by Leah Wilson
—Richard Kohn
What makes a good man commit an evil act? How does a faction with high-minded ideals of “ordinary acts of bravery” and “the courage that drives one person to stand up for another” devolve into chaos, violence, and murder? Do genetics control a person’s acts, or can training and personal choice overcome “natural programming”? How does the physically strongest faction become the tool of another?
In the world of Divergent we are given a look into the five complementary faction societies that make up Tris’ city: Candor—peace through truth; Amity—peace through avoidance of conflict; Abnegation—peace through selflessness; Erudite—peace through knowledge; and Dauntless—peace through bravery. And yet, despite their noble principles, this “perfect society” is rotting and crumbling from within. Like a row of dominos, all it takes to bring down this balanced society is the fall of one faction.
That faction is Dauntless.
The faction known for courage, bravery, and fearlessness, Dauntless was founded by those who blamed fear for the world’s problems. Dauntless’ objective is to combat cowardice by training its members to act in the face of fear—not necessarily to rid themselves of fear, but to embrace it and overcome it. Though it was founded upon the highest ideal of defense of those who cannot defend themselves, it becomes clear during Tris’ initiation in Divergent that Dauntless has drifted quite far from its core belief of attaining peace through freedom from fear. In fact, peace no longer seems to be a goal for Dauntless at all.
This is perfectly illustrated in the scene in Divergent where Dauntless initiates Al and Will are fighting, and massive, yet gentlehearted, Al is unwillingly beating Will to a pulp. Al wants the fight to end since it’s clear he has won/will win, and as their instructor, Tobias offers the option of Will conceding the match to prevent more unnecessary violence, suggesting that “a brave man acknowledges the strength of others.” Not only does Will refuse to concede the fight, but Dauntless leader Eric says, “In the new rules, no one concedes . . . A brave man never surrenders.”
How did this happen? How did Dauntless shift its focus from defense to offense? From killing to murder?
By looking at the real-world military and related psychological studies, some answers become readily apparent.
Dauntless’ founding principles are similar to those currently held by modern-day military and police forces such as the United States Marine Corps—“Honor, Courage, Commitment” (the first principles I, along with every other Marine, learned upon joining the Corps)—and the Los Angeles Police Department—“To Protect and to Serve.” Though trained, structured, and administered like a military force, Dauntless was originally used to patrol not only the edges of the city, but also the factionless areas as a police force (until Abnegation voted to have them stop)—which inherently leads to a conflict of interest.
Military forces are not civilians, and once a civilian dons a military uniform they give up many rights and privileges that citizens of society are allowed. They no longer have some forms of freedom of speech (i.e., members of the military cannot publicly speak out against the President, their Commander in Chief). They cannot “quit” their jobs when they’d like (most have a minimum contracted obligation of four years), they can be charged and found guilty of things that negatively impact the good order and discipline of a unit (such as adultery), and they are held to strict weight, grooming, and physical fitness standards (if you are overweight or cannot pass the annual physical fitness test, you will be administratively separated from the military). Military members are even held to a different justice system and standards (the Uniform Code of Military Justice, in the United States). A military’s purpose is to take over when politics fail; they go forward into battle when words no longer work. Conversely, police officers are civilians, tasked with peacekeeping, not warfighting. Based on why Dauntless was formed, and how it has been utilized in the past, Dauntless’ role in this society is to be peacekeepers. Yet they are trained for battle and war, which leaves a void that, in lieu of any other guidance or employment of said skills, is often filled by reckless thrill seeking, and eventually, in Divergent, something much worse.
Dauntless initiates don’t arrive trained and ready to kill. Generally, humans have a natural aversion to killing other humans. Knowing this, it should come as no surprise that without proper training to overcome this instinct, most soldiers—or, as in this case, Dauntless initiates—will not automatically or willingly kill the “enemy.” Think of Tris at the beginning of Divergent, who, given her Abnegation background, would have found it difficult to hurt another living creature even at the expense of her own life. Yet by the end of the book she is able to, without hesitation, shoot a friend in the head in self-defense. This was learned, not natural, behavior.
People generally assume that troops in battle instinctively respond to attack with a counterattack or that in a kill-or-be-killed situation, soldiers will choose to kill. This is not the case. One hundred fifty years ago, after the Battle of Gettysburg, thousands of rifles were found on the battlefield filled to the top with wad. What this tells us is that soldiers had pretended to fire, then reloaded their rifles until the barrels were absolutely full. Interviews conducted with thousands of American soldiers during World War II by Army historian S. L. A. Marshall revealed that as many as 75 percent of soldiers never fired their weapons during combat.
So if humans have a natural aversion to killing, how do we overcome this? Because we do manage to kill each other. A lot.
The answer is psychology, exploitation of our natural instinct toward herd mentality, and, of course, training, training, and more training. Tried and true practices such as dehumanizing the victim (take a look at old WWII propaganda posters on both sides of the war: the Japanese were frequently depicted by Americans as less-than-human apes, and the Americans were depicted by the Japanese as cannibalistic monsters) and placing distance between the killer and the victim (e.g., via bombs, long-range weapons) are very effective, but more than that, the training incorporated by the military has made a huge difference. After Marshall’s findings were published following WWII, the US military radically reformed its training process to more effectively prepare troops for combat.
While the US Marine Corps had always trained and enforced the ideal of “every Marine a Rifleman” (such that cooks, drivers, or administrators do not hesitate to pick up a rifle and fight alongside the infantry when needed), it was a radically foreign concept to the other branches of service, particularly the Army, and they needed to adjust their training practices drastically.
Bull’s-eye targets were swapped out for pop-up human-shaped targets to accustom the recruits to firing at human forms. More realistic combat training scenarios were devised to prepare the recruits mentally for the chaos of war, and large simulations/exercises/war games were completed to teach even the smallest unit leader how to think and adjust to the ever-changing situation in combat. Even something as seemingly innocuous as teaching new recruits to yell “kill” when closing with and destroying the enemy psychologically prepared them for what they’d have to do. The ultimate objective was to make killing an automatic response in combat.
As Tobias says in Allegiant, “The physical technique is important . . . but it’s mostly a mental game . . . You don’t just practice the shooting, you also practice the focus. And then, when you’re in a situation where you’re fighting for your life, the focus will be so ingrained that it will happen naturally.” And it works, both in Dauntless and the US military. Interviews with American soldiers during the Vietnam War showed that nearly all the soldiers shot at enemies during firefights.
In this respect, Dauntless is operating as it should. Their training is appropriately preparing the initiates to use violence against other human beings when necessary. But that’s not all training is for—and this is where the Dauntless training goes awry.
As in any sort of physically demanding task, there will be some natural attrition through either ph
ysical injury or a desire not to continue—generally no more than 10 percent in a standard military recruit-training environment. These losses are actually a good thing, in that those who remain are the ones most capable of fulfilling the role they are being trained for. Rigorous training also creates what will ultimately become a very effective and cohesive fighting force. But Dauntless takes things in their initiation to a counter-productive extreme by weeding out over 50 percent of their initiates. “You chose us,” Eric tells Tris’ initiate class in Divergent. “Now we have to choose you.”
What the Dauntless leaders have failed to realize (or perhaps they just ignore it because of the “new rules”) is that ultimately troops do not fight for the “greater good,” or for their country or whatever “great purpose” is placed before them. No, troops fight for their team—for their brothers-and sisters-in-arms. They fight for each other because they are family—a family whose ties are thicker than blood. Those ties have been forged over months, if not years, of shared hardship and triumph, shared culture, and shared purpose, and as such, those bonds are unbreakable.
Dauntless has removed, through purposeful attrition, any sort of team mentality or desire to work together. They have removed any familial bonds or ties. Every member is looking out for themselves, not for their fellow Dauntless.
We can ascertain from what Tobias tells Tris about how much Dauntless has changed just since he transferred there that this was not how Dauntless was originally envisioned. Initially, Dauntless was probably much like our modern-day military, where nearly anyone who physically qualifies for boot camp will be transformed into a soldier, sailor, Marine, or airman. Dauntless’ reason for the harsh cuts and attrition may have been that they only wanted the best, but what ended up happening was that they wound up with the most ruthless and brutal—those who would stab anyone, including fellow Dauntless, in the back to advance themselves.
The motto of the Marine Corps is Semper Fidelis (often shortened to Semper Fi), which means “Always Faithful,” and is exemplified by the handling of Marine recruits in recruit training. Marines are faithful to the Corps, and the Corps is faithful to its Marines. The Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD) has a banner over its entrance that states “WE MAKE MARINES.” And they do. As opposed to Dauntless’ attrition rate of more than 50 percent, the MCRD’s attrition rate is only about 9 percent from recruitment to graduation from boot camp. By graduation, these new Marines have worked hard with each other and have learned to depend on each other, to trust each other with their very lives throughout the most stressful and physically demanding situations they have ever faced. A Marine is willing to put her life on the line because she knows her fellow Marines would do the same for her in a heartbeat. Marine recruits leave MCRD transformed into the most effective warfighting force in the world.
Why would someone willingly choose to put themselves through that? What attracts people to the Marine Corps? It’s still, of all the branches, the most difficult and exclusive to get into. As a current recruitment poster says, “We’d promise you sleep deprivation, mental torment, and muscles so sore you’ll puke, but we don’t like to sugar-coat things.” As with Dauntless, the Marine Corps is a place where young people go to prove themselves or to show that they are tough. Many are attracted by the challenge they know the Marines will give them. Others don’t like to be told “no” or “you can’t.” There is an allure to being part of an exclusive group, to being part of the best of the best, but there must be a team aspect to it—a family, a sense of belonging. Otherwise, it will fall apart, or only those who like to fight for the sake of fighting will stick around. By breaking their recruits down, the modern-day military training depots do an excellent job of building their recruits back up together as a family and a cohesive fighting force.
As demonstrated in Divergent, Dauntless just breaks their recruits and certainly does not build them back up or instill in them the pride of what they do/what their purpose is. Ask any Marine recruit to recite their Corps values and they can spit them out without hesitation. Ask a member of Dauntless, and I suspect most would be hard-pressed to tell you what their faction even stands for at this point.
Somewhere along the way, Dauntless lost something precious: its heart.
One of the main problems with Dauntless is that, at its core, it exists only for itself. It superficially serves a “higher calling” by patrolling the border, but it no longer does any interior police work (which eventually leads to the faction-less gathering together, rebelling, and eventually destroying Dauntless as a faction). Which means that, ultimately, Dauntless serves no real purpose. What are they defending the city from? Empty fields? There is no visible threat, and because of this, no occasion for the members of Dauntless to utilize the training they have been given, which leads us back once again to the reckless, thrill-seeking behavior mentioned above—zip-lining, hanging over a cliff, jumping from heights, jumping onto and off a moving train.
The factions were originally set up to work independently of each other. Though together they comprised a balanced and functional society, each faction had autonomy and no one faction provided oversight over another. The main danger in allowing a militaristic group (like Dauntless) so much autonomy is that eventually they discard the democratic decision-making process and use physical force to achieve their goals, whatever those goals may be. Our own history is rife with examples: Julius Caesar illegally crossing the Rubicon with the Roman army in 49 B.C., marching on Rome, and eventually becoming dictator in perpetuity—the first domino in the downfall of the Roman Empire and the democracy they held so dear; the Soviets (dominated by the Bolsheviks) overthrowing and taking over from the Russian Provisional Government in 1917’s October Revolution, thus paving the way for Joseph Stalin’s regime, during which millions lost their lives.
We combat this in real-world democracies by assigning elected civilian leaders oversight of the military. The military retains judicial autonomy and a manner of preserving good order and discipline among its ranks, but elected civilian leaders appoint people to the highest military positions rather than allowing the military to self-select their leaders. For example, general officers in the US military must be vetted, approved, and voted on by the Senate in a confirmation hearing before they can take a major command or assume their next rank.
When people are placed in positions of absolute authority in a closed environment (like a faction) without any form of external oversight or accountability, a pattern often emerges. Behavior that would be considered aberrant in the larger society can become the socially accepted norm. Abuse, brutality, hazing, and violence creep in, eventually sinking roots so deep that the members of the controlling group don’t even realize how far they’ve strayed from their moral center. From the inside, most don’t even realize anything is wrong.
That’s not the only consequence. American military historian Professor Richard H. Kohn states in his essay on “Civilian Control of the Military” that control of the military by elected civilians is essential because it allows a nation to base its values, purpose, beliefs, and institutions on the popular will rather than the will of the strongest, most ruthless, and power hungry. In order to operate efficiently and work as a cohesive unit, a military organization cannot, by its very nature, be a democratic society. Orders must be obeyed and acted upon immediately with no time for debate. Whereas if the most efficient, expeditious route to action is taken in the general populace, often the “little guy”—the weak, the small, the timid, those who have just as much right to representation and having their needs heard and met—gets trampled and ignored.
Essentially, without civilian oversight, the very people the military is sworn to defend become marginalized and eventually forgotten.
This is where proper civilian oversight could have proven beneficial for Dauntless. Instead of being sequestered in its own space to devolve into the violence-ruled enclave it became, where the most vicious and strongest survived to lead and set the tone, an altruistic, sel
fless faction like Abnegation could have provided guidance and policies and prevented that from happening. While Abnegation is in charge of making overall laws for the city, the individual factions still appear to be autonomous in how they administer things within their own groups, with no direct oversight from other factions. Cross-faction oversight would have been a much-needed check and balance that, in fact, all the factions could have used from each other. Because without formal civilian oversight, Dauntless was left with a vacuum that allowed the most power-hungry and ruthless members within it to take control, which made it possible for Jeanine and the Erudite faction she led to influence and utilize Dauntless for their own ends.
There is a general understanding among democratic nations that “civilianizing” the military—meaning having an all-volunteer military force instead of drafted troops—is the best means of preserving the loyalty of the armed forces toward civilian authorities. It prevents the development of an independent “caste” of warriors that might see itself as existing fundamentally apart from the rest of society. Which is precisely what has happened with Dauntless. They have become a warrior caste with no purpose, and they need a purpose. When Jeanine and the Erudite roll in with one, Dauntless leadership is more than happy to oblige.
With Erudite having stepped in, shouldn’t Dauntless then have the civilian oversight they clearly need? Technically yes; realistically no. If we were to liken Dauntless, Erudite, and Abnegation to their real-world counterparts, they’d match up most closely with the military, the corporate sector (the technological and industrial base), and the government, respectively. Yes, our military and the corporate sector do have a relationship, and a very good relationship at that, but industry does not control or provide oversight of the military. And it shouldn’t, because the corporate sector is all about their bottom line. Their primary concern is the revenue to continue their work, not the health and well-being of the civilian populace. The military needs “stuff” (the three “Bs”: beans, bullets, and Band-Aids) and the corporate sector provides that “stuff.” The government provides the oversight.
