Know Thyselfby Silenos Works

Politics & Society

Political Prism

Your politics split into twenty-two axes

  • About 19 minutes
  • 124 questions
  • 22 dimensions
  • 30 illustrated results
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Free, no account needed.

Illustration: Political Prism

Most political tests draw you as a single dot. This one splits your politics into twenty-two separate axes in six families: the economy, the state and the law, democracy and power, culture and identity, the world beyond your borders, and nature and the future. Your whole profile is then compared with thirty ideologies, from anarcho-communism to authoritarian nationalism.

It takes about twenty minutes. Answer according to what you believe is right, not what seems realistic or popular; if a statement means nothing to you, choose the middle. There is no correct position: every view here has thoughtful defenders and serious critics.

What it measures

Economy

Equality ↔ Markets

Who should own and run the economy: public ownership, high taxes on wealth and redistribution, or private enterprise, competition and low taxes.

Welfare

Solidarity ↔ Self-reliance

How far people should be protected against illness, unemployment and old age by a public safety net, or rely on work, savings, family and charity.

Trade

Open trade ↔ Protection

Whether goods, capital and companies should move freely across borders, or the nation should protect its producers, jobs and strategic industries.

State power

Liberty ↔ Authority

How much power the state should have over its citizens: surveillance, emergency powers and limits on protest, or privacy, due process and the right to dissent.

Justice

Rehabilitation ↔ Punishment

What the justice system is for: preventing crime by tackling its causes and reforming offenders, or deterring it with firm policing and sentences that fit the crime.

Speech

Free expression ↔ Protective limits

Where the limits of free speech lie: open debate even for offensive and false claims, or legal and platform limits on hate speech and harmful misinformation.

Personal choices

Autonomy ↔ Paternalism

Whether the state should let adults make choices that mainly affect themselves, about drugs, gambling, diet or the end of life, or protect them from harmful ones.

Power

Local ↔ Central

Where decisions should be made: by towns, regions and communities, or by the national government with common standards for all.

Decisions

Expertise ↔ Popular will

Who should decide hard questions: independent experts and elected representatives using their judgement, or citizens directly through referendums and assemblies.

Establishment

Institutional trust ↔ Anti-establishment

How much you trust the established institutions of your country, from the courts and civil service to the mainstream media and scientific bodies.

Change

Gradual ↔ Radical

How change should come: through patient reform, compromise and the existing rules, or through bold rupture, mass protest and civil disobedience.

Social values

Progress ↔ Tradition

How you weigh changing social norms against inherited ones, in questions of family, marriage, sexuality and the roles of women and men.

Religion

Secular ↔ Religious

What place faith should have in public life: none in law, schools and government, or a respected role as a moral foundation of society.

Group fairness

Redress ↔ Equal rules

How to treat disadvantaged groups: active remedies such as quotas and targeted support, or identical rules for everyone regardless of group.

Integration

Multicultural ↔ Assimilation

How a diverse society should hold together: many cultures side by side with their own languages and customs, or one shared culture that newcomers adopt.

Sovereignty

Global ↔ National

Whether you look first to international law, shared institutions and humanity as a whole, or to national self-government and your own citizens.

Migration

Open ↔ Restricted

How many people should be able to move to your country, and how refugees and irregular migrants should be treated.

Defence

Diplomacy ↔ Deterrence

How to keep the peace: through diplomacy, disarmament and trust between peoples, or through military strength that deters attack.

Engagement

Restraint ↔ Intervention

How involved your country should be in other countries' conflicts: staying out of foreign quarrels, or acting abroad to defend allies and human rights.

Ecology

Growth ↔ Ecology

How to balance prosperity and growth against protecting the climate, wild places and the limits of the natural world.

Technology

Precaution ↔ Acceleration

How to meet powerful new technologies such as artificial intelligence and genetic engineering: carefully and with strict rules, or boldly, to gain their benefits sooner.

Animals

Human use ↔ Animal rights

What we owe to animals: humane treatment within farming, research and rural traditions, or rights that rule out much of how we use them today.

Possible results

About this test

Political scientists have long known that a single line from left to right hides most of what people believe. Studies of public opinion find that economic and cultural attitudes form separate dimensions; that views on foreign affairs split again into cooperative and militant internationalism, as Eugene Wittkopf showed; that populist attitudes, the sense of a virtuous people betrayed by an elite, form a cluster of their own; and that newer concerns such as the environment and technology cut across the older divisions. Many voters hold combinations that no party offers.

This test measures twenty-two axes in six families. Each axis has four statements keyed in both directions and one choice between two positions, and fourteen scenarios touch several axes at once. Your score on an axis is the position of your answers between the most extreme answers possible, so 50 means balanced, not average. Thirty ideologies have an estimated position on every axis, and your result is the one closest to your whole profile. The maps combine several axes into broader ones, such as the classic economic and authority axes of the political compass.

Treat the result as a conversation starter. Ideology positions are informed approximations of broad families with many internal disputes, the meaning of left and right differs between countries, and five or six answers per axis give a rough reading, not a precise one. A questionnaire cannot capture the reasons behind your views. Every ideology is described as its thoughtful supporters would recognise it, followed by its main criticisms; none is presented as the right answer.

References

For self-reflection and curiosity, not diagnosis. Scores describe how you answered, relative to the possible range; they are not compared with population norms.

All questions, type names and descriptions were written for this suite. Where a test is inspired by a branded instrument (the MBTI®, the five love languages®, DISC assessments, the Political Compass), it is an independent test of the same idea and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the owners of those names.

Political Prism

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About 19 minutes · 124 questions

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