More Evidence of my Amorality

So, there was another test (Schwartz Values Scale) on that site, which I just took, created by an Israeli professor. It's supposed to measure your "balance" of moralities, according to a theory that some moral beliefs are inherently in conflict with others.  (If you'll allow me to dumb down a very complex topic.)

I scored universally lower than all averages: no exceptions.  Perhaps this is a reflection of the earlier test results: that I don't hold many of the moral standards very high.  Here's my chart (green = me, blue = liberals, red = conservatives):

 

So, what we have here is, from left to right: power, achievement, hedonism, stimulation, self-direction, universalism, benevolence, tradition, conformance, and security. Clearly, I trend like a liberal, if somewhat depressed in absolute value.  (This may be an effect of the fact that, on a ten-point scale and the like, I tend to score things far lower than other people. I think it's an American bias that a 7 is like a 'C' and is really not that good.  I don't see it in terms of school scores, so I don't treat them that way.)

If you ignore the absolute values, you'll see that most important to me are self-direction and universalism. They define the latter as "understanding, appreciation, tolerance, and protection for the welfare of all people and for nature". Those definitely ring true.

You'll also see that I score dramatically low on stimulation: "excitement, novelty, and challenge in life".  ...I like novelty when I get it, but I don't go seeking it. Check my profile, and you'll see my favourite quote is the koan, "If you cannot find truth exactly were you are, where else do you expect to find it?" Yup: that's me.

I'm also remarkably low on power.  This is also a truth. To my mind, as I have said before, the only true evil is the abuse of power. As a result, I tend to be wary of any of it.

I'm also pleased to see security low on my list. As you'll hear over the next few months as I dissect Zen, one of the lessons I take from that philosophy is the the concept of not avoiding difficulty.  ("They are not obstacles on the path, they are the path".) I genuinely feel that I am not afraid.  I'll take things in stride.  However, if you were to re-phrase this as "caution", then that's important to me! I am extremely risk-averse. Go figure.

I enjoyed taking this test, though I found it time-consuming. It's ostensibly very quick, but I copy/pasted the text into an editor, so that I could properly rank everything with deliberate thought. While some of these things come naturally, there are others that I think I should work on, and this test helped me identify them. It worked quite well in harmony with the "Authentic Happiness" test that I've talked about in the past: I would recommend taking that one before this one.