...and effect

about a month ago, I posted about the political views slot on facebook profiles and the somewhat puzzling set of options it presents. later, Sam notified me that apparently facebook had expanded its political vocabulary. instead of listing not a spectrum from conservative to liberal (with libertarian tossed in for good measure), they now provide a free response slot, similar to that for religious views, except that facebook now has a compendium of political parties in almost every country around the world from which users can choose. while the party system has its own problems, this is probably an improvement over the single conservative-liberal dimensions, especially for countries where there are more than two large, dominant parties.

this also made me wonder, did facebook really read by blog, as Sam had suggested? the more likely story is that on the official facebook dispatch about the feature, that "users have often asked for the ability to select from more options to describe their political viewpoint, so [they] expanded the list." furthermore, I highly doubt they could have compiled that extensive a list of political parties from around the world in the 10 days between my post and the announcement of the feature's release. still... it sort of makes you wonder (or at least it makes me wonder).

political affiliation

while adjusting some privacy settings on facebook, I noticed the profile spots for Political Views and Regilious Views. political is a drop box with pre-specified options, while religious is an open-response text box. this alone is cause for interest. are political views more pidgeonhole-able or easily classifiable? are the facebook creators more worried about offending someone by excluding their religion than their politics? then I saw the specific options listed for Political Views:

Very Liberal
Liberal
Moderate
Conservative
Very Conservative
Apathetic
Libertarian
Other

wow. I really had to read it twice. the only one that's actually a part is Libertarian (I don't think there's an Apathetic party, as I suspect it might be a little oxymoronic).

however, this is troubling at a deeper level. what if I'm morally conservative (e.g. against gay-marriage and abortion), but I believe in expansive governmental social programs like welfare and public health care? is that moderate? to me, it sounds both very conservative and very liberal, just in different ways. this sort of polarization is really neither helpful nor healthy, but, I think, is quite damaging. it seems like just the sort of thing against which John Stewart railed on Crossfire several years ago. trying to put political views on a single axis like this not only makes it difficult for me to express my identity (something that facebook should help me do), but it really reinforces this obfuscation of the complexities of our current political situation.

...or you could just be libertarian.