My take on Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott

I read Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott a few weeks back and was amazed by how the author has managed to convey so much in just 80 odd pages. Even though it was written in 1884, it is still very relevant. And it conforms to our fear that as a society we haven't progressed a lot in the last 100 years.

He talks about inequality and discrimination based on gender, class, physical appearance, bigotry and the fear of encountering new belief systems or knowledge that does not conform to our knowledge and belief system.

After reading Flatland, I realized that we as a society haven't made substantial progress in more than a 100 years to counter inequality, discrimination, and bigotry. And more often than not, when we come across an idea that opposes our world view, our first reaction is to fight it.

The Oatmeal has also covered how we react to the opposing point of view here. In this feature, he builds on a study that says that opposing views trigger our primal instinct of fight or flight response. But I digress.

Abbott has used geometric shapes to convey his ideas where he shows us multiple worlds. The protagonist of this story is a square who lives in the 2D world. In the 2D world, the status of every creature is defined by the number of sides it has and how equal are all its sides to each other. A hexagon with equal sides has more value in society compared to a square with equal sides. An equilateral triangle is better than an isosceles triangle. And it takes generations for an isosceles triangle to become an equilateral triangle or for an equilateral triangle to become a square. Also, women can never become a polygon. They are just 1-dimensional lines and also dangerous. So, the men must be protected from them by ensuring that they never come out in public and their views are useless because they are not a polygon. Does it ring a bell?

Later in the book, the square, our protagonist, visits the 1D land and tries to convince the people of 1D land about the existence of 2D land. The residents of 1D land feel that he is crazy. And when he starts to show them tricks which are impossible in the 1D world, they believe that he has magical powers. After this charade, he comes across a being from the 3D world and then it was his turn to dismiss the idea of a 3D world just like the people of 1D world dismissed his idea of the 2D world.

All in all a great read and I recommend it to anybody who is not afraid to pick up a satire.