VillaTalk Political Temperature (Early 2024)

[Rodders]

More centre left than left as I go on. But partly i think I say that as a retort to elements of the left who seem militantly obsessed with special interest issues. But I would emphasise the word 'seem' and do realise the RW media fan the culture war bollocks quite alot. 

Economically i don't view myself as ideological but do simply think that there are so many valid criticisms of the status quo, of rigged systems that widen inequalities that it can seem that way. But if the evidence genuinely shows that market options will solve a problem then I hope I'd acknowledge that. Obviously small business' need support, but not if you need to pay slave labour wages for them to thrive.

I loathe the default response of 'human nature' to justify self interested selfishness. I'd much rather have functioning public services than a few rich words removed getting richer. There's no justification for tax breaks for anyone whilst we have food banks. 

I'm a believer in investing in people, saving money with long term approaches. Support people now, you then don't have exhausted under trained police having to deal with people abandoned by broken systems.

Patriotism, I am fine with people wanting to feel pride or a sense of community in where they come from and ideas of traditions. I'm not fine when people want to put their fingers in their ears and treat criticisms of empire or British history as self-hating etc. I prefer a grown up complex engagement with our past rather than an infantilising desire to say England good, others bad.  People who feel threatened by any change irritate the hell out of me, I.e. when they think radicals have taken over the National  Trust for talking about slavery and stuff like that. It happened you **** piss ignorant rocket polisher. We don't get anywhere by closing our eyes and trying to dismiss it as something that was in the past. So I'm quite militant on stuff like that, no patience at all for people who are essentially saying 'why can't everything be like it was when I grew up'.

 

 

[Captain_Townsend]

20 years ago I would have said centrist and today I still say centrist. 

I can't help but feel 20 years ago there were more centrists than there are now. Feels like every one else has gone to the left or right whereas I am still in the centre.

The extremism of the left and right today - things like Brexit, Trump, Johnson and real fetishism for extremely niche topics on the left to the exclusion of genuine social problems really alarm me.

[OutByEaster?]

54 minutes ago, fruitvilla said:

I typically score -4, -4 or thereabouts. 

-7.13 and -6.92

 

[Panto_Villan]

I did the test and I got -1.75 / -3.03, so slightly to the left and leaning libertarian rather than authoritarian. Not sure how meaningful that is without knowing where Britain as a whole sits on the chart though.

[il_serpente]

-7.38 / -5.85

[Designer1]

-4 / -6.62

 

[theboyangel]

Consider myself a centrist overall

scored the following on the test on the previous page

Economic Left/Right: -3.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.1

Clearly I lean a little more to the left of centre than the right. 

[Xela]

More or less centre, which makes me Hitler on here. 

Economic Left/Right: -3.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.33

 

[AVFC_Hitz]

Economic Left/Right: -6.5
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.69

Slightly more left than I thought.

[Marka Ragnos]

14 hours ago, Panto_Villan said:

I did the test and I got -1.75 / -3.03, so slightly to the left and leaning libertarian rather than authoritarian. Not sure how meaningful that is without knowing where Britain as a whole sits on the chart though.

I got almost the same as you this year. Mine have been pretty consistently centre for a few years. I was far more left when I was younger, but a few things changed that for me: Tiananmen Square ended my lefist militancy forever. I literally tossed my far left membership. Living in Britain for a few years changed how I thought about welfare. I love and admire the NHS, but I just knew way too many people milking the system in a way that I had never -- naively -- suspected. I worked for the old Department of Education and Employment, probably not the best way to get a balanced view. It freaked me out. I think having a kid also made me a bit more nationalistic or just protective somehow. I don't support the death penalty in terms of my convictions, and I have battled it, for example, but I do feel like I support it at times -- and that was an almost instant change I felt after becoming a dad. I think I'm kind of weird. I have a combination of some very progressive and anarchist views with a few big streaks of conservative (with a small c) perspectives, especially when it comes to entitlement programs and work and the free market. 

-1.38/ -2.97

Edited January 28 by Marka Ragnos

[Marka Ragnos]

16 hours ago, Rodders said:

More centre left than left as I go on. But partly i think I say that as a retort to elements of the left who seem militantly obsessed with special interest issues. But I would emphasise the word 'seem' and do realise the RW media fan the culture war bollocks quite alot. 

Economically i don't view myself as ideological but do simply think that there are so many valid criticisms of the status quo, of rigged systems that widen inequalities that it can seem that way. But if the evidence genuinely shows that market options will solve a problem then I hope I'd acknowledge that. Obviously small business' need support, but not if you need to pay slave labour wages for them to thrive.

I loathe the default response of 'human nature' to justify self interested selfishness. I'd much rather have functioning public services than a few rich words removed getting richer. There's no justification for tax breaks for anyone whilst we have food banks. 

I'm a believer in investing in people, saving money with long term approaches. Support people now, you then don't have exhausted under trained police having to deal with people abandoned by broken systems.

Patriotism, I am fine with people wanting to feel pride or a sense of community in where they come from and ideas of traditions. I'm not fine when people want to put their fingers in their ears and treat criticisms of empire or British history as self-hating etc. I prefer a grown up complex engagement with our past rather than an infantilising desire to say England good, others bad.  People who feel threatened by any change irritate the hell out of me, I.e. when they think radicals have taken over the National  Trust for talking about slavery and stuff like that. It happened you **** piss ignorant rocket polisher. We don't get anywhere by closing our eyes and trying to dismiss it as something that was in the past. So I'm quite militant on stuff like that, no patience at all for people who are essentially saying 'why can't everything be like it was when I grew up'.

 

 

This. So much. I think I agree with your political perspectives more than your football perspectives. 

[tonyh29]

Either a lot of posters haven’t voted yet or they clicked the wrong button as I’m not seeing  the 80% “extreme left “that would have been expected

[chrisp65]

Thing is, is it a left or a right leaning idea that some services, such as the provision of drinking water, maybe need to have more state control?

On paper, with a formula invented with an unknown bias, taking water back in to state control could look like a left wing tick. But then you look at the profits extracted, the lack of investment, the 30 year halt on new reservoir construction and it begins to look less ‘ideological’. Unless we think the universal provision of drinking water is a left wing ideology?

Is it left wing to suggest energy companies shouldn’t really physically force entry to people’s homes to install meters? Or that maybe the post office should get a bit of a move on with compensation and someone on the management team should be doing time? 

Similarly, would it be a left or right wing ideology to allow a billionaire and an international mega corporation to employ workers on such a low wage, that the state has to tax other workers, some of them self employed, in order to top up the wages of people working for billionaires?

The formula could say as much about the people setting the questions, as it does about those answering.

The test made me look quite radical for my views on such things. But I’m self identifying as a centrist who believes in free drinking water, fair trials, and minimising exploitation of other people’s taxes by billionaires.

 

[Jareth]

Guardian for news, Daily Mail for Sunday supplement, Sun for page 3 (yeah that’s done), Star for laughs. 

[chrisp65]

22 minutes ago, Jareth said:

Guardian for news, Daily Mail for Sunday supplement, Sun for page 3 (yeah that’s done), Star for laughs. 

That’s a good point, an interesting sort of indicator.

I haven’t bought a newspaper since the Independent stopped being printed.

[Marka Ragnos]

44 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

The test made me look quite radical for my views on such things. But I’m self identifying as a centrist who believes in free drinking water, fair trials, and minimising exploitation of other people’s taxes by billionaires.

 

It's an interesting and fun if imperfect tool. I think the Political Compass may be especially useless at conveying an authentic centrism because it works, from what I can see, from a strictly economic perspective. If you indicate strong support for deregulation and the free market, you're going to get bumped quite far towards the right, even if some of your social views are very left of centre. 

[Panto_Villan]

35 minutes ago, Marka Ragnos said:

It's an interesting and fun if imperfect tool. I think the Political Compass may be especially useless at conveying an authentic centrism because it works, from what I can see, from a strictly economic perspective. If you indicate strong support for deregulation and the free market, you're going to get bumped quite far towards the right, even if some of your social views are very left of centre. 

I think the social views are measured predominantly on the authoritarian/ libertarian axis, aren’t they? How much control should the state exert over people’s reproductive / sexual activities, education preferences, respect for free speech and democracy, etc.

Left / right does tend to mostly represent your economic perspective. Presumably it’s possible to be a centrist on one axis but not another.

[Marka Ragnos]

39 minutes ago, Panto_Villan said:

Left / right does tend to mostly represent your economic perspective.

That's definitely the view of the people behind the Political Compass. But I don't think it's widely shared among the hoi polloi, but maybe it's different in Europe? I feel like perceived nationalism and "nanny-statism" deeply inflect and warp our concepts of left and right, rather than relating with the perfect perpendicularity of the Political Compass. Don't get me wrong. I like that tool. I just think political reality is super complicated and it's hard to communicate it. 

Edited January 28 by Marka Ragnos

[lapal_fan]

4 hours ago, Xela said:

More or less centre, which makes me Hitler on here. 

Economic Left/Right: -3.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.33

 

Going to Nuremberg for any rallies soon, Alex?????

[Xela]

5 minutes ago, lapal_fan said:

Going to Nuremberg for any rallies soon, Alex?????