To some extent or other, my worldview is an ever-changing thing because it tends to evolve and involve more nuance as I learn more. I'm always searching for a simple term to describe what that worldview is at a given moment in time. I take political quizzes every so often as a result and this one I just found yesterday called the Prism Political Quiz was the most interesting example I've run across in a while. Thought I'd share!

My takeaway from it is that maybe my own opinion on things at this point is too specific and individual for there to be one simple, existing term for it, and instead maybe categorization by issue set would best communicate my perspective. That's what this quiz does: it doesn't attempt to place you on a left-right spectrum or "compass" or within a political party. Instead, it has a range of possible value classifications arranged by issue set and places you in those, providing a brief description of each at the end. The full range of possible classifications can be found here. It's not perfect, of course, but none of these online quizzes are. Thought it struck a good balance between granularity and simplicity overall. I noticed it even included options matching the values of like the "sovereign citizen" movement, lol! Stuff that's not included in most of these quizzes. I appreciated that granularity when it came to a good number of the questions. I liked, for example, being able to indicate that I favor an authentic but competitive version of socialism that strives for a balance between meeting the needs of workers and providing for the efficiency and range of consumer options that people -- especially in more heavily populated urban areas -- tend to require and prefer, not a stereotypical planned economy, and that my opposition to prostitution stems more from a place of valuing social justice (as in opposing the exploitative nature of the sex industry) than from a place of sexual conservatism per se, that sort of thing.

Here are my results. I'd be interested in yours (anyone's)!

There were quite a few questions where I had to disagree with all options. As well as a couple where multiple answers fit.

Anyway this is what it told me



The fuck does it say I believe in the right to bear arms as a default right. That's one where I answered none of the above as none of the answers fit. Lethal weapons should be banned, both for the public, the police as well as manufacturers making them.

I think the biggest take away for me is... Religion needs to disappear, socialism to make capitalism fair, freedom and democracy.

Well foreign policy really surprised me. I always thought of myself as more of an internationalist

The results don't really reflect the answers given; especially under "Security". For me, it's also a bit absurd seeing some of the options, some of them take it very far. It's food for thought that such options are even on a quiz like this. I think my results would look quite different if the questions and options were more directed at my own culture and region.

Thanks Jaicee for sharing, this is very interesting. To anyone interested in what are the possible options, here are they. These are a lot of possible options, more surprising the result for most of us refer to three options at most.

My results are a bit surprising for me - at least in part, I'll explain after the image:

So my explanations:

Government: That is the least surprising. Maybe surprising that not even a small percentage of the other options creeped in, but in general, if asking the voters is practical and possible, then I opt for doing exactly that.

Economy: Well, I thought that I would tend to social democracy, market socialism, mixed markets, not that much ordoliberalism. Mixed with a good amount of socialism as well. But yeah, in an ideal society (and for the quiz I took that mindset as the goal in the far), private companies are fine as long as they are properly regulated to be good to consumers, workers and environment. In reality this regulation often fails, which leads me to opt for the government taking stronger control. Not that I believe that uncontrolled governmental bodies are any better than uncontrolled companies. The control part (aka regulation) is the important key here.

Society: Hah, that is a category with few options to begin with, I would assume there are much more than these five. Anyways, I am opposed to the state taking control of the individual and also opposed to tradition and oldthink holding us back. So that leaves liberalism, societal justice and progressivism. That in the questions I 100% opted for the latter shows an interesting insight in my priorities here. If you would ask me I would say all three ideals have the same ranking, but the answers to the questions show a preference.

Religion: OK, I am an Atheist. No question here. It is good of the quiz makers to separate that from Anti-Theism, the complete banning of all religion, as this is a different thing. In general I don't care what religion you have, as long as you don't bother me or people I care about. In all fairness I should give you the freedom to express your religion in whichever way you see fit. This explains the Hybrid. I guess secularism would also fit, but the nature of the questions made me pick the hybrid over the secular ones it seems.

Security: This is the most surprising, because I don't usually think much about it. I am also new to these terms. Humanist is surprisingly the one in favor of free gun ownership, not what I would've expected. Anyways. My thinking here is: I don't trust humans as much, that I suspect that they will do right, as this definition of Humanist puts it. That also make Decentralized a no option. I also oppose strict, suffocating control, so I am against Law and Order and also total security. As a believer that humans are more important than companies, organizations and bureaucracy, I am also opposed to State Security obviously. And I am not a fan of following the letter of rules even if they are clearly outdated or wrong, so I am appaled by Procedularism (even though I have to admit it works well in practice). Which leaves Reformist, which I think is also not the name I would've expected.

But there is more to it. Because looking at it, I think that is the position germany takes for the most part. I didn't even know germany has relatively high gun ownership. But we have background checks and education for safe storage and usage. Same with drivers licences, you have to learn much more before getting one in germany than in the US, but you can apply and get it. In germany kids learn swimming in school (although that reduced in recent years), so that drowning is seldom. I think we should also learn media competency as kids, learning to recognize and deal with bullshit, which is in my opinion the better option than trying to ban everything from the internet. And it is working: germany is pretty safe in regards to guns, cars and drowning. That is the strongest argument: the reformist option of issuing licences with education and safety regulations attached is working wonders, without restricting the freedom very much. So yeah, even though the name is strange, the reformist is my option.

Foreign policy: So mostly Internationalist, which is not too surprising I guess, but with the exact opposite end of the spectrum in there with a small percentage. Must have been one question where this option appealed to me somehow.

So, thanks again for this interesting quiz. And as always people: take it all with a grain of salt, as out political beliefs are not easily catched in simple groupings, even though that is fun and can give us some insights in political options and ourselfes (as this quiz did for me).

Here's mine

Interesting test, though a bit US-centric, and my results clearly reflect that.

Government:
I wasn't surprised at all by my high score in Apathy, as I've grown really wary of democracy and increasingly hopeless that it will ever work as intended. My answers on this scale were so idealistic that even I don't believe they're feasible or materially attainable. Hence, the result was Technocracy something that doesn't even exist (and I doubt it ever will)

Economy:
I've always seen myself as a social democrat, mostly. So when Mixed Markets got the highest score, it surprised me. That said, it makes sense, considering I chose the option for government-run services whenever possible. I've had mixed experiences with both state and private companies. sometimes they provide great services, sometimes they don't. That's why I believe their coexistence is what ensures fairer prices and better competition. I'd love to see more state-funded companies providing essential goods

Society:
No surprises here. Since I was a kid, I've had a strong disdain for meaningless conservative values that, to me, never made any sense. Maybe one day I'll be so jaded eldery and grumpy that I'll become the conservative guy myself but honestly, that day feels so far away it might never come

Religion:
No surprises here either. I'm becoming increasingly atheist by the day, but I have no desire to spend my time (or anyone else's) trying to make society atheist. Overall, I have mixed feelings toward religion and find them all rather pointless, but I get the appeal for people who are more... psychologically and emotionally inclined toward it. So I don't believe religion should cease to exist, at least not yet. What matters most is that religion should not be part of public life, let alone the state. If someone wants to practice religion, do it privately. So I politely ask you to stop coming to my house to preach to me

Security:
I didn't expect a specific scale for security, but given the number of questions about policing and the military, I guess it was inevitable. I think my score here suggests I'm a methodical person who believes in procedures and rules and that they are (or at least should be) above individuals. Of course, that doesn't mean those procedures and rules aren't often stupid (clue, they usually are) but alas that's a whole other problem...

Foreign Policy:
I'm surprised I even scored anything on the Nationalist side might've been a misclick, lol. Or maybe it was the question about preferring more educated immigrants. Overall, I think "nations" (as opposed to states) are an arbitrary concept. Mostly a leftover from a historical period when humanity didn't have the means for fast communication and travel. These cultural differences are now so ingrained they're nearly impossible to overcome unless some major catastrophe resets the global order. That said, I respect the concept of nations and understand their cultural value, even if they feel a bit outdated. As for Internationalism, I think being born and raised in a third-world country makes me more aware of and empathetic toward poorer nations especially the ones even poorer and more underdeveloped than mine. Providing aid and accepting refugees should be humanitarian priorities. For once, I'm glad Brazil has laws that are welcoming to foreigners and refugees. 

Glad you appreciated it! And thanks for adding some additional specifics of your own. That definitely made it more interesting to me! In return, I think I'll do some explaining regarding my results too:

Government: I largely feel the same way you do. Only dif is that I couldn't agree with actually abolishing the legislative and executive branches of government (i.e. electoral politics) altogether. In my younger days, I counted myself an anarchist and thought nothing of just getting rid of the entire concept of politicians and parties, but the real, lived experience of burnout I sense creeping into my own life nowadays has just made so tough for me to imagine that people wouldn't get exhausted from having to do all the work of lawmaking themselves. That in theory is why we hire professionals to do that work. But the trouble is that far too often they don't actually do what the people want because there are a thousand ways to corrupt and warp electoral politics ranging from lobbying and campaign finance to, well, party primaries (your need to pander to a core group of voters who don't necessarily represent the median). But if you do away with politicians entirely, I just think that most people will eventually become exhausted by the process of constant policy-making and tune out and you'll be left with de facto rule by activists, which may not be a lot better.

Economy: In my younger days, I often considered myself a communist. For me, moving away from communist ideals has been a process of figuring out that John Lennon's dream in "Imagine" is actually a nightmare when you think much about it. It just took me a while to figure out that when you neglect borders, you get a housing shortage and a fentanyl epidemic; when you abolish money, people just go back to bartering; when you get rid of religion, you just get North Korea instead; when you do away with governments, you get the rule of organized crime instead (e.g. Haiti). So maybe these just aren't goals worthy of pursuit. There's a vast gap between the way communists (including the anarchist ones) imagine the world works and the way it actually works.

That doesn't mean human nature is bad. On the contrary, even the youngest of babies have an innate sense of empathy. So I mean it's not as if people really are just rotten by nature, it's that we're simply not perfect and cannot become perfect like certain ideals rely on us all more or less becoming. But we can certainly find a workable kind of socialism, I think, as long as it doesn't totally neglect the human impulse to compete and not just be a cog in a machine. A more pro-social restructuring of the economy not only offers the benefits of more balanced and fairly-distributed growth, but also benefits to the human soul, if you will. Benefits like greater fulfillment of our need to feel like we're part of something bigger than ourselves and that we are seen and heard and valued in the world. So I think we're very much fundamentally on the same page there.

I'm envisioning an economy in which anyone can start a business and the state provides the startup resources, workers control the places they work at democratically, and consumers benefit from competing options. I think something like that is doable and preferable.

Society: I'm pretty egalitarian all in all and also kind of skeptical of certain advancements in bio-engineering and A.I. and such and worry about where they might ultimately lead, especially in a capitalist context. It's in large part for reasons like these that I don't consider myself a progressive per se in spite of certain left-leaning impulses that I have.

Religion: As an atheist myself, I have no interest in my tax dollars being spent teaching the next generation that evolution is a lie and that I'm living in sin, stuff like that. You can do that on your own time, with your own resources as far as I'm concerned. I am for separation of church and state, full stop. I mean yeah, that's different from banning religion of course. Most people I think need some kind of spirituality in their lives to feel a sense of purpose in living. That's fine by me. When you try to get rid of that, you just get political cults instead and they don't work out better. But I guess what I'm trying to communicate is that I view the most ideal and healthy scenario as one wherein most people land in that now well-known "I'm spiritual, but not religious" territory. It's not the duty of the state to make that happen, but the state certainly shouldn't promote religion as far as I'm concerned either.

Security: What some view as legalism I call the rule of law. If you want to see the opposite of what that looks like, just follow goings on in the White House for a while, where our leaders just ignore all the rules and laws and do whatever they want. See how well that's working out? Let's not keep doing that. I believe in enforcing laws. I'm also in favor or balanced laws, not needlessly cruel or prejudiced ones. I guess you might say that I favor the "tough but fair" standard.

When it comes to guns, as a frequent hunter myself...and honestly also someone currently a bit worried about the prospect of facing a tyrannical, repressive government that may just reach a place of persecuting political opposition broadly some day...I'm fine with them, at least in principle, though I certainly think there needs to be some thorough screening going on before firearms are handed over.

Foreign Policy: I guess this is really the area where I have the most in common with the political right. I'm not much of an isolationist, but I also have little respect left for the judgments of institutions like the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund and whatnot at this point and feel that countries need to exercise a pretty free hand to protect their own safety and interests and in the end that's what we have to focus on doing. We've got enough problems of our own and it seems to me we could accordingly stand to focus less on trying to save the world from problems we often cause ourselves in the process and do a little more nation-building right here at home. I've also come to very much think that this whole concept of international government just gets conceptually too remote from the average person to reflect their better interests often.

When it comes to immigration, don't get me wrong: I'm happily married to second-generation immigrant. I'm not against immigration! But yeah, I've really come to feel that like if you want to live here, there are certain cultural understandings you should be willing to abide by. Like if you're from some Muslim-majority country, you should learn how we treat women here and accept it, sorry. I'm for the "melting pot" vision of cultural integration, you might say, more than the "mosaic" vision the modern liberal seems to prefer where we never learn anything from one-another or become more alike.