Yesterday, Sun Ra pointed a group of comrades to an online quiz that determines where you fall on a two-axis political spectrum. While the reported results were interesting, I don’t think they surprised any of us. Well, to be honest, I was surprised to I fell as far off the axis into liberal territory as I did, and people who only know me in passing probably wouldn’t guess my leanings, but more objective observers reading my (recent) columns might not be taken aback by the results. Let’s just say that I fell so far off the zero point that if I fell the other way, I’d be Margaret Thatcher.
Put that way, I guess I’m not all that surprised.
Oh, right, the site. Have a go.
Now, I’m guessing that, my liberal political and social views notwithstanding, my deviant score was based on my input of what I consider ideal situations or outcomes. So it’s measuring what views I’m capable of holding, rather than what I think is possible. Which might not be a problem, really, but I’d like to make it clear that I’m not a foaming ideologue, but that I do have a fairly decent grasp of reality, and the nature of politics and an understanding that compromising to get some of what you want is much better than irrationally standing firm and getting nothing at all. Nose, cutting off, spiting face; I get that.
And yes, I think that Bush and Co. are lying, unscrupulous, oil-drenched thugs, but I also think that Nader is full of shit when he claims that the Republicans and Democrats are indistinguishable. I think Nader has done some fine things, but he’ll never get my vote. Sure, voting for a third party might send a message, and you have every right to vote for ‘em, but, realistically, the positions of third parties are just too extreme for them to be viable contenders. Although I’ll admit that I find the Green Party platform more reasonable than that of the Libertarian, Reform, or (and especially), the American Independent Party. As an aside, the American Independent Party’s platform statement is an especially amusing case of a statement that starts of sane, and then abruptly crashes into frothing insanity. But that might just be me, and the way that I balk at phrases such as "Biblical principles of government." I’m just a damned bleeding-heart liberal who doesn’t favor stoning and crucifixion.
Now, this seems more meaningful than most online tests, such as personality and IQ tests. I think that personality tests fail in that I’ve yet to see a serious one that doesn’t put a positive spin on whatever category it says you fit into. You just don’t get one that says "You, sir, are an asshole. I hope you die." Nope, you have to read between the lines when it says something like "You have a strident, forceful personality" and translate that to "You’re an arrogant prick and people hate you." Which you won’t, of course, because no one is that honest an evaluator of their own personality.
And I’ve found IQ tests to be highly variable. I think the concept of measuring IQ is dubious in the first place; the tests are just going to measure how close you are to either the test makers or to some model they’re using, and categorizing intelligence is like trying to lasso water. I’ve taken, at a guess, half a dozen online IQ tests, and my score has varied by twenty points. Twenty points is a fairly large margin in IQ scores; it is, I believe, the difference between Average and Above Average, or Above Average and Genius.
So, what, ultimately, is my point? I suppose it’s that measuring difficult-to-quantify things is immensely difficult. But it’s also immensely appealing. Only the most unselfconscious of us doesn’t want to compare ourselves to others, to fit ourselves onto a scale, and see how we stack up against our peers. And, in almost all cases, we secretly hope to find that we stand out in some way. Heck, even if you are the most average, that’s something, isn’t it?
For the record, yes, I am just a little bit proud of the fact that my score is way the hell out there, even if I doubt the accuracy, and, of course, applicability, of such a measurement.