Divergence over Convergence in a New World Order – reflecting on dystopian perspectives and programming for the youth of today by Neil Hague
The following article/review was written 10 years ago:
The programming continues with another recent movie ‘Divergent’ directed by Neil Norman Burger who gave us the pseudo-documentary Interview with the Assassin (2002), the period drama The Illusionist, and the 2011 thriller Limitless. The movie is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by the American author Veronica Roth.
I wanted to comment on this movie purely in relation to the ‘dystopian themes’ contained within its plot, as once again we have the classic ‘programming’ of a mainly young audience, to not only accept a future based on massive surveillance, but to ‘expect’ a possible future scenario that is becoming more obvious as Hollywood churns out these types of films. I am not saying Roth has an agenda, I doubt it, but the film has some common themes found in other ‘best seller’ novels (probably because its sells books?).
Of course some of the themes in Divergent are very much similar to the Hunger Games book and films, not because it’s a ‘popular narrative’, but because this is an actual ‘projected future’, and agenda that could play out in this century. See my review of Catching Fire here.
The graphics used on the book cover are also not too far away from the Hunger Games covers, and as those that have read Roth’s books will know, that there is also a trilogy at work here – Divergent, Insurgent and the Allegiant. The language is ‘so Orwellian’ and the teens that watch this type of film or read such books have no idea, despite the positive end to this novel. The fact that some one labelled ‘insurgent’ may well be a person who desires to be free from oppression never gets mentioned in the global news speak.
The Symbolism of the Factions
The obsession with segregation is another theme embedded in these stories and of course the education system given to us by the elite structures from its conception, have focussed on clubs, groups, ‘houses or factions’, grade bands, etc, as part of the ‘school day’. As the excellent teacher and writer John Taylor Gatto said of such subjects:
“For reasons that are both fair and foul – but mostly for fair reasons – we have come under the domain of a scientific-management system whose ambitions are endless. They want to manage every second of our lives, every expenditure that we make. And the schools are the training ground to create a population that’s easy to manage.”
