Thursday, March 12, 2009

To the Left of Buddha

Ezra disliked this quiz, which purports to tell us how progressive we are, or how progressive we ain't, I suppose, but I found it amusing, probably b/c it supported what I already suspect, which is that I'm to the far left of, well, just about everyone on the planet, and like most beings who have transcended this plane.

My score? 379, out of 400.  (Mean score for liberal Democrats is 247.)

6 comments:

Bardiac said...

You beat me. :(

I only got 342.

I did find one of the questions difficult. The one about how the primary responsibility of companies is to make profit for shareholders. According to Marxism, under capitalism, this is completely true. And so, as someone who lives in a capitalist society, I answered in the strongly agree column. BUT, if they mean ideally, then I'd hope for a more balanced responsibility.

I'm overthinking this, aren't I?

Anonymous said...

I got 350 to your 379. Which stands to reason, don't you think, delagar?

delagar said...

Yep, you're overthinking, Bardiac.

OTOH, it's a flaw in the quiz! They don't expect us to be thinking like *actual* Marxists! What tools!

(I answered that one as a 5, b/c, as someone trained as an academic, I have been trained to think like a test-taker: I always know think how the question-writer is thinking. mr. delagar (who scored a 354) and I argued about this very question. He strongly disgreed with me. My point was (a) corporations ought to think about the community around them, not, pace Milton Friedman, only the bottom line, because they have to live in that community, and if they don't think about it they will break it -- as we see they have just done -- and then they will not be ABLE to do business, anywhere, with anyone. Also (b) the govt must regulate corporations, so THAT corporations will be able to afford to do business.)

A deal of thought for a tiny little quiz question.

Anonymous said...

I only got 347. There were a couple of issues I chose a "5" response to because I'm not sure I know enough about them to have a strong position on such a definitive statement. Otherwise, I'm pretty much there.

--L

delagar said...

Yikes..."trained academic" is totally not what I meant. Teach me to to post without proofing!

"academic test-taker!" Thats what I meant.

I was thinking those GRE and SATs and that. I always did well on those. The kid does too. mr. delagar not so much. I tell him (and the kid agrees) it's all just reading the question and seeing the answer the test-writer wants you to give and picking that one. (It's always obvious to me, except in the math section. The kid says it's obvious in the math section too, but she's crazy.)

Anonymous said...

I only scored 300 but, then again, I'm hyper critical of tests like that and always over analyze my answer because, you know, I'm crazy like that. I answered 5 on several simply because of the way the question was phrased. I must get a life...