Y’know those online quizzes that tell you what medieval philosopher you are, what kind of shoe you are, what kind of cheese you are, which member of the Rat Pack you are?
They’re apparently very popular.
I find them silly and almost never take them. (Though I did find out that the member of the Rat Pack I am is Frank Sinatra.)
WELL I COULDN’T RESIST TAKING THIS ONE.
It purports to tell you what your "alignment" is.
Alignment is a concept used in the game Dungeons & Dragons.
I hate it. (The concept of alignment, that is; I’m also not that big on D & D, which I view as a poorly-designed game, though other Role Playing Games are better.)
Alignment is one of the elements in D & D that I consider to be poor design.
Basically, alignment is supposed to tell you how your character behaves. It analyzes your character on two axes: whether he is (1) good, (2), neutral, or (3) evil and whether he is (a) lawful, (b) neutral, or (c) chaotic.
Thus a virtuous priest might be "lawful good" (concerned with principles directed toward good) and Osama bin Laden might be "lawful evil" (concerned with principles leading to evil).
A social activist might be "chaotic good" (unconcerned with principle but fixated on good) and a psychopath might be "chaotic evil" (unconcerned with principle and fixated on evil).
I don’t like alignment because (a) it unduly restrains characters (some races in the game are only allowed certain alignments) and (b) it encourages players to take a juvenile satisfaction in being evil.
Anyway, I took the alignment quiz.
I answered all the questions as honestly as I could, even those which wouldn’t reflect well on me.
I figured that my alignment would easily come back as lawful good. (I answered an awful lot of law questions in a positive manner, and in real life I am very concerned with matters of principle.)
Apparently, though, my alignment score was tied between two options, and the quiz asked me a clarifying question to see which principle was more important to me.
One of the tied options was indeed lawful good, but the other–the one the deciding question finally determined by alignment to be–was neutral good.
Surprise, surprise!
Here’s the quiz’s description of how a "neutral good" person behaves:
A Neutral Good person tries to do the
‘goodest’ thing possible. These people are willing to work with the law
to accomplish their goal, but if the law is corrupt they are just as
willing to tear it down. To these people, doing what’s right is the
most important thing, regardless of rules, customs, or laws.
Knowing this, I understood why the quiz rated me the way it did. While I am very concerned with lawkeeping (which is why my lawful good and neutral good scores were tied), I also recognize that human laws are subordinate to the moral law and must be changed when they are in confilict with it. (E.g., the current human law favoring abortion in America.) So I’m strong on lawkeeping but ultimately concerned that human law conforms to moral law.
Okay, so I’m neutral good.
I think St. Thomas ("He’s My Hero") Aquinas would be, too.
(Cowboy hat tip: Ancient Illuminated Seers Of Bavaria.)
The problem is that Lawful Good in game terms doesn’t describe someone who adheres to the natural law; it describes a legal positivist.
I got “lawful good.”
D&D has _never_ been clear on the Law/Chaos axis; it seems to waver between ‘respect for social order’, ‘obedience to a higher authority’ (which need not be the established social order), and ‘following a distinct code’ as opposed to impulsiveness.
I took the quiz myself a while back and wound up in the exact same spot as Jimmy.
FWIW, the ‘official’ descriptions of Lawful Good and Neutral Good, from the current D&D rules.
Lawful Good, “Crusader”: A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. She combines a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. She tells the truth, keeps her word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice. A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished.
Neutral Good, “Benefactor”: A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. He is devoted to helping others. He works with kings and magistrates but does not feel beholden to them..
(“Certain races can only be a given alignment?” You’re sure you don’t mean classes?)
Hey Jimmy,
What role-playing games do you play?
In Jesus and Mary,
R.V. Miole
P.S.
You’re my hero!
I took it and got Lawful Good too. Must be the zealousness of being a convert and wanting everyone else to come home to Mother Church, and wanting everyone already there to get it right fer cryin’ out loud!
🙂
You’re welcome, Jimmy. BTW, did you ever get the email I sent your egarding Sadducees in the Gospels?
arthur
I did, and was *sure* I had responded to it.
Upon checking my e-mail client, however, I discovered that it had not gone (I periodically have problems sending e-mail due to a software clash).
Will now re-send.
Lawful Good.
And the game has changed a lot since those days, Jimmy.
I was lawful good.
Lawful good.
What a bunch of paladins we are. 0:)
I have always defined alignment as the ‘moral essence’ of a character. Proof for this, based on the logic presented in the game is – if spells can affect a character based on alignment and alignment is a conscious choice, then those spells must be able to retroactively examine the character’s entire life and make a judgment of the character’s alignment which would take an immense amount of power and therefore is not possible for low or even mid level spells. The only way such spells could function in the framework of mechanics presented is if the essence of the spell simply reacts to the essence of the character.
That being the case, alignment cannot be a conscious function, but a measure of the quality of the character’s inner spiritual nature. The conscious may allow a character to adjust or even deny their responses and inclinations, but a character’s nature dictates their base reactions.
If that is the case, then the good / evil axis represents our base spiritual inclination to help or harm. The lawful / chaotic axis would have to represent our adherence or repulsion to tradition and structure.
Following that logic, being a Neutral Good means that your inner nature is primarily concerned with what is good. You don’t follow the rules just because they are rules, nor do you dismiss them because they are rules. You think about them, decide if they are ‘right’, then follow them or not.
Personally, I think Neutral Good is the best alignment a person can have in the modern world, assuming that people could be morally simplified in such a way. Far too often the best intentioned of us undermine our own efforts by adhering blindly to or reactively refusing tradition, and fail to realize that traditions only become so because at one point they were a good enough idea that people continued them. Yet, as will all things in the natural world, may reach an end of usefulness.
Neutral Good seeks what is best and is free to do it with an open mind. You seem to be doing that. God bless you, brother. 😉
D & D is satanical.