Not your grandma’s political spectrum anymore!

So we were talking about nuking Mecca when Peter, quoting Curzon, asks:

“And no, I’m not conservative either. I’m a raging right-winger.” Eh? Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that a contradiction?

This reminded me of an interesting take on the political spectrum that was making the rounds a couple years back: The Political Compass. Basically, instead of a philisophical arc of continuity the compass charts political thought in four quadrants using the y-axis as a measure for views on social freedoms and the x-axis for economic freedoms. It seems to be a variation of the Nolan Chart and produces interesting results that reflect the sometimes ambivalent positions that can be taken in today’s complex political landscape. Go ahead and take the test and I am sure your ideas on the traditional political spectrum will change. Feel free to link to your results in the comments.

Also, a couple of years back in real life Curzon wrote a great explanation of the five political cultures in the US today, which I thought was really poignant. It illustrated how very loaded the terms “liberal” and “conservative” are in America. Maybe if I ask very nice he can post it for all of us…