[LINK] Is error neither left nor right but cant?

[rfmcdonald]

An anonymous poster, commenting in my post regarding Chomsky's moral decrepitude, wonders how useful definitions of left and right are. Or, at least, how useful my definitions are.

This prompted the following thought: do we superimpose right/left distinctions over what are in truth entirely different categories? Example: I have often encountered those who believed that their commitment to a "left" cause, fuelled in their youth by outrage at the flagrant lies and insufferable smugness of the Establishment, and by the kowtowing to a tradition that did not deserve preservation, waned as they slowly realized that the Establishment was neither as monolithic nor as all-powerful as they had once thought, indeed it might have a few points in its favor, and that working within the system, or even tending one's own garden, made more and more sense. The burning outrage, in evaporating, apparently left behind a feeling of unease as to whether this process represented maturation or a sellout.

A familiar story for those of the left? Yet, in all honesty, I would admit exactly the same to be true of myself, only with the substitution of "right" for "left" in the narrative above, and clandestine admissions from right-wing friends lead me to believe that I'm not alone. The specifics are very, very different [Americans of the appropriate age may appreciate that for me the Establishment was the New York Times editorial page and the tradition was "the Sixties", the cause was the destruction of "affirmative action"] but the narrative is all too familiar.

My question, to those who have not already departed in disgust, is: do "left" and "right" have the meanings that the original post assigned to them? If so, why does Randy's rationale work as well for a "rightist" as for a "leftist"? If not, what meanings do they have?