Of The Most Popular Alternative to Academic Ideology Tests

One ideology test which has gained notoriety is the self-styled “World’s Smallest Political Quiz” developed by Marshall Fritz and David Nolan for the openly libertarian Advocates for Self-Government (http://www.self-gov.org). This short test, also called the Nolan quiz, takes the form of a ten-question, three-point multiple choice quiz designed to determine one’s base ideological orientation along two axes, liberal/conservative and libertarian/authoritarian.  (One variation of the chart developed by David Nolan appears on an online political digest called “On the Issues” and revises the libertarian/authoritarian axis to read “libertarian/populist.”) It is similar in dimension and scope, albeit radically shortened and simplified, to another test called the Political Compass (http://politicalcompass.org).   One area towards the middle of the resulting graph indicates a moderate or “centrist” position. What has probably contributed the most to the success of the World’s Smallest Political Quiz is not necessarily the quantitative method of gathering data or its depth of analysis, but its intuitive quality and ease of use.  Its currency among those dissatisfied with partisan politics on the national level may also be explained by the test demonstrating that not all political opinions conform to a linear model stretched between extremes of liberalism and conservatism.

Although the World’s Smallest Political Quiz appears to have emerged in the 18 years since its inception as possibly the most widely circulated litmus test for political/ideological orientation in the United States, with numerous variations available in multiple formats (from index cards to PalmOS), one must consider how the results are achieved.  First of all, the questions used for the Nolan quiz represent a reductio ad absurdum-- characterized by broad generalizations concerning “personal” and “economic” policies, and utterly fail to take into account the subtleties of specific policy decisions or actions.    Second, the Nolan quiz only suggests a means to identify the respondent’s understanding of the scope of government with regard to broad “personal” and “economic” issues, but not the organizing principle or the general purpose of government itself. Third, the Nolan quiz is ill equipped to distinguish a communist from a liberal, an anarchist from a libertarian, or a fascist from a conservative.  Fourth, the Nolan quiz has been developed to offer insight into one’s own political orientation, and not someone else’s.  Attempts have been made to adapt this model to external political actors who have not taken the quiz, but attempts such as On The Issues.org require the client to trust that those compiling the digest are neither misrepresenting nor misinterpreting the results.  Moreover, the WSPQ is incapable, once results have been acquired, of distinguishing one kind of “centrist” or “moderate” from another. Also, certain ideological positions, e.g. communitarianism, remain beyond the scope of the Nolan quiz.  Finally, the Nolan quiz is unable to capture or even account for the possibility of liberal-leaning conservatives or conservative-leaning liberals, and as a result is more likely to misrepresent test subjects either as libertarians or authoritarians than as liberals or conservatives.

Nevertheless, proponents of the Nolan quiz, namely the Advocates for Self Government, rightly point out that liberalism and communism are distinct from each other, and that conservatism and fascism are also different from each other.  They also agree that a simple linear ideological continuum “ignores gigantic philosophical differences between, say, liberalism and communism, or conservatism and fascism.” (WSPQ FAQ) Even so, despite their admonition that the linear model of   

“<---crazies--communist/socialist--far left--liberal--centrist--conservative--far right--fascist--crazies--->”         (WSPQ FAQ) is inaccurate, and that “the ‘left-right’ line [does not] give any useful insight into the differences between the various political categories,”(ibid.) the WSPQ also ultimately fails to consider that linkages do indeed exist between moderate ideologies and their immoderate counterparts.  Its creators appear confused by the implication that according to the linear model 

if you "go too far" (i.e., are consistent) with any political idea, you end up, in some weird and unexplained way, at totalitarianism or anarchism (or maybe both!). Pursue conservative thought to its logical extreme, according to this model, and you somehow end up at fascism (which is national socialism), or white supremacy or some other authoritarian position. If you pursue liberal thought too far, you supposedly end up at socialism or communism. (WSPQ FAQ)

 

To counter, the danger lies not in going “too far” or remaining consistent with liberalism, conservatism, or libertarianism. Rather, the danger lies in becoming so narrowly focused on the primary springs for liberalism, conservatism, or libertarianism that one forgets that the other springs are necessary components both of government and the body politic.  Far from polar opposites, liberalism and conservatism share what may be described as an orthogonal relationship, and it is therefore possible, even permissible, for a liberal to have conservative leanings and vice-versa.  The more closely one adheres to a single ideological axis, the more distant one becomes from other political ideas, and the more difficult it is to engage in constructive political discourse with even moderate adherents of other axes.   In short, ideology is a derived phenomenon to be measured in three dimensions rather than one (such as the political spectrum) or even two (The Nolan quiz and the Political Compass);
With this relationship in mind, it is extremism in any form, rather than any particular ideology, that is the real danger to liberty, equality and order.

Comments

[Mark Zuniga]

I took the world's smallest political quiz, and am interested in whether you think the questions themselves are valid. It seems to me that the question regarding a national id could indicate a religious belief (the mark of the beast) more than political leanings.

[jonathon]

I didn't remember a national ID card question, so I went to look at the WSPQ again.

Good. Gravy.

There are numerous problems with the Nolan Quiz. Granted, while all the questions still generally constitute a reductio ad absurdum anyway, I'm inclined to agree with you about the validity of that question: the National ID card question may in fact be measuring something else, especially if the respondent subscribes to dispensationalist eschatology.

What's worse, the questions appear to have been rephrased since I last looked at it. If this be so, it renders the WSPQ useless for comparative study, even with its own past results. If I remember the quiz correctly (which I might not),
the ID card question wasn't even part of the quiz when I first ran into it a few years ago.
Also, if memory serves me right, the free speech question looks like it's been rephrased, the "corporate welfare" question is obviously slanted to exploit a halo effect--in short, from an empirical perspective, Basing an understanding of political ideological preferences using World's Smallest Political Quiz is like building a house using a yardstick made of Silly Putty. You can never be sure of your measurements since the tool is always changing shape.

The Political Compass is a little more stable, but it still has the problems cited in the "Nolan Quiz" article above.

The inventory I've been developing is completely devoid of policy questions. In document analysis, I'm merely looking out for ideological indicators--single words, simple phrases and such that undeniably belong to one axis. The word 'community,' for example, is not an indicator, but 'fairness' is. The inventory expands the table, but is limited to single words.