Divergent

I saw the movie Divergent today. Therein its a caste system based on type for which one is tested. This was no doubt dreamed up by the Erudites, the intellectual class. Everyone must neatly fit into a category. If they don't they are divergent and must be killed, as those with aspects of the different categories (factions) upset the neat Order of things. Interestingly, the head Erudite thinks its human nature that must be suppressed, since it doesn't fit into their perfect abstract Order.


The protagonist, Tris, is of course divergent, a categorical mix. Thing is, we all are a mix of these categories. Even with typologies like the Meyers-Briggs we change types over the course of our lifetimes, ofttimes more than once. Even within its typology, no one is fully in one of the types but by degrees leaning into mixes of them. Which of course depends on different life cycles, environments, social contexts, etc. All of which bring out different aspects of our mindsets and behaviors.

Bottom line for this post, consistent with my ongoing criticism of kennlingus and models like the MHC, is that both of them are dysfunctionally trying to fit round pegs into square holes, into their perfect Platonic and/or Aristotelian categories like the Erudite. And the Real is divergent.

Note: I personally have strong Erudite qualities and value them. It is not the Erudite per se that does the above, just when they lose balance with the other factions and move into dysfunction and become dominated by one to the exclusion of the others. Like the difference between real and false reason.