What I (apparently) Believe

Further to the Crikey Bias-O-Meter thing, where I found this blog plotted on a left-right graph between Karl Marx and Maggie Thatcher and scoring five Marxes out of a possible ten, I went to this site as directed by some kind fellow blogger and took their really excellent, quite detailed test developed to counter the inadequacy of a one-dimensional left-right model for plotting political positions.

The Political Compass sets you a test and uses your answers to plot your position on a two-dimensional graph with a vertical authoritarian-libertarian axis as well as a horizontal left-right one. It's a detailed and quite long list of statements with four options for response from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree, without the usual Neutral or Couldn't Give a Rat's option. I guess someone sufficiently interested in quantifying individual ideology with that much finesse of calibration doesn't believe in anything as wussy as a Couldn't Give a Rat's option in the first place.

They don't (yet) make the results available in easily bloggable form, but I can report that my answers put me smack bang in the exact middle of the Libertarian Left quadrant, midway along the short diagonal line that joins Nelson Mandela to the Dalai Lama. Very chuffed-making, considering that some of the other plotted positions on their illustrative diagrams include those of Hitler, Stalin, Thatcher, Dubya and Robert Mugabe as well as, on their special (and very interesting) graph for composers, Wagner. I was pleased to note that Mozart and Beethoven are down there in the libertarian left corner with me.

I wonder how hard it would be to develop some comparably detailed (or even more detailed) position-plotting test for feminism. I also took the personality-identifying 'What's your ideal scent?' test provided as light weekend entertainment by Lauredhel over at Hoyden About Town, thus revealing a certain penchant for Third Wave fluffy feminist pinkitude that had hitherto not been apparent. Not to me, anyway. (NB the colour of this blog is merely camouflage.)

I am, it seems, a Vixen (who knew) and should be wearing something called Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb at $120 -- and for all I know, that is American dollars -- per 50 mils. Look up there in the sky! See the dear little flying piggies?