Wednesday, December 29, 2010

You're not one of those football fans, are you?

We were hanging with our buddy "Max" the other evening and got to talking about the intersection of sports and politics. Max is of the belief that football fans (or people that prefer watching football to other sports) tend to be more conservative than, say, baseball fans.

We weren't quite so sure but then we got to thinking about the video clip below and thought that maybe Max was onto something. How? We'll let George Carlin explain:






Of course, the natural reaction to that classic Carlin routine is to think one sport inherently attracts a particular ideology over another but it is really more complicated than that.

With that said, folks, it's time to take the test!

The old one-dimensional categories of 'right' and 'left', established for the seating arrangement of the French National Assembly of 1789, are overly simplistic for today's complex political landscape. For example, who are the 'conservatives' in today's Russia? Are they the unreconstructed Stalinists, or the reformers who have adopted the right-wing views of conservatives like Margaret Thatcher ?

On the standard left-right scale, how do you distinguish leftists like Stalin and Gandhi? It's not sufficient to say that Stalin was simply more left than Gandhi. There are fundamental political differences between them that the old categories on their own can't explain. Similarly, we generally describe social reactionaries as 'right-wingers', yet that leaves left-wing reactionaries like Robert Mugabe and Pol Pot off the hook.


Take it here.



Here's a look at where some famous political and economics figures from the past land on the grid.





And us?

Hanging with our boy Milton.






Frankly, we thought we'd be a little more to the Southeast but we suppose we can't shake all of our radical centrist ways.

Go ahead and take the test and see if it grids you where you thought you would be.


Oh, and as for Max? He's a big baseball and soccer fan so of course he's a worthless liberal hipster.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

2,-1.5

slight libertarian and didn't even know it

SEO London said...

I think, the purpose of blog to exist is to share knowledge and experiences of the blogger, something useful and beneficial.

K T Cat said...

A link with my results will be posted later today. Thanks for turning us on to this. It was fun!

steve said...

Way south, but right on the line.

Steve

Dean said...

Ahhh.... a peak into Steve's political soul. ;)

SarahB said...

Wow, way more centrist than I thought...1.00 x -2.21...halfway between Milton and Ghandi. Guess the artist DNA cancels out my free-market leanings. Interesting! Definitely going to share.

steve said...

LOL. I dont trust business or government. That should put me in the middle.

Steve