How progressive are you?

A lot of interesting things pop up in my twitter feed and this was one of them:

How Progressive Are You?

It's 40 statements and you just decide how strongly you agree or disagree with each. Simple. You receive a score out of 400 at the end so that obviously means you're getting a score out of 10 for each answer. I would debate the reliability of that sort of scale: just because I don't throw myself so completely and passionately behind an idea so as to pick 0 or 10 doesn't mean I'm less progressive on that point than someone else who does. And that's pretty typical for me - I leave myself open for doubt and it's very rare that I'll ever choose the most extreme answer on any sort of questionaire. But I digress. You're going to find that sort of thing with all internet quizzes anyway. Maybe I'm less INTJ than the internet tells me too...

I scored 293, which apparently makes me "very progressive". I wouldn't argue with that. There seem to be a few examples "change for the sake of change" floating around at the moment and those grind my gears a bit, but for the most part I think we need to be moving forward (damn you, Julia) progressing as a society and that means a whole lot of things need to be addressed. Gay people are still rallying for equal rights, public hospitals are overflowing and nobody's doing anything about it, the divide between rich and poor is ever-growing, refugees are being kept in prison camps, and don't even get me started on that Queensland couple who faced trial for procuring an abortion and the government's refusal to change the laws. What century are we supposedly living in here?

Back on the topic of the quiz though, it was interesting to see the averages of other groups. Unfortunately, it's American though, so the scores are likely to be more on the conservative side than what you'd find here in Australia. At the bottom of the scale, conservative Republicans averaged a score of 160.6, while Liberal Democrats topped it at 247.1. Women (214.3) were more progressive than men (204.3), while Latinos (228.4) and African Americans (224.3) scored higher than Whites (203.7). What I found most interesting about that result is that Latinos and African Americans are typically more religious than their white counterparts, so their progressivism is somewhat surprising. Perhaps it's that they tend to be the ones who are disadvantaged by America's often backwards society, whereas whites enjoy a more privileged existence in which capitalism and social conservatism is less of a hindrance. Pure speculation, of course, but it's one suggestion.

Incidentally, the results also demonstrated that those with a post-graduate education were more progressive (227.0) than those who had completed only high school or less (206.4). But, as we already know from those conservatives who claim they'd rather their children were educated by the first 50 people in the phonebook than by the liberal staff at Harvard, higher education does make you more progressive. What a surprise.