An optimistic article that ALL of us will enjoy

[stui magpie]

[sherrife]

Not quite... -8,9 -9.6 or something like that.

But really, I'm not that extreme. There are much more 'pure' ideologues around...

I'm more tactically flexible than most anarchists (eg. i vote, albeit uneasily, and support struggles that are not directly revolutionary, such as a workers strike for more pay), yet more anti-authoritarian than Trotskyist or Leninist Socialist groups. They believe in things like a "narrow party"; a group that is explicitly designed to "lead the revolution".... i think that's historically fraught with danger, and fundamentally elitist.

[stui magpie]

It's an interesting suvey in that their is no Neutral option. It forces you to make a choice, That in turn effects the validity of the data as someone who picks an option basically on the toss of a coin does not have anywhere near the same level of intensity about a topic as someone who was nearly "strongly agree/disagree)

I'd suggest my true leanings lie closer to David's, probably even slightly right on economics.

[David]

It would be interesting to compare the results of Americans with Australians on this kind of test. Because, as Omar mentioned, I reckon the test was done from a bit of an American perspective.

I reckon Americans on average would be generally more right-wing than Australians.... based on the stances of their politicians, the far bigger presence of religion over there, and the big encouragement of patriotism, for example.

Only a theory though... what do others reckon?

I certainly think it's possible for different cultures to be more 'right' or 'left' wing than other cultures... Iran, for example, would be very very right-wing, whereas a country like Zimbabwe comes across as very left-wing... (of course these are just generalisations based on little evidence other than observations).

But in the end, I reckon the whole left/right thing is rather overhyped. There are many many different world views out there, and right/left is something of an oversimplification.

[stui magpie]

Dunno David, I've never been to the US and it's not fair to judge them all on their TV and movies.

From what I understand, they're generally more overtly patriotic and religious than we are, but I agree that different cultures would rate quite differently.