Why Everyone On Steemit Would Benefit From Watching Divergent THE MOVIE
"Whales are soooo selfish!" "Is UBI Socialist?" Everyone should do and shouldn't do -insert opinion-... urgggghhhh... okay so what does this have to do with the movie? Read on.
Source: Youtube
This is a quick rant so forgive the lack of fancy formatting.
Divergent is set in a post-apocalyptic dystopic world of sorts where the primary colony is divided into factions (groups) based on common values. People stick with their group because they think alike and do similar things. These can be thought of as religions, cultures, societies, or any group with common goals and principals. They're all very predictable.
There are also people who are divergent. These are those who have more than one set of values or could be considered multicultural, new-age, centrist, ambiguous, or otherwise not having a single identity. Sometimes the divergent are hiding as part of a faction, and sometimes they're part of the factionless— the people who for whatever reason are classless, therefore outcastes of the society.
While there are many subtle lessons in this movie— especially pertaining to psychology, sociology, and social psychology— the biggest lesson in the movie is that people are truly different in many ways, and yet are equally valid. A secondary but more important lesson is that differences lead to genuine misunderstandings that often lead to idolization and demonization— and as a consequence, war.
There is a critical scene which makes this ever so relatable— when an Abnegation (selfless) and an Erudite (selfish) argue. In this scene, we see that the Erudite sees life from a self-centrifugal perspective. The Erudite believes their must be a selfish motive behind the selfless things the Abgnigation does. He simply cannot wrap his head around selflessness. Likewise, Abnegation is so other-centered, these cannot wrap their head around those who give a damn about themselves— because to them, self-preservation is wrong.
Such would be a good example of when a Masochist and Hedonist try to understand each other.
To a masochist, self-suffering feels right.
To a hedonist, self-suffering feels wrong.
Strangely enough, most of the world is highly religious and most religions and spiritual paths train people in masochism. However, we are all born biologically hedonistic— to avoid pain. The religious and medical (sanity) contexts of the discussion is another discussion but the reason I think Steemians would benefit from watching this movie is because, like the movie, and like all Social Media (and the internet) we have people with different values and rules, ideas of right and wrong, concepts of authority, concepts of entitlements, etc.— all mingling.
When we get into discussions of RIGHT vs WRONG, be it morally or behaviorally, here or anywhere, one man's HELP is another man's CONTROL. One person's love is another person's toxicity.
How does this play out in the real world?
EXTREMELY private people tend to have the opinion that exhibitionists are ANNOYING, bold, shameless, vain, braggadocios, and narcissists.
EXTREMELY transparent or exhibitionist people tend to have the opinion that private people are secretive, deceptive, up to something sneaky, and shameful.
Deeply, FYI, in most cases, the other wishes they were a little more like the other, lol.
Neither one is wrong or right about the other. It's subjective, comparative, and relative.
Anyhow, they demonize each other on the basis of this one value. The difference in values causes a conflict and toxicity, simply by coexisting, and the result is GETTING TRIGGERED.
What does it mean to be triggered?
It happens in two ways. First, when something reminds you of something abusive. But newsflash, we are all constantly abused and abusing each other— usually by accident. Such is life. The other is by subconcious disengagment and demonizing. A good example of this is whenever some people see a pentagram they automatically think, "DEVIL, RUN, EVIL, MURDER THE WITCH."
I won't go in here on the topics of mind control and conditioning human mammals— and I may never. What I wanted to share here is that this movie is a great way to understand that you're not always right (and neither am I.)
If you want to learn more about ending cycles of shame and subtle control over others (perhaps because it sucks when people control you and shame you also) you may want to consider looking at this article about why you SHOULD remove SHOULD from your vocabulary... irony intended.
Lastly, I'm not exempt. I wish that heaven were more like my heaven too. My heaven and your heaven might look different. I wish the world were more like the world I would be happiest in also. Even though yours might have my head on a plate for dinner. I wish Steemit would be more like I envisioned it to be. And I'm sure others, more powerful with money, or more powerful with manpower, would envision it differently.
Tolerance, acceptance, or separatism is never real or even possible. It's impossible. It's mathematically improbable whereas it's more likely the sun were to explode right now and kill everyone.
What IS possible is learning. What is possible is love. What is possible is negotiation and allegiance.
End rant
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It's funny you wrote this. I wrote this big rant this morning and then decided it might be too negative so I shelved it to think about. What I was saying is kinda similar to some of the points you make. My belief on here and in life is do whatever the fuck you want as long as you don't hurt anyone. If you don't like something, ignore it. There are too many people on here trying to make rules and tell people how they should be posting. This is about freedom. Just let people be and ignore stuff you don't like. It's as simple as that. I can go on really long rants lol.
Why would your rant be negative?
I share your philosophy. Although I've been called a satanist for it because their first tennant is "do as thou wilt, but harm none." Such is another example of demonization and association fallacy. I often retort, "I'm not your enemy."
Consider bacteria... we call bacteria that's helpful to us pro-biotics and we call bacteria harmful to us germs. No, they're just all bacteria doing bacterial like things, lol— minding their own damn business, and likely unaware of our existence as macrobeings. But we've labeled them good and bad relative to their effect on us. We're so vain, lol. We're also the center of the solar system apparently.
Likewise, we each label others relative to how we perceive they effect ourself (or those we care for.) We, without haste, label enemies to ourself bad, we label enemies of our ideas critics, we label enemies of our feelings toxic, we label enemies to our groups— political, religious, social, etc. We use loaded ad hominems in my our heads.
Yes, in some contexts these can be true— but also false generally. True for us only.
Major disclaimer here is I'm not criticizing anyone for doing this— just spotlighting. I'm not saying anyone is wrong for it. It's normal. It's survival mechanism. It's healthy. It's however, usually total bullshit. Normal mammaliam bullshit. Lmao. And that's all I'm highlighting. At the end of the day, what I eat doesn't (directly) make you shit.
Some people believe freedom is an illusion. Others believe freedom is our rawest state of being. Who is right? Down the rabbit hole we go. ;)
Well I suppose it would be both. I was focused on what I thought was negative. I think everything is kinda like that. It's a yin-yang. It's taoism. I just haven't decided if I wanted to put that out there. I might.
It is a logical fallacy. There are moral principles or Natural Law that I believe to be true. But most beliefs are untrue if we're honest with ourselves and look objectively.
Exactly. One of the biggest problems I see in the world is polarization. You see it all the time. You see it mostly in politics and individuals with what psychology calls personality disorders. I'm not gonna make a correlation between the two right now, but I may propose a thesis at some point lol. But, polarization can really be bad and cause a huge division in groups of people and in interpersonal relationships. There is a grey area in most issues. Everything is on a spectrum. Life is messy. I really like the bacteria metaphor. It's a matter of perception. And, labels are often bullshit. They're not really real. Their just make belief ideas we assign to things in our mind. They don't exist anywhere outside of ourselves and those we get to share our make believe world with. And, I'm not saying that's good or bad. See that's on a spectrum too. Sometimes labels are useful, and sometimes they cause demonization or association fallacy because they can be a polarization. I think if we could limit polarized thinking by educating people somehow there would be less of the oversimplified thinking and beliefs. Maybe we need more people to be like Socrates and question the world more.
Well, I could say a lot more. And, I would like to go more down the rabbit hole. lol. I hope that made some kind of sense. Sometimes I ramble and it makes sense to me but can be misunderstood. I have a million ideas running through my head now of how that type of thinking, cognitive dissonance, and several other things we see in individuals is a fractal of what we see in masses. Well, I really like what you wrote. This is something that could really expounded upon and make a really interesting article or thesis I think.
I'd be interested in reading your spin on things. I know as an AQ you and I are mentally on a similar wave so you'll have at least one devoted reader. @Meno just made a post as well about similar things and was very concise and to the point (with some hilarious pictures.)
Alright cool. I'm gonna marinate on it and maybe add or take away. I will check him out. I like seeing the same things from a different perspective. That sounds like me goal most of the time. Concise and to the point. I like to elaborate though to clarify and avoid misunderstanding. Sometimes we have to expound to minimize. And, sometimes we have to minimize to maximize.
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Well now you know I need to watch the movie.
I know you will enjoy it tremendously!
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