The political compass test - https://www.politicalcompass.org/test
It’s official, I’m a lefty!
I take these political position quizzes every few years, and my position on the issues has barely changed. Yet every year I find myself more and more disaffected with the progressive side of the nation and more prone to take conservative concerns seriously. I block 90% of left-wing talking points posts, and for every blog I stop reading because it’s too conservative, I purge four or five left-wing outlets from my blogrolls.
So what’s going on?
They say people become more conservative as they get older. But my position on the issues hasn’t changed in the past 20 years, so what could that mean?
I think it’s this: every year I find that the type of conversation I have with people matters far more to me than whether we agree with one another. So rather than searching out one political group or another, I look for discussion venues with ferocious moderation policies.
I’m not the only person doing this. In fact, one of the conservative blogs I follow has attracted so many of us liberal commenters that newbies are disgusted, and often accuse the blogger of running a liberal outlet. It’s not true! I disagree with about 60% of what this blogger writes. Some of his hobby-horses make me roll my eyes so hard I get seasick. After the events in Indiana, I had to ignore him entirely for weeks.
But I went back after the OMG GAYZ fit died down, because that blogger maintains a comments section where we are able to say what we really think without being called out or insulted. Communist, atheist, black, white, gay, straight, pagan, Catholic, fundamentalist, muslim and jewish folks speak up there, and I like the conversation.
How much does following this conservative blog affect me?
It hasn’t changed my positions on policies, but it has changed my positions on people. I still disagree with much of what folks at the blog want to accomplish, but I no longer think they’re evil theocrats or corporate lackeys. They’re people, and their concerns are real. We can attack each other’s positions one day and share recipes the next. When I see commenters there engage one another with grace and kindness, I’m ashamed of how snippy I can sometimes be. I practice being more gentle, taking the other person seriously before firing off my buzzword-filled retort.
I still think most left-wing policies are better, but I don’t want to be part of most progressive conversations online. I want charity and forbearance, not condemnation. I want to interrogate my own side’s sacred positions as well as the opponents’. I want to be treated kindly even when I don’t quite agree or haven’t learned this year’s social justice terminology, and I want to talk about people who disagree with us as if they matter too.
And I really, really, REALLY want to get rid of the suspicion that wanting those things makes me less of a progressive.
