Right now, we should have before us a sense of what it questioned – which was a kind of view that has generally been called the justified-true-belief conception of knowledge. Some have relatively flat and sandy terrain, while others are rugged, mountainous and volcanic. In this figure, the blue lines represent lines that the electron beam is “painting” on the screen from left to right, while the red dashed lines represent the beam flying back to the left. The wrap dress features a front closure by wrapping one side of the dress across the other and tying the fabric at the waist or back. It gives you all you need to prepare for registration – in one simple to use package. Friedman offers no assessment of the limitations of the metaphor and the dangers associated with its use. It might be argued that, in so successively constructing an argument to attract such acclaim by a significant segment of the leadership of the world, Friedman skillfully created a trap for those who associate themselves with such a seemingly provocative argument.
By denying the possibility of cycles associated with “rotation” of a globalized world, or its “revolution” around an external reference point such as the Sun, it would appear that explanatory power has been much diminished. As to the cognitive implications, he makes no reference to the detailed arguments of such as George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (Metaphors We Live By, 1980; Philosophy In The Flesh: the embodied mind and its challenge to western thought, 1999). Nor does he make any reference to the reasons for which metaphors are used by business strategists (eg Dudley Lynch and Paul L. Kordis, Strategy of the Dolphin: scoring a win in a chaotic world, 1989). In this sense his argument is thoroughly trapped by its own central metaphor. This corresponds in many ways to the challenge of what lies “over the horizon”. Any sense of lack of boundaries also obscures the challenge of limitations on use of resources and the challenge of disposing of waste products. It is true that use of facilities that operate 24/7 appears to render unnecessary any notion of horizons — despite notions of time zones and daily rhythms. The periodic emergence of crises — only too evident at the present time — somehow falls below the horizon of Friedman’s Flat Earth perspective.
In the traditional understanding of a Flat Earth, it typically had edges towards which it was dangerous to go because of the possibility of “falling off”. They require no sense of a rotating Earth, revolution around the Sun, or longer cycles such as the precession of the equinox –so strikingly detected by ancient astronomers. The Sun is not yet visible simultaneously across the Earth, as it would be were it flat — unless of course its visibility 24/7 is to be understood as achieved virtually. The suggestion that the Earth might be better understood, as flat as a consequence of “globalization”, implies that the need to take account of cyclic phenomena is being circumvented. Or, alternatively, the book may be considered as an explanation of why thinking of the world as flat is indeed the central guiding insight for governance in the 21st century, as currently conceived — as his subtitle implies. But it is not clear how one advances over a flat surface unless this is to be understood as some kind of infinite plane — or unless the illusion of such linear “advance” is effectively achieved by travelling in circles.
For example, one study found that black applicants are less likely to receive research funding from the U.S. As argued in what follows, the acclaim of the business community for this study (see summary) is extremely valuable in helping to understand the failure of the world to come to grips with the challenges of its governance. It might be argued that a Flat Earth cognitive framework does not serve those who need to govern wisely in response to the possibility of such crises — irrespective of the meaningfulness to those who suffer from them. Curiously Friedman’s Flat Earth has apparently no such edges. Of course, the “Flat Earth” metaphor is a valid attention grabbing device for a book framed as significant to the new thinking required of the 21st century (see summary of Friedman’s Flatteners). Friedman’s need for the explanatory power of “flatness” might suggest a more appropriate metaphoric application through the assumption of a hollow Earth — despite its recent dubious associations. I have found that using the simple notion of flatness to describe how more people can plug, play, compete, connect, and collaborate with more power than ever before — which is what is happening to the world — really helps people who are trying to understand the essential impact of all the technological changes conning together today.