Flatland is a story about the population of a two-dimensional space, as told by one of the residents, A. Square. After a description of the different beings found there - lines, triangles, other squares, the high-caste circles - he meets an emissary from someplace beyond: A circle that changes in size. It becomes clear that this is a sphere, moving across Flatland, with the changing cross-section causing the alternative sizes for the same individual.
From little more description than this, the question came to mind: Is it from a Second Turning? We have a superior, even god-like being (the sphere), a previously unknown truth, a "disciple" (A. Square) attempting to preach it, and some not-too-subtle complaints being made about society, in particular about social classes and mobility.
Well, not quite. It was published in 1884, which is two years before the Strauss & How definition of the start of that Turning, which they have starting in 1886 and continuing to 1908. Although it starts showing up again at the start of the next Second: There are references to it in An Introduction to Information Theory: Symbols, Signals and Noise (Pierce) and Stranger in a Strange Land (Heinlein), both originally published in 1961.
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