Philosophical Research:The new political compass
Find out what swatch color and philosophy tag you belong in here.
Quiz[edit]
The individual
What is more important, the society or the individual? Would you more quickly allow a society to die or a specific individual to die?
pronounced → We can never sacrifice the individual for society
pronounced → An individual. If there is no society the individual dies anyway
Government
Could you ever imagine a scenario where government is okay and useful?
pronounced → Yes, at least one
pronounced → Not really
Extremes
Do you think it can ever be good for people to hold extreme positions on issues?
pronounced → People are only extreme because they aren't reasonable
pronounced → I can think of at least one case
Voting
Could you ever imagine a single scenario, real or hypothetical, in which Liberal-republicanism exists and at least one policy you find favorable exists but it would not make sense to vote?
pronounced → Never. I would always vote
pronounced → Maybe. Possibly.
Assimilation
Do you think a nation-sized population of people has the right to take another population of people that exists inside it and tell it what language to speak, what general culture to have, or what religion to believe in?
pronounced → If you come to the United States you should believe in Jesus and speak English
pronounced → A nation should not assign people culture
Neutrality
Would you say that standing to the side or leaving the scene in a time of injustice is the same as aiding evil?
pronounced → Not helping to stop evil is evil
pronounced → He who turns and runs away lives to fight another day
Media representation
Is it good for the health of United States industry to have Black women, transgender people, and Arabs in media?
pronounced → Of course it is
pronounced → No
Information
Do you think it is possible the universe is fundamentally made of bits and bytes?
pronounced → The black hole information paradox means stars and planets are made of information
pronounced → The black hole information paradox means physical stuff goes into a black hole and becomes something unknown
Design
Do you think it is possible that living beings came into existence without any guiding intelligence designing them?
pronounced → Animals and humans likely came from un-guided evolution
pronounced → Humans could have been designed by a greater mind
The Trotskyite conspiracy
The year is 1935. You live in the Soviet Union. Your life and the lives of all your friends and family depend on the Soviet Union building industry without interference from the United States. Leon Trotsky has become convinced that Stalin's government has built the Soviet Union wrong and he cannot support the continued existence of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which he claims he would replace with a better Communist party. The world is full of First-World empires that would love to chop up the Soviet Union and liquidate its people into as small of units as possible for little other reason than to make their own countries more powerful. (Perhaps even to the point of breaking up Russia and trying to convince all of its regions they aren't Russian.) Will you allow Trotsky to attack the CPSU?
pronounced → Go ahead
pronounced → Absolutely not
Socialist market economy
The year is 2000. The Soviet Union has dissolved, in the process destroying many structural elements of the 14 Soviet cultures, leaving people hungry, destroying universal health care, and causing a significant exodus of Soviet nationalities moving to other countries and having to assimilate into their country cultures regardless of how toxic they may be. Nine years into all this, you see that China has created a "socialist market economy" in which it .
pronounced → That's a great outcome
pronounced → This is a betrayal of Marxism
Pandemic
The year is 2020. You live in the US state of Florida. The Democratic Party voter bases of the 49 other regions of the United States think governments have the right to tell business owners to require masks and social distancing. Some Democratic-Party voters are saying that making the whole country enforce disease prevention measures is simply "the most reasonable United States culture" and "common sense". There is some chance that an atheist wrote some of these policies. One of your relatives believes that vaccines are most likely either a plot to make people obedient or the literal tool of the antichrist to enslave all Christ believers. Will you tell everyone to obey mask mandates?
pronounced → I will tell everyone to wear masks for the next two years
pronounced → I won't stand for what the Democratic Party has done to this country
pronounced → I'd rather organize people together around freedom and friendship so no one needs any more government
Brokenstar
There are four tribes of intelligent cats that live in a forest. One of the groups, ShadowClan, has developed a very bad attitude toward the other three in which it ignores their existence, never allows any of them near it, and during border conflicts attacks first and kills their cats. ThunderClan's leader remarks that any cat in ShadowClan who supports its current strategy is not welcome in ThunderClan. Is ThunderClan prejudiced?
pronounced → No matter what ShadowClan does ThunderClan must listen to their demands or the conflict won't be solved
pronounced → ThunderClan can unite the other clans against ShadowClan to defend itself
Voter card for one Russian
The year is 19XX. You are a United States citizen. You live in a dystopian timeline where anyone in the United States can vote, but only if they fly over to another country and kill someone. If you bring back an ID card and an appropriate military member signs off on you having properly taken it through either violence or the enemy's surrender and not having taken any actions to undermine the system, you receive a voter license for the rest of your life. Voting brings the same benefits that it does in the real world: people can vote for universal health care, anti-discrimination laws, legalized abortion, same-sex marriage, gender transition on health insurance, gun control, an anti-racist state governor, national art grants for greater representation in media, and many other things. If you don't vote, other people will certainly go on military tours to get their voter licenses and vote for terrible policies taking away everybody's civil rights and healthcare. You are not required to vote, or to have a voting license. Would you kill a Russian in order to be able to vote?
pronounced → Send me to Russia
pronounced → I'm not casting a vote
pronounced → Can I rob a Russian at gunpoint and then vote to end the system?
(placeholder answer)
Results[edit]
meta-Marxism
Notable theorists: None so far. Born yesterday.
Societies are more important than the individual · Government is sometimes useful · Neutrality to the bourgeoisie or outdated theories of society aids the oppressor; neutrality to anything else is natural · Animals emerged through non-fabricated natural processes · Diversity in media is natural, and aids in unifying workers into a nation-wide movement
mainstream Marxism-Leninism
Notable theorists: Notable theorists: pronounced Vladimir Lenin, pronounced Joseph Stalin
Societies are more important than the individual · Government is useful · Neutrality to the bourgeoisie or outdated theories of society aids the oppressor · Animals emerged through non-fabricated natural processes · Diversity in media is natural, and aids in unifying workers into a nation-wide movement
Maoism
Notable theorists: pronounced Mao Zedong
Societies are more important than the individual · Government is useful · Neutrality to the bourgeoisie aids the oppressor · Animals emerged through non-fabricated natural processes · Media Representation: unknown
Deng Xiaoping Thought
Notable theorists: pronounced Deng Xiaoping
Societies are more important than the individual · Government is useful · Neutrality is natural and the default · Animals emerged through non-fabricated natural processes · Media Representation: unknown
Trotskyism
Notable theorists: Leon Trotsky, pronounced Ted Grant, pronounced James P. Cannon, pronounced Rosa Luxemburg
Either the individual or society can be important · Government is sometimes useful, and sometimes wholly oppressive · Neutrality to the bourgeoisie, outdated theories of society, or socialism-in-one-country aids the oppressor; neutrality to the Cold War was natural · Animals emerged through non-fabricated natural processes · Diversity in media is natural, and aids in unifying workers into a nation-sized movement
Gramscianism
Notable theorists: pronounced Antonio Gramsci
Societies are more important than the individual · Government is useful · Neutrality to outdated theories of society aids the oppressor · Animals likely were not intelligently fabricated · Diversity in media allows potential labor and social-democratic movements to better penetrate media industries
Western Marxism, generic
Notable theorists: pronounced Mark Fisher
Either the individual or society can be important · Government is useful · Neutrality to the bourgeoisie aids the oppressor; neutrality to conflicts between "moderate" and "extreme" may be natural · Animals likely were not intelligently fabricated · Diversity in media allows us to begin breaking through capitalist conditioning
anarchism
Either the individual or society can be important · Government is sometimes useful, but it is often a waste · Neutrality aids the majority oppressor; neutrality to conflicts between majorities is natural · Animals likely were not intelligently fabricated · Diversity in media is either natural and inevitable or an imposition on individual expression
postcolonial frameworks
Minorities are more important than the survival of a society · Government is sometimes useful, and sometimes wholly oppressive · Neutrality aids the majority oppressor · Animals likely were not intelligently fabricated · Diversity in media is natural and the default, while uniformity is engineered
Existentialist-Structuralist ideology, specific tradition unspecified
Either the individual or society can be important · Government is sometimes useful, but mostly irrelevant to studying society · Neutrality aids the majority oppressor, but neutrality to conflicts between "moderate" and "extreme" may be natural · Animals likely were not intelligently fabricated · Diversity in media is natural and the default, while uniformity is engineered
schizoanalysis
Notable theorists: pronounced Giles Deleuze, pronounced Felix Guattari
Minorities are more important than the survival of a society · Government is sometimes useful, but mostly irrelevant to studying society · Neutrality aids the majority oppressor; neutrality to conflicts between majorities is natural · Animals likely were not intelligently fabricated · Diversity in media is natural and the default, while uniformity is engineered
Lacanian psychoanalysis (Lacanianism)
Notable theorists: pronounced Jacques Lacan, pronounced Slavoj Žižek
Precursors: pronounced Sigmund Freud, pronounced Carl Jung
Individuals are more important than the survival of a society · Government is sometimes useful, but mostly irrelevant to studying society · Neutrality is natural and the default · If I believe in certain sects of Christianity, animals were designed · Media Representation: unknown
center-wing Liberal-republicanism (center-Liberalism)
Notable theorists: Carl Sagan
Societies are more important than the individual · Government is sometimes useful · Neutrality aids the majority oppressor, but neutrality to conflicts between "moderate" and "extreme" may be natural · If I believe in certain sects of Christianity, animals were designed; they most likely weren't · Diversity in media is required to turn a national republic into a community
right-wing Liberal-republicanism (right-Liberalism)
Notable theorists: Mike Masnick, Lawrence Lessig, Richard Stallman
Individuals are more important than the survival of a society · Government is usually a waste · Neutrality is natural and the default · If I believe in certain sects of Christianity, animals were designed; they most likely weren't · Diversity in media is good for the health of capitalism
Toryism
Either the individual or society can be important · Government is usually a waste · Neutrality aids the foreign oppressor; neutrality to domestic oppressors is natural · If I believe in certain sects of Christianity, animals were designed · Diversity in media is acceptable only when it doesn't empower political movements
fascism
Notable theorists: Alexander Dugin
Societies are more important than the individual · Government is usually a waste · Neutrality aids the foreign oppressor · If I believe in certain sects of Christianity, animals were designed · Calls for diversity in media are an excuse to make bad media or allow bad technique