![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainwatersparkOne thing I can say about Veronica Roth's Divergent, which I can't say about many books these days, is that it has a unique premise about a society divided into factions that are each based on a virtue. And yet I feel she almost didn't take the concept far enough. I understand why Roth characterized each faction the way she did--it made things simple and logical. But it didn't push the limits far enough.
For the unaware:
- Dauntless (bravery): members do things like jumping off trains, going down zip lines, etc.
- Abnegation (selflessness): members are dedicated to serving others
- Candor (honesty): members have to live without telling lies
- Erudite (intelligence): members live scholarly lives
- Amity (friendship): members are friendly (?)
Out of the five, Abnegation is perhaps the most fleshed out, while Amity is the least--I don't really even know what Amity people do (but then again, Amity is apparently featured in the sequel). Erudite, to me, is the odd one out, because it's not so much a personal virtue as simply a lifelong pursuit. So I won't really talk about that one.
The big focus of Divergent is on the Dauntless faction. And of course Dauntless members do lots of dangerous things like shooting guns, beating each other up, and jumping off trains.
But if you think about the nature of fear and courage, what the Dauntless faction focuses on is only the very tip of the iceberg. The Dauntless initiation ordeal doesn't touch abstract fears--fear of failure, fear of uncertainty, fear of inadequacy. Yet I believe that abstract fears are ultimately more crippling than physical fears. For some people, the effort it would take to overcome a fear of public speaking is monumental compared to going down a zipline 100 feet off the ground.
Also, I feel that the Dauntless's identification of fear sometimes shades into horror, which is not quite the same thing. One of protagonist Tris's "fears", for example, is of having to kill her family. But strictly speaking, that's not really a fear. I don't really feel fear at the prospect of having to shoot my family; I feel horror. Just because you don't want to or wouldn't do something doesn't mean you're afraid of it; you could just be against it because it's wrong. The point of the fear simulator shouldn't be to make you do things that you think are wrong. At that point, we're not talking about fear anymore.
And the Dauntless's fear simulation really has no way of adequately representing abstract fears. It can make abstract fears physical, but that kind of defeats the purpose of abstract fears in the first place. Fears you can see and touch are never as scary as fears in your head.
What is the true definition of bravery? Four touches on it in Divergent, saying that true bravery is everyday bravery. And I'll give Roth the benefit of the doubt and assume that the factions were must less caricatured when they first came into existence. A faction that truly focuses on bravery would, I think, make it its goal to allow people to confront their personal fears. It's difficult, too, to truly be rid of one's deepest fears--see "Batman Begins," where Bruce Wayne conquers his fear of bats, and yet still has lingering traces of that fear. The best anyone can do is to confront, rather than completely conquer, their fears.
Candor is another interesting faction. The way Roth describes it, Candor is very much a 1984-esque "police state" where you're punished for lying. But that both is intensely frightening and ignores the complexities of the nature of truth and lie. If you believe what you are saying, for example, even if you're wrong, is it still a lie? If not speaking is equivalent to lying, how much would you be compelled to talk every day? What about societal filters--Albert Camus's The Stranger is a demonstration of what would happen if we say exactly what we are thinking all the time, and Scott Westerfeld's Extras shows the extreme disadvantages of "radical honesty." How are people even viewed within the Candor faction? If you had to say everything you were thinking...well, there are always some parts of us that we keep unspoken because they're socially inappropriate, etc. You can't really control things like racism or sexism, because people would have to say their innermost beliefs out loud in order to be "honest." I just can't picture how this kind of society would function.
How can you really resolve these conflicting aspects and still have a society that people would want to live in? (Because I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out why anyone would want to join Candor.) And technically speaking, lie detectors, as are used in the Candor initiation ordeal, don't work very well. (Unless there's some mindreading technology that is beyond the scope of what we have today.)
Honesty is, of course, a commendable virtue. Secrecy destroys relationships and trust. But on the other hand, there seems to be very little way in which you can ensure people are being honest all the time without turning it into a police state, where people are always monitored and have very little privacy. Perhaps that's what Roth intends to illustrate, but again, I don't see why anyone would want to join that kind of faction.
I like Roth's idea of exploring the positives and negatives of each virtue. On the other hand, I feel that she doesn't take it far enough in some cases. For Erudite, for example, I could never quite figure out why they wanted war on Abnegation simply because they were hedonistic. I can't associate the pursuit of knowledge with hedonism. Knowledge with power works well, but then I wonder why Dauntless aren't the enemies, because they seem very much into power and fearlessness. I also thought Abnegation was a little too perfect. I mean, by definition, selflessness is a nigh-impeachable virtue, but it would have been interesting if Roth explored more of the consequences of self-denial, or perhaps even self-destruction.
For the unaware:
- Dauntless (bravery): members do things like jumping off trains, going down zip lines, etc.
- Abnegation (selflessness): members are dedicated to serving others
- Candor (honesty): members have to live without telling lies
- Erudite (intelligence): members live scholarly lives
- Amity (friendship): members are friendly (?)
Out of the five, Abnegation is perhaps the most fleshed out, while Amity is the least--I don't really even know what Amity people do (but then again, Amity is apparently featured in the sequel). Erudite, to me, is the odd one out, because it's not so much a personal virtue as simply a lifelong pursuit. So I won't really talk about that one.
The big focus of Divergent is on the Dauntless faction. And of course Dauntless members do lots of dangerous things like shooting guns, beating each other up, and jumping off trains.
But if you think about the nature of fear and courage, what the Dauntless faction focuses on is only the very tip of the iceberg. The Dauntless initiation ordeal doesn't touch abstract fears--fear of failure, fear of uncertainty, fear of inadequacy. Yet I believe that abstract fears are ultimately more crippling than physical fears. For some people, the effort it would take to overcome a fear of public speaking is monumental compared to going down a zipline 100 feet off the ground.
Also, I feel that the Dauntless's identification of fear sometimes shades into horror, which is not quite the same thing. One of protagonist Tris's "fears", for example, is of having to kill her family. But strictly speaking, that's not really a fear. I don't really feel fear at the prospect of having to shoot my family; I feel horror. Just because you don't want to or wouldn't do something doesn't mean you're afraid of it; you could just be against it because it's wrong. The point of the fear simulator shouldn't be to make you do things that you think are wrong. At that point, we're not talking about fear anymore.
And the Dauntless's fear simulation really has no way of adequately representing abstract fears. It can make abstract fears physical, but that kind of defeats the purpose of abstract fears in the first place. Fears you can see and touch are never as scary as fears in your head.
What is the true definition of bravery? Four touches on it in Divergent, saying that true bravery is everyday bravery. And I'll give Roth the benefit of the doubt and assume that the factions were must less caricatured when they first came into existence. A faction that truly focuses on bravery would, I think, make it its goal to allow people to confront their personal fears. It's difficult, too, to truly be rid of one's deepest fears--see "Batman Begins," where Bruce Wayne conquers his fear of bats, and yet still has lingering traces of that fear. The best anyone can do is to confront, rather than completely conquer, their fears.
Candor is another interesting faction. The way Roth describes it, Candor is very much a 1984-esque "police state" where you're punished for lying. But that both is intensely frightening and ignores the complexities of the nature of truth and lie. If you believe what you are saying, for example, even if you're wrong, is it still a lie? If not speaking is equivalent to lying, how much would you be compelled to talk every day? What about societal filters--Albert Camus's The Stranger is a demonstration of what would happen if we say exactly what we are thinking all the time, and Scott Westerfeld's Extras shows the extreme disadvantages of "radical honesty." How are people even viewed within the Candor faction? If you had to say everything you were thinking...well, there are always some parts of us that we keep unspoken because they're socially inappropriate, etc. You can't really control things like racism or sexism, because people would have to say their innermost beliefs out loud in order to be "honest." I just can't picture how this kind of society would function.
How can you really resolve these conflicting aspects and still have a society that people would want to live in? (Because I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out why anyone would want to join Candor.) And technically speaking, lie detectors, as are used in the Candor initiation ordeal, don't work very well. (Unless there's some mindreading technology that is beyond the scope of what we have today.)
Honesty is, of course, a commendable virtue. Secrecy destroys relationships and trust. But on the other hand, there seems to be very little way in which you can ensure people are being honest all the time without turning it into a police state, where people are always monitored and have very little privacy. Perhaps that's what Roth intends to illustrate, but again, I don't see why anyone would want to join that kind of faction.
I like Roth's idea of exploring the positives and negatives of each virtue. On the other hand, I feel that she doesn't take it far enough in some cases. For Erudite, for example, I could never quite figure out why they wanted war on Abnegation simply because they were hedonistic. I can't associate the pursuit of knowledge with hedonism. Knowledge with power works well, but then I wonder why Dauntless aren't the enemies, because they seem very much into power and fearlessness. I also thought Abnegation was a little too perfect. I mean, by definition, selflessness is a nigh-impeachable virtue, but it would have been interesting if Roth explored more of the consequences of self-denial, or perhaps even self-destruction.
