My Political Compass

Thanks to Steve Bainbridge for pointers to this site, which reports my "political compass" here. I'm delighted to note that, according to the Political Compass site, I'm closer to Gandhi, while Steve is closer to Hitler and Thatcher!

Now while the Political Compass at least gets me and Steve straight, I must say the methodology is a bit problematic. Take this statement:

"The prime function of schooling is to equip the future generation to find jobs"

to which one is asked to Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, or Strongly Disagree.
The difficulty is that it is ambiguous as between what the prime function actually is versus what the prime function ought to be.

Or how about this one:

"A significant advantage of a one-party state is that it avoids all the arguments that delay progress in a democratic political system."

I assume they're trying to tease out the Carl Schmitt-type with this question, but couldn't one think democracy is better, but think in a head-to-head comparison, one advantage that accrues to a one-party state is that things move along ("the trains run on time")?

Then there's this peculiarity of the questions: some are straightforwardly normative, while others are factual. So, e.g., one could Strongly Agree or Strongly Disagree with,

"Military action that defies international law is sometimes justified,"

without necessarily making a cognitive error (depending, of course, on the underlying justification--e.g., someone who thought military action against Iraq, in violation of international law, was justified on the grounds that Iraq posed a threat to the U.S., or that Iraq was connected to 9/11, would have made a cognitive error). (Note: I'm assuming, correctly of course, that moral judgments have no cognitive content.)

But someone who "Strongly Agrees" with,

"Astrology accurately explains many things"

is just an ignoramus (though I suspect such a person gets moved to the "right" of the spectrum by Strongly Agreeing--which, of course, seems fair to me).

But it's still an amusing exercise. Perhaps every blogger should post where they fall on the Political Compass at the top of their site. This would make it easier for readers to decide whom to read.