Socio-political g(r)affe
October 9th, 2006Will posted a socio-political personality test on his blog, so I just had to follow suit.
Well, it appears I’m most in the Stalinist camp… hmmm… think this test is a bit skewed toward the Libertarian/communist? The command system is Stalin, the Fascist is Hitler, the free market is Pinochet, and the libertarian/communist is Ghandi.
Big Bird said it best: one of these things is not like the other.
Of course, statisticians don’t like open-ended questions, and the ones on this test were no exception. I felt like responding to most of the questions by saying “wait, no, there’s a third (or fourth or fifth) option here,” or “do I have to answer as a human trying to make the world livable or as a Christian describing the perfect society?” I’d be totally communistic if we were all perfect. I’m totally capitalist since we’re not. In a lot of ways having polarized answers between human systems is simply a choice between the lesser of two evils.
I’ll shut up. Here are my totals:
- Economic left/right: 2.50
- Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 1.03
According to this I’m relatively middle of the road, and I guess that’s about as accurate as you can get when polling someone who’s living for the Kingdom of Light while living in the Kingdom of Darkness.
October 9th, 2006 at 6:19 pm
So are you trying to say that I’m perfect?
Maybe I’m just naive.
Hey, I guess if everyone was in the same quadrant, we’d all be out of jobs.
October 10th, 2006 at 6:36 am
I think I was grumpy last night.
Something always irks me in personality tests when I feel like I can’t answer any question accurately. I think it’s one of those things that pushes my “grump” button. Hope deferred and all that.
I guess in some sense it just pointed up the fact that its impossible to have someone be a dictator in a completely libertarian/communist society. I suppose that’s a weakness, too.
I suppose, too, that this is somewhat of a sore spot with me. I’ve been thinking increasingly about socio-political… stuff. Americans, Europeans… communism, capitalism, socialism… capital punishment, rehabilitation… The more I try to look at all these soci-political systems the more I see them all as a seesaw… humans are all on one side and they can either sit there with the thing imbalanced or push off and try for split seconds of balance between the highs and lows. But without Someone on the opposite side, the seesaw can never be balanced. Any of these systems would work if God were on the other side of it. None will work without Him.
It gets impossible to defend a system of government or economics without a biblical worldview. You can argue that some serve some interests better, but none of them will ultimately get us where we want to go.
October 10th, 2006 at 4:31 pm
Agreed.
Government, like The Law, is one more thing that points us to Christ through its frustration.