Not to be outdone, a duo calling themselves Political Compass decided to get in on the testing action, too. Devised by a journalist and an academic social historian, both influenced by Freud's protege Wilhelm Reich and the German critic Theodor Adorno among others, the test is longer than the aforementioned one, with a wider range of questions. The one that made me laugh for some reason is "When you are troubled, it's better not to think about it, but to keep busy with more cheerful things." It reminded me of the scene in Farenheit 9/11, where Dubya continues storytime with the children while the Twin Towers burn. Don't get the wrong idea, though. Most of the questions are somewhat more probing than that particular one, and perhaps moreso than the preceeding sites, I encourage you to spend some time here.

In essence, the Political Compass is represented by a four-quadrant system that looks like this:

Note the plotting of the economic and social dimensions on top of the traditional linear range of leftist views vs. right. The two fellows suggest:

"By adding the social dimension you can show that Stalin was an authoritarian leftist (i.e. the state is more important than the individual) and that Gandhi, believing in the supreme value of each individual, is a liberal leftist. . . .You can also put Pinochet, who was prepared to sanction mass killing for the sake of the free market, on the far right as well as in a hardcore authoritarian position. On the non-socialist side you can distinguish someone like Milton Friedman, who is anti-state for fiscal rather than social reasons, from Hitler, who wanted to make the state stronger, even if he wiped out half of humanity in the process.

The chart also makes clear that, despite popular perceptions, the opposite of fascism is not communism but anarchism (i.e. liberal socialism), and that the opposite of communism (i.e. an entirely state-planned economy) is neo-liberalism (i.e. extreme deregulated economy)."

The result is a reading of economic analysis across the horizontal axis and a gauge of social beliefs from authoritarian to libertarian along the vertical axis. I ended up right where I think I belong, with the Dalai Lama, not the Pope. (My exact numbers should you like to compare with your own were Economic Left/Right -7.94, Social Libertarian/Authoritarian -5.16. These numbers will makes sense when you see how the scoring is done).