The Pew Research 2005 Political Typology

It’s not just a big research study on American voters, but there’s also a cool online survery you can take to determine your Typology Group.

The survey says I’m a Disaffected. Huh? Me not an Enterpriser? “Disaffecteds have little interest in keeping up with news about politics and government....” Me not interested in news? What’s this blog about then?

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If you have a lot of free time on your hands, the full report is interesting reading. But I wouldn’t say that it defines the whole Truth of political science. It’s just interesting.

For example, one tidbit I found interesting is that although 41% of both Liberals and Enterprisers have family incomes of $75,000+ (the two most affluent typologies), 53% of Enterprisers “trade stocks or bonds in the market,” while this is true for only 38% of liberals. Liberals hate free enterprise so much that many won’t trade stocks.

Another interesting tidbit is that Liberals are the least likely to have children living with them of any Typology Group. And Liberals are the most likely, of any other group, to be in the category of “never married.” What does having children and being married have to do with being against the war in Iraq? On the surface nothing, yet there’s a connection. (I recommend Steve Sailer’s baby gap articles.)

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The results of the survey support a belief of mine that there is a basic linear left/right distribution of political thinking. I don’t agree with those who try to place people into quadrants or into even more complicated geometric shapes.

But while the left is defined by a core philosophy (called Liberals in the Typology), there is no core philosophy of the right. The right is just everyone who’s not left. Strongly religious people and libertarians both have beliefs which strongly conflict with the core leftist philosophy, yet otherwise these two groups don’t have much in common. This conflict between non-leftist philosophies has become a major problem for the Republican party.

Isn’t the Democratic party divided also? Yes, the Democratic party is divided, but not over its basic leftist philosophy. The hardcore leftists (or Liberals) by themselves aren’t numerous enough to win elections, so they have made alliances with special interests. The special interests may fight with each other, but there’s never any doubt over what the core leftist philosophy is.

Also, not all of the politicians in either party subscribe to any core beliefs. Many (most?) are just opportunists who seek power. In fact, few hardcore leftists actually win any elections because they turn off too many voters with their extremism.

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Hat tip to Michelle Malkin for spotting this survey. There is some more analysis at Daly Thoughts.

Comments

[Victoria]

Hey, this was interesting. I'm an "Enterpriser." My goodness...

[Dave]

I'm an Enterpriser too, though I feel that the Upbeat description fits me better. Whatever the case, I both agree and disagree with your assertion that only the Left has a coherent philosophy and the Right is basically comprised of everyone who's not liberal. To the contrary, while liberalism is all about a political dogma, conservatism has always been more about a way of looking at the world. So while "liberals" believe in things like equality, secularism, pacifism, etc, "conservatives" simply see the world through the prism of realism. The conservative prism is comprised of a number of realities, such as the fact that true equality can never exist in the world due to its very nature, sacrificing liberty in the name of other virtues has always led to problems, utopia is unattainable, and so forth. Note that these are not "values," such as "I think sexism is bad." Instead, these are realities that have come out of centuries of political observation about the nature of the world. If you agree with those basic premises, you can be a secular athiest or an evangelical Protestant, but you're still a conservative.

The result, of course, is that conservatives are going to come to a lot of different conclusions about what should be done regarding society's problems based on their own personal values systems since, unlike liberalism, the very philosophy of conservatism is value-free. (Hence the irony in the phrase "conservative values"). Example: A gay athiest will likely look at science and personal experience and come to the conclusion that gays marriage would be in the best interest of society. A straight evangelical will look at his belief that the Bible is factually inerrant as well as his own experiences and conclude that traditional marriage is in the best interest of the state. It is not this position that makes one conservative and one liberal. To the contrary, both may be conservative as long as both are making this decision by looking through the conservative prism, which would likely lead both to believe that marriage is a social good due to the millennia of success societies have had with the institution. And these two conservatives would likely be united against a liberal, whose view of marriage as an institution, let alone gay marriage, would be the result not of realism, but of the aforementioned liberal values of equality, etc.

The greatest danger, then, to conservatism is that some conservatives decide to exclude others who also view life through the conservative prism due to their disparate conclusions. This is especially potent right now, with conservatives who have come to a pro-choice position on abortion or a pro-gay rights position on that issue often being accused of apostasy. The worst thing that could happen to conservatism --- and it's most likely death knell --- would be its transformation from a way of looking at the world into a coherent values system.