Lately, I have been obsessed with the Divergent series by Veronica Roth. Since I’ve already read all of the books and seen the movie, I feel like there’s not much more I can do to relive my favorite moments except for actually be in the book itself. This got me thinking; What would it be like to have factions? Would we be more at peace if we were separated in this manor? I believe if we looked past the complex meaning behind the factions, (no spoilers, but if you have read Allegiant I’m sure you know what I’m talking about), I believe that using the factions in our modern society would work very well.
In this Trilogy, everyone is separated by factions. You are born into one of the five factions and at the age of 16 can either change into another one or stay; these factions all have different jobs and tasks that they do to sustain our earth. Abnegation are the selfless who help the poor (factionless), and are the city leaders, Erudite are knowledgeable and smart, so naturally they are teachers, doctors and scientists, Amity are very friendly and peaceful, they farm and grow crops for food and sometimes even become caretakers in hospitals, Candor believe and strive for truth and justice,so they are typically lawyers and politicians, and finally there’s the Dauntless, who are thrill seekers that tend do to jobs that call for being brave such as soldiers, police officers and firefighters.
If our world worked like this in each of our own cities, I feel like it would be a lot more efficient and easier to find work. Since we would all know where we stand and our roles in society, we wouldn’t have to worry about conflicts based on fairness of work and such, since you get to decide what you want to do. Everyone would love their job since they chose it themselves, therefore work would get done fast and effectively. Finding a job right now in our world is difficult, and as the years pass, it is just going to get harder. Unless you joined Dauntless and failed initiations or happened to be factionless, you would be guaranteed a job. Maybe it wouldn’t be a high paid job, but it would still be a job none the less.
Because each faction has different personality traits, it would be evident if you didn’t belong. In other words, if you chose a faction but didn’t have the right personality, chances are you’d end up factionless or in a low paid job. In addition, the only people that are allowed to communicate with members of other factions are the leaders. Peace and harmony would be a result of this excommunication, and personality seclusion because people with similar personalities and ideas would work together and not talk to others with butting opinions and traits, that could cause conflict.
Maybe it’s just because I really want the book to be real, or because I would love to be a part of Dauntless with Tobias, Christina and Tris or maybe even live peacefully with friends in Amity, but I think that the faction system would be an effective way to run our world. Of course it would have its flaws, but doesn’t our current way of life have them as well?
As a little bonus for making it this far, in this very long blog post, take the quiz here to discover which faction you belong to!