Where do you stand? (Politically, that is)

[Neil Foxlee]

The questionnaire was presumably designed to avoid non-committal answers.

What is Kronstadt 1921?

Kronstadt was (and presumably still is) a Russian naval base and centre of radical dissent. Russian naval sailors rebelled against their Tsarist officers in 1905 (cf Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin) and again in 1917, and then against the Bolsheviks in 1921, when the rebellion was ruthlessly suppressed. It is often cited as evidence that the seeds of Stalinism were already present under Lenin and Trotsky.

In 1938, Trotsky wrote on the subject: "I am ready to recognize that civil war is no school of humanism. Idealists and pacifists always accused the revolution of "excesses". But the main point is that "excesses" flow from the very nature of the revolution which in itself is but an "excess" of history."

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSkronstadt.htm (scroll down).

[AndyM]

C'est moi:

http://www.politicalcompass.org/printab ... &soc=-5.85

[NormanD]

'In every political community there are varying shades of political opinion. One of the shadiest of these is the liberals. An outspoken group on many subjects. Ten degrees to the left of center in good times. Ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally. Here, then, is a lesson in safe logic'.

Introduction to "Love Me, I'm a Liberal" on Phil Ochs in Concert (1966)

[Des]

May I say that as a recently outed liberal I find that very offensive, Norman.

[Pete Fowler]

To my mind the extreme bottom left square says "hold on a minute mate .. I just need to lie down here in this green corner for a minute so you can get a REALLY good kick at me"

I don’t feel that way in the slightest: principles can result in a hardness, a firmness of purpose, that might have escaped you. Nor do I feel any empathy whatsoever with the Morris Men, just as I recoiled from the trippy-hippy kids who littered my youth with their peace signs.

The questionnaire, rather like its famous predecessor - Eysenck’s 1960’s test that was published in one of those little blue Penguin paperbacks - does, as Neil says, force you to the edges: there must have been a dozen questions to which my answer could better have been realised through ticking a neutral box.

But, even though I’m a bit of a latecomer at this party, I’m hardly surprised that a forum kicked off by Charlie would have resulted in a cluster of those in the bottom left hand section of this test. After all, he was one of the signatories of Edward Thompson’s May Day Manifesto in 1968.

True, to someone else up there in the thread, it’s difficult, with this kind of standpoint, to vote….I have wasted my political vote in every election since 1964, the last time I lived in a constituency that was not a foregone conclusion. And even then I’ve always voted ‘negatively’, ie to keep the biggest bastards out. Without PR, we are simply out of the picture. And without PR, there sure as hell is no value in starting another political party.

[NormanD]

May I say that as a recently outed liberal I find that very offensive, Norman.

We can't really have a discussion about political persuasions without such, what with the spirit of Xmas, etc.

[Neil Foxlee]

Might I suggest that Ochs was using "liberal":

a) in a specific socio-historical context, that of the US in 1966, where "liberal" meant something rather different from what it means in the UK (or indeed US) in 2010;

b) (like Des before he was outed?) from a leftist position on a traditional Left-Right spectrum, with liberalism occupying the middle ground, whereas the more nuanced Political Compass uses two axes, Left-Right (economic) and Authoritarian-Libertarian (social).

So basically like is not being compared with like.

[Neil Foxlee]

On the May Day Manifesto, cited above, see http://senatehouseoccupation.wordpress. ... manifesto/ .

And here's Orwell's Why I Write for good measure: http://orwell.ru/library/essays/wiw/english/e_wiw .

[Neil Foxlee]

There's a couple of relevant Wikipedia articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_compass (on Political Compass itself)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum (on variations of the biaxial model).

Whatever, the use of two axes seems intuitively right, allowing for distinctions to be made between, say, anarcho-individualism and anarcho-collectivism, economic and social liberalism, Stalinism and democratic socialism etc. (If you don't want to take the test, see the analysis section at http://politicalcompass.org/analysis2 and the 2010 UK general election page at http://politicalcompass.org/ukparties2010 .)

[Neil Foxlee]

Surely June isn't the only forumista not to fit into the Left libertarian quadrant? Aren't there any other mildly authoritarian or market-oriented forum-followers out there? Are we doomed to political conformity, despite our personal spats? (The narcissism of minor differences, in Freudian terms, or the Judean People's Front / People's Front of Judea splitters syndrome in Pythonesque ones.)

[Chris P]

Surely June isn't the only forumista not to fit into the Left libertarian quadrant?

Sorry I'm in there, uncomfortably close to Des and Norman - oi, move over a bit I need some leg room, can't I have space for a wriggle, you did brush your teeth this morning didn't ya ?

[Philellinas]

Sorry, Neil. I've done my best to go into the red (my usual policy) but I have failed. Still, if the likes of Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Mahatma Gandhi and Des are in the same quadrant maybe one is on the right side of the fence.
http://www.politicalcompass.org/printab ... &soc=-2.15

[Neil Foxlee]

Well, at least we're in good company (though pace June, who said we weren't represented by a party, the Political Compass analysis of the 2010 UK General Election suggests that the Greens fit the bill).

Bearing in mind transatlantic political differences, it would be interesting if Dayna and other far-flung forumistas could be persuaded to take part.

[MurkeyChris]

http://www.politicalcompass.org/printab ... &soc=-6.05

Don't expect any late comer revelation, although I'm slightly more centre left-lib than most of you.