#section 07

[Table of Contents]

Since the start of this book I have been assuming that my Readers in Spaceland were already aware of something that I take for granted. I should have made sure to explain to you the most basic, fundamental law of our society, upon which everything else is built:

Every human Being in Flatland is a Regular Figure.

Which means that a Woman is not simply a line, she is also a Straight Line.

An Isosceles Workman or Soldier must have two of his sides equal (being an Isosceles, he is of course defined by his third side being irregular).

A Tradesman must have his three sides equal.

Lawyers, (the group which I, your humble narrator and guide, am apart of), must have four equal sides, and in the higher Polygon class, all sides must be, generally, equal.

The size of these equal sides of course depends on how old this person is. A Female at birth is about an inch long [around 2.5 centimeters], and a tall adult Woman might be more than 12 inches [around 30.5 centimeters] long.

As for the Males of every class, as adults, the length of all their sides, when added together, measures somewhere around two feet, give or take. [around 61 centimeters].

But it is not the length of our sides that is important. I’m talking about the Equality of the sides, and it doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to see why the whole foundation of civilization in Flatland rests upon the fundamental fact that Nature wills all Figures to have their sides equal.

If our sides were unequal, our angles might be unequal.

Instead of simply being able to judge a single angle by feel or by sight, you’d have to figure out the measurement of every single angle by time-consuming Feeling.

Life is too short for such mind-numbing groping. The whole science and art of Sight Recognition would be killed instantly. Feeling, as much as it can be called an Art, would perish soon after.

Casual interaction would become deathly dangerous or outright impossible – no one would ever be able to interact with any stranger or make even the most basic social arrangements without being in danger.

In a word, civilization would collapse into barbarism.

Am I going too fast for my Readers to understand how I’ve come to these obvious conclusions?

Surely if you think for a moment, and imagine a single instance from our every day life, you’ll be convinced that every part of our society relies on Regularity, or Equality of Angles.

For example, say you meet two or three Tradesmen in the street. You know they are Tradesmen by a single glance: a seemingly straight line, with a bright point in the center, rapidly growing darker towards either end. You ask them to step into your house for lunch while you discuss business.

This is something you can do, right now, without any hesitation, because everyone knows how much space, give or take an inch or two, is taken up by an adult Triangle.

But imagine if one of these Tradesman dragged behind his Regular and respectable angle, not just a straight line, but a parallelogram of twelve or thirteen inches on the diagonal. Now what are you supposed to do with a monster like that stuck in your door?

[ID: A simple digital drawing with a black border around it, showing a Square looking out a doorway at three other shapes. Two are Equilateral Triangles, and the third is an Irregular shape with an Equilateral front, and a very wide parallelogram back. Next to the square is a small bar showing three points of brightness with fading edges, lining up with the points of the Triangles in front of him, as he says: "To my view, they all look like Equilateral Triangles. Just at different distances from my eye." Then there is another bar behind the three shapes, saying, "But from another angle...the Irregularity is revealed.". This bar shows one very large white line, with a smaller grey line next to it, matching up with the backs of the shapes above it. End ID.]

But I am insulting the intelligence of my Readers by explaining things that are clear to anyone who lives in Spaceland.

Obviously the measurement of a single angle wouldn’t help us interact with one another under such circumstances – one’s whole life would be hours upon hours of feeling or visually surveying the entire perimeter of everyone you meet.

It’s already hard enough to avoid running into others in a crowd, even for the trained wisdom of a well-educated Square! But if Regularity flew out the window, and you couldn’t assume anyone around you had logical angles, everything would devolve to chaos and confusion! The smallest panic would cause serious injuries, or – if there happened to be any Women or Soldiers in the crowd – considerable loss of life!

This is why Expediency teams up with Nature in stamping the seal of its approval on Regularity of Configuration, and the Law, of course, seconds their efforts.

To us, “Irregularity of Figure” means a combination of both inherent moral failure and purposeful criminality, and is treated accordingly.

We do, of course, have some distributors of writings that claim there is no inherent connection between geometrical and moral Irregularity.

“The Irregular”, they say, “is, from the moment he’s born, rejected by his parents, bullied by his brothers and sisters, neglected by his nurses, scorned and suspected by society, and excluded from all forms of trust, responsibility, and fulfilling jobs.

“His every movement is openly surveiled by the police until he comes of age, and presents himself for inspection. Then, he is either destroyed if he is found to be Irregular past the set margin of deviation, or imprisoned in a Government Facility as a desk worker of the seventh class.

“Barred from marriage, forced to serve at a tedious job for practically no pay, and with no other choice but to live and eat entirely at this same office, unable even to take a vacation except without a guard escorting him like the prisoner that he is – then is it any wonder that human nature, no matter how pure or benevolent it started out when he was born, becomes bitter and corrupted with a lifetime of this kind of treatment?”

None of this very plausible reasoning has convinced me, nor has it convinced the wisest of our Statesmen, that our ancestors made a mistake when they set down the law that mandated Irregularity as incompatible with the safety of the State.

I have no doubt that the life of an Irregular is hard, but the best interests of the rest of society requires that it be hard.

If a man with a triangular front and polygonal back were allowed to exist, and to father even more Irregular children and grandchildren, what would become of the Arts of life? Are the houses and doors and churches all supposed to be changed to accommodate such monsters? Are the ticket-sellers supposed to measure every man’s perimeter before they let him into a theater, or to take his place in a lecture hall?

Is an Irregular supposed to be exempt from military service? And if not, how is he going to be stopped from killing his comrades by accident?

And just think of the horrible crimes and lies these creatures would be tempted to commit! It’d be so easy for him to enter a shop with his polygonal front forward, and order whatever he likes, on promise of future payment, from a too-trusting salesman!

Let the falsely claimed “Philanthropists” beg all they like for the abolishment of the Irregular Penal Laws, they won’t convince me, because I, for one, have never known an Irregular who wasn’t what Natuer clearly intended him to be – a hypocrite, a misanthrope, and, as far as he can succeed, a perpetrator of all kinds of crime and nuisance.

Not that I would (at the moment) recommend the extreme measures adopted by some Countries, where any infant whose angle deviates by half a degree from the expected angularity is promptly destroyed at birth.

Some of our best Men, Men of real genius, suffered, in their early childhood, deviations as great as – or even greater than – forty-five minutes. The loss of their precious lives would have been an irreparable injury to the State.

We have also achieved many victories in the Art of Healing, allowing most Irregularities to be either partly, or entirely, cured, through the use of medical compressions, extensions, fuses, and more.

I would say there is no point at which we should look at a newborn and decide it is incurably Irregular – but, if the Irregularities cannot be cured before the body begins to form its permanent shape, and the Medical Board has declared that nothing can be done to salvage it, then I would suggest that the Irregular child be mercifully euthanized.