|
The 3-Line Quiz
This political quiz is intended to correct the inadequacies found in
both the one-dimensional (left-right) and two-dimensional (Nolan/Libertarian) political models. It is not as simple
as the left-right model, or as neat and seemingly tidy as the Nolan chart, but it offers a wider context in analyzing political
philosophy.
It has 3 lines, but it it is NOT three-dimensional: it operates in two dimensions. It does not
plot a point on a graph. Instead, a person has three distinct scores (one per line) and each reveals a different aspect
of that person's worldview. Since it's not a graph, each one is called a line
instead of an axis.
[Skip to the end to take the quiz.]
The terms are generally drawn from European political history, especially the the last three centuries or so.
However it is written to be somewhat more universal than most political tests. It provides space for foreign and historical
regimes to sit on the same line with the typical test-taker. In contrast, some shorter political quizzes provide no
breathing room between a moderately-authoritarian centrist and the great dictators of history. The 3-Line Quiz is targeted
at putting the current debates into a more global and historical context, which is the reason for including concepts like
feudalism and fascism.
Moreover, simpler political models have further inadequacies. The left-right
spectrum is a failure for two big reasons: it does not divide politics specifically, and fails to account for authoritarians
and libertarians. The Nolan Chart fails on certain issues such as affirmative action, college speech codes and
gun control, which are largely social issues but disrupt the social axis of the chart. It is also very difficult to
divide social and economic rights, which of course is sort of the larger point behind libertarianism.
The 3-Line Quiz tackles political philosophy from different perspectives, to highlight the
distinctions instead of forcing everyone into ill-fitting boxes.
The Radical-Conservative
line is the question of who should govern and how members of a group should interact; it generally pits social equality against
social hierarchy. The Liberal-Populist line is a question what activities should be governed and freedom and security;
it ranges from legal equality and individual autonomy to community power and authority. The Capitalist-Socialist line
is a question of how scarce resources should be distributed and the issue of free versus command economics; its extremes are
economic freedom and economic equality.
Confusing the liberal, radical and conservative categories on this test with their more mainstream
definitions could be troublesome, so be sure to leave that at the door. The liberal line is more akin to libertarian,
not to a US liberal Democrat, and conservative here is considerably more traditional than most US conservative Republicans.
Since the radical to conservative line is the question of who should govern, it's primarily
about the worth of people and their relations to each other. It manifests most prominently in the form of government
chosen and who may participate in it. Remember that Democrat and Republican in this context refer to governmental
systems, not the US political parties. Because a democracy, especially a direct democracy, asserts that people are equal
in opinion and perspective, Democrat is the most extreme. Republican is still a representative government but less
forthright about people being so powerful a force, and usually balances the will of the people just as it balances the powers
of the government branches. Feudalism means, essentially, that some people are smarter or better by birthright, race,
sex or some other reason, and thus have a right to institutional, structural or social power greater than others.
This might manifest in a clergy or aristocracy. For the purposes of this line Feudalist does not have to literally mean
the system of feudal or manorial economics, but rather a system of social castes, inequality and even aristrocracy like medieval
Europe, old Japan, or even the antebellum American South. Autocrat is more or less dictatorship with strict levels
and hierarchy and control isolated to a certain group or race or political party.
The liberal line is a continuum between societal or communal authority and individual autonomy
or independence. At the top, an Anarchist is not there in the strict sense of one who always opposes government, but
in the more Enlightenment sense of one opposing coercion or coercive institutions. It does not have to mean abolition
of government, although certainly at the top it could mean that. Libertarian does not have to be as extreme as
the US libertarian movement can be, and it does not have to be strictly capitalist. Getting a score above moderate in
the liberal section means supporting individual rights and opposing government powers, especially those dangerous, unnecessary
or violating individual rights. Scoring below the mid-line means siding with the right of the community on a number
of issues to legislate standards for drug use, gun ownership, and so forth. One does not have to oppose democratic institutions
to score as an Authoritarian or even Fascist here, since this line asks what activities may be governed and when the
government allows individual autonomy, not how the government is formed or how decisions are made.
This line should be relatively clear. An Anarcho-Capitalist is again like the Anarchist
rating on the liberal line: it means a more idealistic lack of coercion rather than literal lack of government. An Anarcho-Capitalist
thinks that free, voluntary commercial interactions should be unhindered except in a few circumstances (like physical violence
or fraud), while a Free Marketeer is essentially just a supporter of private property and the market but not to such an ideological
extent. On the flip side, the Communists may or may not be anarchists (the scale does not necessarily count out an anarcho-communist),
but they are against private property, wealth and profit. The Planner is more balanced for welfare, socialized medicine,
taxes and so forth, but may not wish for the abolition of the market itself as the communist advocates.
No person should expect to get an extreme score on all three lines, and part of the point is that they draw out the
meaningful distinctions and contours of a person's worldview. Scoring a moderate on one or even two lines does make
one a moderate overall. So don't go into it thinking you extreme folks have something prove by racking up three
high scores.
The quizzes are on three separate pages, followed by an accumulator that
puts all the scores together, then an optional page to report your scores.
|
