“I can never quite make out which side you are on. Sometimes you seem so liberal and sometimes so reactionary. Are you a modern, Basil?”
“No,” said Basil, loudly and cheerfully …
— G. K. Chesterton, The Club of Queer Trades; “The Painful Fall of a Great Reputation.”
I’m pretty sure “sides” are a human confabulation, providing an equally imaginary sense of identity. Pitty that though, it is such an infinitely high honor to carry the simple, yet certain identity of human being.
I believe there are no real sides.
That’s the point, Al. Basil is gleefully declaring that he chooses not to choose a side.