enforcement of stereotypes, I still think it should be legal. Why? The sex industry is an industry just the same, with workers and clients, a supply and demand. And who knows, perhaps someone will make a brilliant porn film soon enough. In fact, I’m counting on it.
So, I came to the end of the survey, mostly feeling that my answers were accurate, and was quite surprised to see myself placed where I was on the graph. Nearly falling off! I had guessed that I’d be in this quadrant, but not so far toward the left and certainly not so close to the libertarian/anarchism line at the bottom of the graph. Looking back over my printed survey answers, I wondered if perhaps I ended up at coordinates (-8.5, -7.64) because I had used the “strongly” agrees and disagrees so many times. I filled out the survey again, without using any of the adjective answers, and I moved a little farther right and just above the middle between the libertarian and social medians. Perhaps this was a more fitting place for my small red circle of ideologies. However, while I was taking the survey a second time, the whole time I was thinking, “But I strongly disagree, really!” I’m glad to be reminded how passionately I feel about many of these issues, although before now I’ve never really thought that strong feelings equaled the degree to which someone is liberal or conservative.
This survey was particularly interesting because although it is a questionnaire to help visualize a person’s political beliefs, it also asks about the survey-taker’s opinion on astrology, luck, and the justification of abstract art. One proposition states “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” which is not an overtly political statement and does not concern any one issue, but at the same time, it says a lot about the way a person thinks, which in turn influences his or her politõical ideologies. While certainly not a perfect survey, the Political Compass was still a good sampling of important issues and beliefs to help determine the political whereabouts of a person.
I got my Republican, Bush-voting boyfriend to take this test and he turned out to be in the left economically as well as liberal socially, which was probably more of a surprise for him than it was for me. He wasn’t quite sure that this is where he really fits, but he said, “I guess if you have strong opinions, you’ve gotta be something.” I’m not really sure exactly what that something is, for him as well as myself. I can see where the coordinates put me, but whether I can be defined as a Democrat or an Anarchist, I can’t say. As convenient as labels can sometimes be, I plan to keep trying life without such a specific one for now. I want to know myself even better and try to always act in accordance with my beliefs.
