I am reminded more and more of Edwin Abbott’s math fantasy/satire “Flatland”. Weblogs and folksonomic technologies are the incomprehensible world of 3-D while hierarchical, taxonomic technologies (learning management systems like Blackboard and WebCT spring to mind)are the 2-D flatlanders. I would turn Friedman’s metaphor of flattening on its head and demand that we view the world as becoming more multidimensional all the time. We are moving toward a metaphor we don’t understand, not toward one that we do. That’s the bite of it. Moses couldn’t delineate the promised land, but he sensed it. As Abbott said in his seminal book, “Flatlanders tell the truth about flatland.” In the parlance of his book, we (you, me, and tech attuned) are squares who have been touched by a sphere. We live in a world we know ain’t “right”, but knowing that doesn’t mean we know what is true. It is the mystery Faulkner spoke of when he said we should never mistake the facts for the truth.