Narrator: Imagine living in a world of only two dimensions. As a square, you can perceive length and width, but the very concept of "up" is not just unknown—it is utterly inconceivable. One day, a three-dimensional sphere passes through your plane of existence. You don't see a sphere; you see a circle that mysteriously appears, grows, and then shrinks into nothing. This is the central allegory of the 1884 novella Flatland, and it poses a startling question: What if we, in our own world, are just as limited, trapped by the boundaries of our current thinking and unable to perceive the dimensions of reality that lie just beyond our grasp?

This is the intellectual territory explored in Nick Sousanis's groundbreaking work, Unflattening. Presented entirely as a graphic novel—and originally submitted as a doctoral dissertation at Columbia University—the book is an insurrection against the fixed viewpoint. It argues that we have been conditioned into a state of cognitive "flatness" by prioritizing words over images and singular perspectives over a multiplicity of views. Unflattening is a visual and philosophical journey that reveals how we can escape this confinement by embracing new ways of seeing.

Narrator: Unflattening argues that modern society suffers from a pervasive "flatness," a one-dimensional way of thinking that limits human potential. This isn't a literal flatness, but a "flatness of sight, of possibilities." Sousanis illustrates how societal and educational systems perpetuate this condition from an early age. Individuals are "sorted out and put on tracks," their unique potential suppressed in favor of uniformity. Experience is "put in boxes," divided into discrete units to be dispensed, and humans themselves are "converted into data," becoming interchangeable parts in a system that operates "unseen and unseeing."

This conformity to a single pattern of thought is powerfully illustrated by the book's recurring reference to Edwin A. Abbott's Flatland. The two-dimensional inhabitants of Flatland are conceptually unable to grasp the existence of a third dimension. When a Sphere visits their world, they perceive it only as a changing circle. The Sphere's attempts to explain the concept of "upwards" are met with incomprehension and hostility because the Flatlanders lack the framework to process this new information. Sousanis uses this as a direct allegory for our own condition. We are often, like the Flatlanders, "unable to see past the boundaries of our current frame of mind," trapped in a narrow, rigid way of thinking that prevents us from perceiving greater dimensions of understanding.

Narrator: The antidote to flatness, Sousanis proposes, is to actively cultivate multiple vantage points. The book uses the biological process of stereoscopic vision as its central metaphor. Our two eyes, separated by a small distance, each capture a slightly different image. The brain integrates these two distinct views—a process known as parallax—to create the perception of depth. There is no single "correct" view; depth emerges from the synthesis of difference.

This principle extends far beyond physical sight. The book recounts the story of Eratosthenes, the ancient Greek mathematician who first calculated the circumference of the Earth. Eratosthenes learned that in the southern city of Syene, the sun cast no shadows at noon on the summer solstice. Yet in his home city of Alexandria, at the exact same time, shadows persisted. By comparing the observations from these two distinct vantage points and measuring the angle of the shadow in Alexandria, he was able to "unflatten" the world, proving its curvature and calculating its size with remarkable accuracy. Similarly, Copernicus sparked a revolution not by discovering new stars, but by fundamentally changing the point of view—placing the Sun at the center of the universe. As Sousanis notes, "Nothing changed, except the point of view—which changed everything." A single, true perspective is false; deeper understanding is born from the active engagement of multiple viewpoints.

Narrator: A primary cause of our "flatness" is the deep-seated Western cultural bias that privileges words over images. Tracing this back to philosophers like Plato, who distrusted sensory perception and images as "shadows of shadows," and Descartes, who equated thinking with "inner speech," Sousanis argues that we have relegated images to mere illustration. This creates a hierarchy that severs the natural connection between visual and verbal thinking, impoverishing our understanding.

Unflattening champions comics as a unique hybrid form that can overcome this divide. Comics are defined by the juxtaposition of images in a deliberate sequence, where "the passage of time is written in space." This structure allows for a dual awareness. The reader follows the narrative sequentially, panel by panel, but also perceives the entire page as a single, simultaneous composition. This duality mirrors the way our brain functions, as described by neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist. The left hemisphere tends to break things down into sequential parts, while the right hemisphere grasps the whole in its context. Comics hold these two modes of awareness in an "electric tension," creating a "multiplicative resonance" where words and images interpenetrate, producing a meaning that neither could achieve alone.

Narrator: The book challenges the Cartesian idea of a disembodied mind, arguing that perception and cognition are fundamentally embodied. We think with and through our bodies. Our understanding of the world is an active, dynamic process shaped by our physical movement and interaction with our environment. Abstract concepts are grounded in pre-conceptual, bodily experiences called "image schemas"—like UP-DOWN, IN-OUT, or GRASPING.

Drawing is presented not as a mere transcription of an idea, but as an embodied mode of thinking itself. Researchers Masaki Suwa and Barbara Tversky describe it as a "conversation with yourself," where cognition is distributed between the mind's conception and the eye's perception of the marks being made. This externalization of thought allows us to see our ideas from the outside, generating new understanding in the process. This is why, as research by Robert Root-Bernstein found, scientists who are also versed in the arts—who draw, paint, or play music—have a distinct advantage in making discoveries. They have cultivated a flexibility of thought and a capacity for multidimensional seeing that allows them to connect disparate ideas in novel ways.

Narrator: Unflattening offers a radical reinterpretation of freedom. The common notion of emancipation is to be "freed from bonds," as if our connections are chains that hold us back. The book argues this is a dangerous misconception. True emancipation, it suggests, comes not from severing ties but from "identifying more threads of association." Our identity is woven from countless biological, cultural, and historical threads; to cut them would be to lose ourselves.

This idea is powerfully illustrated by contrasting two different modes of navigation. European explorers, influenced by Cartesian thought, used a "detachment method." They reduced the dynamic, swirling world of the ocean to a static, flat grid on a map, relying on abstract calculations and instruments. In stark contrast, Pacific Islander navigators developed an intimate, embodied knowledge of their environment. They used "stick charts" not as literal maps, but as mnemonic devices representing the dynamic patterns of ocean swells. They learned to read the ocean through a holistic understanding of waves, stars, and currents, passed down through collective stories. Theirs was a knowledge of connection and relation, not abstraction and detachment. Freedom, like navigation, is not about being untethered, but about being more deeply and intelligently connected to the world.

Narrator: The final chapters of Unflattening serve as a call to action—an "Awaking" from the slumber of conformity. Sousanis critiques the damage of standardization with a simple, personal analogy: his feet. Though classified as a standard "men's size 11," he observes a "great variance" when comparing his foot outlines to others of the same size. The static, flat measurement fails to capture the unique dimensionality of a real foot. To ignore these differences and conform to an ill-fitting standard is detrimental; it makes it "hard to move freely." The book argues that we are not made to fit into the world's pre-made boxes, but that the world should be made to fit us, so we can walk our own unique paths.

This requires a continuous process of re-evaluation. While experience is crucial, it can stagnate under its own weight. Just as our eyes must constantly move to refresh their view, our thinking must be regularly "upended" through a "tumbling of relations." Understanding is not a destination to be reached or a process to be "finished." It is a relational act where the gaps and incompleteness are not flaws, but openings for imagination and discovery.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from Unflattening is that a richer, deeper, and more authentic understanding of ourselves and our world is not found by seeking a single, fixed truth. It is generated in the dynamic, and sometimes difficult, interplay between multiple and varied perspectives. By breaking down the artificial walls between words and images, between disciplines, and between our minds and our bodies, we can begin to perceive the hidden dimensions that "flatness" conceals.

Nick Sousanis's work is more than a book; it is an experience that challenges the very form of academic and intellectual communication. It leaves us with a profound question about our own lives: Where have we allowed routine and conformity to create "ruts" in our thinking? The book dares us to step out of those well-worn paths, to embrace a different vantage point, and to see what new, unanticipated worlds are waiting to be discovered when we finally choose to unflatten our vision.