Fascism puts Left foot forward 5786

RodneyK

That's both silly, and at odds with the buttumptions of the survey you recommend below.

It's a silly survey as some of the questions have buttumptions embedded that no serrious leftist could endorse, but which they cannot avoid in order to answer the question.

And there are questions that are just downright silly.

eg

A significant advantage of a one-party state is that it avoids all the arguments that delay progress in a democratic political system.

I answered "Strongly Agree" to this one. Having a one-party state does have that consequence. Does that mean I think one party states are desirable? Not at all. but presumably my answer makes me somewhat more authoritarian.

Abstract art that doesn't represent anything shouldn't be considered art at all.

I pondered before I disagreed with that one, but it's hard to see any connection between that and the fact that I'm a leftist. All art "represents" something -- even if it's only one's sentiments. And of course, there's the role of readers in deciding for themselves what every piece means to them. If a work inclines you to think, consider and be critical, it's arguably art, even if others respond differently and there's no consensus on what it means. Ern Malley and the Angry Penguins intended their poetry to be a spoof -- an attempt to send up pretentiousness by composing drivel. Some people claimed to see meaning in it though the authors ultimately denied it. Yet it was "art" because its design shed light on the literary world at the time, and provoked debate.

I disagreed that some people were "naturally unlucky" because I think "luck" is a religious concept. Presumably, that makes me more economically right wing?

Because corporations cannot be trusted to voluntarily protect the environment, they require regulation

I pondered here and finally decided that "corporations" probably meant "private corporations" (rather than those that might be obtain under some workers democracy) and then decided that yes, I'd like them regulated *if* capitalism was to persist.

There is now a worrying fusion of information and entertainment

It is true that we now have "infotainment" but that's been the case for a very long time, and it's probably not greatly different or more worrying now than it was in the early 1900s. Sure there's more of it about, but now more of us are literate, and skeptical, are aware of the problem whereas before it was disguised and we have alternative sources of data. Still, it is intellectually disturbing, now as before ... I decided "Agree".

For the record

-7.75, -7.75 ....

Fran