When we settle for our understanding of others based on a mere label, we limit our capacity to understand one another and short circuit healthy relationships. That’s one reason why the world in Divergent was better off once they eliminated factions. People could be understood for the complicated beings they truly were. We can reap the same benefit in our world if we no longer settle for seeing people as a mere label.

My family recently finished watching the Divergent trilogy. The dystopian narrative imagines a future where people in society are split up into factions based on values and aptitude. One faction is brave, another is honest, another is intelligent, etc. Of course, not every member of the society fits neatly into one of these categories. Some people have characteristics that fit multiple factions. Part of the plot includes a fight to overturn the faction system.

Naturally, our family got into a discussion about how our modern society has its own faction system with labels for different groups: Democrat, Republican, libertarian, conservative, liberal, pro-life, pro-choice, Christian, Muslim, gay, artist, athlete, etc. Although we don’t live in exactly the same dystopian world of the Divergent series, one important point that carries over from the movie is that people don’t always fit neatly into categories. It’s easy to misunderstand who a person is and/or what they believe if you don’t take the time to get to know them. People and their views are almost always more nuanced than what we might conclude based on a label.

For example (and I’ve spoken with several people like this), imagine a girl who identifies herself as “pro-choice.” A typical pro-life Christian might assume this person is a feminist who believes abortion should be legal for any reason throughout all nine months of pregnancy. It’s possible this is her view, but being pro-choice could mean many different things. Though she might agree with the general idea of a woman’s “right to choose,” she could believe that abortion is wrong as a method of birth control, that abortion is wrong after the first trimester, and that abortion is wrong in a case where the unborn has Down syndrome. In other words, she could identify as “pro-choice” but be morally opposed to the vast majority of abortions. That’s why it would be a mistake to draw a conclusion about her views based merely on her self-designation of “pro-choice.”

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