Website Name: Political Compass, www.politicalcompass.org
Operated By: Pace News, Ltd.
Funded By: Sponsorships, seminars
Operated By: Pace News, Ltd.
Funded By: Sponsorships, seminars
The makers
of this website have done a great job creating a test to help you see where you
fall on a chart similar to the one in chapter 5 of our book on p. 135-136.
Although not exactly the same, both our book and the Political Compass show a
way to classify people in a two-dimension manner rather than unilaterally from
Left to Right. Many people don’t fit the overly simplistic classifications of
Left/Liberal or Right/Conservative. The Political Compass test classifies
test-takers based on two continuums: Left to Right and Libertarian to
Authoritarian. This site has a lot of information regarding these continuums
for those coming to the website who may have a limited understanding of the
topic.
The website shows you where you lie on the scale immediately after you
take the test. There is also an option to create a group-chart where you and
family or friends can plot your points together. There are plots of famous
leaders on the site as well, so you can see how you compare.
There is a
separate smaller quiz called “Iconochasms” where you can “see how well you know
your political icons”. I discovered that “iconochasm” is not a word. I think
they might actually have meant to say “iconoclasm”. The word “iconoclasm” seems
to have the meaning they were trying to construe. That would be one thing I
could “constructively criticize” about the site.
Another few items to critique:
the site looks and feels low-budget. The site is low-budget most likely,
however there are many free resources to utilize on the internet to make the
site look more modern and appealing. Overall, its appearance is not too bad,
though. It is fully functional and easily navigable. Their reading list
includes writers from the four separate quadrants, but I would have liked to
see a list of readings from writers that fall right in the middle of all four.
Overall,
this website and test are a great way to assess yourself and have a starting
point for political discussion with others.
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