[growingkittens]

Your example is multidimensional: there's left, right, and forward. And it involves a cycle. :)

"Conservative" vs. "progressive" is a more useful concept than left and right, but still paints a limited picture. The meaning also varies greatly from person to person, making these words inadequate.

If we define conservative as "traditional," there is only one major objective: return to past equilibrium. If we define progressive literally as "progress," there are many directions to go, many paths to follow, many lines to draw. These are not balanced categories.