A Fun Test - Are You Liberal Or Conservative?

Click on the above image and it will expand to a large grid. And from top to bottom are gradations of AUTHORITARIAN to LIBERTARIAN personalities and left to right are LEFT leaning to RIGHT leaning personalities, or perhaps better phased, liberal to conservative. On the grid are 66 fairly well known individuals that I have attempted to place on the grid relative to each other and relative to these two dimensions of personality.

Now there is an online test where you can (for free) test where you land on a similar type grid. It only takes a few minutes and is easy to do and I think pretty interesting. So, if you are curious about how you might score, I recommend you try it.

Ever since this red/blue political divide came into focus, and especially since it has become a part of the poplar lexicon, I’ve been captivated by the question of, ”What Is the underlying causation that steers one person to be an authoritarian right winger and another to become a left leaning libertarian” – often within the same family?

And I was further spurred in my interest when recently John Dean, the former White House Counsel to Richard Nixon, came out with his book, “Conservatives Without Conscience”. An unsettling notion is that perhaps some 27% of the population are identified as “authoritatively controlled conservatives” who for yet to be understood psychological reasons, even as adults, look to “father figures” they trust and respect to lead them to life choices and conclusions. There is actually an emerging field of scholarly study devoted to this area of psychology.

With a layman’s interest in history I tend to analogize what is happening today in America, in American politics, and in the ascendancy of the religious right into politics, to other social and political movements in other places and other times – and the comparison in unsettling. It suggests to me that, particularly in times where people begin to feel less secure (e.g. fear of no Social Security safety net, increased personal debt, attacks on our homeland, a tilt in power to the executive, soaring energy and medical costs, exporting of jobs, etc., etc.) that a drift to a charismatic alpha male is more probable – especially for “authoritatively controlled conservatives”. And energized by socially explosive issues such as illegal immigration, gay rights, reproduction rights, and similar other socially conservative hot buttons, this electorate might be marched lock step to the polls.

Well similar things have happened before – by the way, I’d love to hear back if you disagree with my placements on the above grid or have any suggestions for other inclusions.