The Wisdom of the Divergent Voice

by Kai Cheng Thom

Note: Dear Readers, this post marks the beginning of a slightly different direction for my Substack. Given the current and dire political moment, I am intentionally focusing on bringing strategies, frameworks, and tools, for revitalizing and strengthening the Left’s capacity for movement-building and coalition-building to a broader audience from my practice of somatics, Healing Justice, and conflict transformation. You can still expect my more literary essays and speeches to appear here from time to time, but I am attempting to build in a more frequent series of short pieces on the practical application of concepts from my “day job” as well.

The Problem As We Know It

It is an open secret among Leftists in the Global North that our political movements have a problem when it comes to building strong and durable coalitions - in other words, we struggle to develop the exact kind of solidarity-based action that we desperately need now, as fascism surges globally and the old order of neoliberal hegemony collapses around us. While the Right forms alliances between billionaire techlords and ultra-conservative religious fanatics, the Left divides itself, debates ideological purity and identity with corrosive bitterness, and relies on tactics of shame and blame to police itself internally.

In 2025, this analysis is nothing new - it was not even new in 2018, when I first published I HOPE WE CHOOSE LOVE, a memoir in essays on revolutionary love, Transformative Justice and toxic dynamics in social justice culture. That book itself was influenced by adrienne maree brown’s text Emergent Strategy, as well as Mia Mingus and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s whole body of work, and a growing chorus of voices have continued to diagnose and push back against the dynamics of divisiveness, peer surveillance, toxic conflict, and call-out culture/cancel culture on the left, to various degrees of celebration and backlash. A 2022 essay by Maurice Mitchell in Convergence magazine “Building Resilient Organizations: Toward Joy and Durable Power in a Time of Crisis” gained particular traction in the months after its publication among my peer group of facilitators, mediators, and organizers, given Mitchell’s sharp analysis of the ways that toxic dynamics play out on the ground in social movement spaces - that is, they collapse and divide us, preventing us from getting important work done.

It is clear, then, that we need different ways of organizing, movement-building, and decision-making; of cultivating ideological and activist spaces that are resilient against the toxic effects of groupthink and purity politics (the notion that we must all agree ideologically 100% in order to work together and drive out potential allies if they refuse to adhere completely to a strict code of beliefs and behaviors).

Theories of social change such as Complexity Theory and brown’s Emergent Strategy encourage us to perceive movement-building as akin to working within complex ecosystems - I am encouraging the reader here to think about practicing movement-building on the Left as planting the seeds of a culture that can grow and add strength and richness to our ideological ecology. There are many aspects to this, including ideas and concepts that I hope to write about in other installments of this series. This piece, however, focuses on the key to resilience in any ecosystem under existential threat: divergence and diversity.

My thesis: In order to transform Leftist culture into an ecosystem strong enough to overturn fascism and transform our world for the better of all peoples, we need to practice hearing the wisdom of the Divergent Voice.

The Divergent Voice

The divergent voice is a term I am using to amalgamate my understanding and practice of several overlapping concepts from different schools of thought and various fields. These include (but are not necessarily limited to):

The Problem Bearer/Symptom Carrier: This idea, which comes from Cybernetics Theory and Family Systems Therapy, is a foundational idea in systemic approaches to Family Therapy. Essentially, it is the notion that in a family or group, there is often one person who is seen as the “problem” because of their conflictual attitude or behaviors, or because of apparent struggles in functioning. The theory asserts that in reality, this individual is expressing the unconscious pain and dysfunctionality of the entire group.

Transformational/Transitional Characters: Another family therapy concept that I was introduced to through the work of embodiment teacher Prentis Hemphill. It refers to a single individual within a generation who changes the course of a lineage’s traumatic patterning - in other words, a cycle breaker, one who chooses to go another way.

The “Li” - This is a term that comes from Lewis Deep Democracy, a form of facilitation developed by psychologist Myrna Lewis out of Mindell’s Processwork. The “Li” refers to a voice or signal coming from within a group that is different from the apparent majority consensus; it indicates that there may be dissent or resistance to the group’s leadership or power dynamic that is hidden within the collective consciousness/

Sociometric Subgroups - In psychodramatist Jacob Moreno’s practice of socioemetrics, it is assumed that within any group (no matter how homogeneous-seeming), there are hidden “invisible subgroups” who are set apart by differences not only in identity or lived experience, but also in perspective, and that making these invisible subgroups visible creates the possibility of deeper connection and change.

The Ones Who Walk Away - An archetypal figure highlighted in science fiction writer Ursula K Le Guin’s famous short story, “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.” In the story, the city-state of Omelas exists in a state of perpetual almost-utopia created through the torture and sacrifice of a single child. In each generation, there are a few citizens who walk away from Omelas, choosing to leave paradise rather than benefit from the situation of such injustice.

To me, the divergent voice is the essence of these concepts, which I am sure are mirrored in many other schools of thought and works of art. If you will indulge me to wax poetic for moment: The divergent voice is the counterpoint tune beneath the melody of any group of human beings, the fish that swims in the opposite direction of the rest of the school, the bird that flies against the flock, the child who calls out that the Emperor has no clothes. It is the light in the dark and the dark in the light. It’s the kid in the class who’s always raising their hand to argue with teacher, and also the kid who’s always falling asleep in the back. It’s the little whisper you can hear in your soul when you are giving in to get along with the group - the voice that holds another truth.

Wherever there is consciousness, or a collective, we can feel and find the divergent voice. Sometimes, we are the divergent voice, which is a frightening role to be in, because to speak divergence is to risk belonging - particularly in communities where belonging hinges on political and/or spiritual purity.

Yet the divergent voice often holds a secret wisdom, as well as enormous potential for transformative change in the direction of the greater good. Have you ever been in a meeting or a classroom where the leader or speaker was saying something that you knew was wrong but afraid to challenge? And have you ever seen it happen that someone else in the group decided to embrace the role of the divergent voice and publicly disagree with the power in the room? Most often when we witness something like this, there is a flash of relief and excitement that surges through the body, the sense of “at last, thank god someone is saying what needs to be said!” Often, too, hearing a divergent voice speak a truth that we have been hiding inside ourselves makes us braver and more capable of allowing our own internal divergent voice to be heard in the group.

The power of the divergent voice is to reveal hidden truths and open us up to wisdom. The fish who swims against the school makes a space for other fish to swim in a new direction - thus influencing the intelligence of the overall collective. A fish that swims in a sudden new direction might be alert, after all, the presence of a new source of food, or a predator that must be avoided.

The Left is a school of fish upon which the sharks of the billionaire class and corrupt politicians have fed on for too long. To defeat them, we must stop swimming in the same rigid formations, open up space for our collective intelligence to grow. In less poetic and more practical terms, how do we do this? One way is to actively encourage the divergent voice.

Growing the Wisdom of the Divergent Voice

Here are some basic tools for encouraging and harvesting the wisdom of the divergent voice - largely drawn from systems therapy, Deep Democracy, and sociometrics techniques:

1) Invite the divergent voice to speak - actively, explicitly invite dissent and disagreement within Leftist organizing and intellectual spaces. Ask: “Does anyone have any different ideas? Does anyone disagree?”

2) Frame disagreement as an opportunity for collective growth - Whenever I teach about encouraging the divergent voice as a facilitator, there’s often some fear that this will create conflict and instability. If we treat the divergent voice as dangerous to our movements, then it becomes dangerous to our movements. If we frame the divergent voice as an opportunity to seek deeper understanding and learn more about one another, the mood changes and divergence becomes less scary and more fun.

3) Create clear agreements and containers - Jung said that there is an exception to every psychological principle, and that’s true here as well. The divergent voice can of course be used to speak harmfully - when I used to run drop-in groups, there was always the possibility that someone was going to drop a slur just to see if they could get away with it. When we invite the divergent voice, we have to be clear on what the conversation is about and why we’re having it. Make an agreement about what’s not going to be talked about or tolerated (like racial slurs, epithets, etc). Set a time limit on conversations so they don’t go on forever. Vote on major decisions, but check in with the divergent voices both before and after the vote is done (check out Lewis Deep Democracy for an excellent voting protocol).

4) Make the invisible, visible for the sake of deeper relationship - When someone speaks in the role of the divergent voice, they are most often revealing something about themself - and also something about the group. This is an opportunity to go deeper, to build trust and strengthen relationships. Name this out loud - thank people for voicing divergence whenever possible (obviously not if they are using the divergent voice to attack somebody else or advocate for fascism/domination/etc).

5) Reclaim freedom of expression as a core Leftist value - Disturbingly, the Right and the “Centre” have claimed freedom of expression as their ideological territory where traditionally it has been a cornerstone of the Left. Our movements must reclaim this pillar for our own, as it is key to the ongoing survival of marginalized cultures, and to our internal organizing capacity

6) Encourage speaking in the “rough draft” - Host meetings, classes, and community conversations as an opportunity for each person to learn more about each other and themselves. Explicitly name that it isn’t required that we have “perfect” opinions or even that we be perfectly sure of ourselves.

7) Listen to the Divergent Voice within yourself - The divergent voice is a fractal role, meaning that it exists within groups but also within the individual consciousness. Most often, we are triggered by, run from, or lash out against others who are speaking in the role of the divergent voice because of hidden feelings or unresolved tensions within ourselves. Practicing self-knowing on an emotional and somatic (body) level are powerful ways to expand our capacity to hear and flow with divergence. Notice where you disagree with people you admire. Notice where you disagree even with yourself. How can you allow multiple truths to exist within one heart? What becomes possible when you do?