In anticipation of the upcoming movie Divergent, I got curious and looked up the novel on Wikipedia (the information age’s Cliff’s Notes). Well, the conceit of this novel, the grouping of peoples together in likeminded collectives, is pretty funny to me, seeing as how we all seem to do this naturally anyway, especially more so lately, with political divisiveness reaching critical levels to where we’ve got everybody hating each other over prejudice based upon political views. (Maybe we’re just a bigoted, hateful species, and when we forsake one type of bigotry {i.e.: racism, homophobia}, we replace it for another {fear/suspicion/hatred of people we don’t know over their politics}? It’s sure starting to look like it for a political divergent like me who doesn’t like either party.)
But what’s even funnier to me is how the groups are identified in the novel: selfless, peaceful, honest, brave, wise. Hmm, it seems to me something’s missing here, like the negative qualities. Or are they just using government euphemisms as usual, like “ethnic cleansing” for racist genocide, “collateral damage” for innocent people accidentally killed during military operations, etc. (Or maybe they just kill anyone who doesn’t possess any of the state-sanctioned positive attributes?)
I think maybe it could be argued that perhaps some groups should be added: lazy, stupid, spiteful, greedy, corrupt, cowardly. Or don’t we admit to having any of those in the future? Or, more probably, every one of these characteristics applies to the government officials, making them all divergent (and undesirable in every category) so they suppress these labels to benefit themselves (while punishing anyone else displaying any of them to avoid competition for their jobs).
Or, wait; maybe what the author is saying with the groupings she creates is that all knowledgeable people are selfish, dishonest, cowardly bullies; that brave people are all violent, conniving, opportunistic meatheads; and etcetera on down the line? That’s kind of what it seems like when she defines the groups as such.
BTW: Why would the abnegation group control the government? That’s the opposite of everything in all of world history! (I didn’t read the book, so maybe Wikipedia got this part wrong? It wouldn’t be the first time…)
