Painting by Friedrich Prölss.
The best example of how a consensus is formed is the family. Amid the joys and sufferings of life together, the family is such a source of intense cohesion that even non-family members such as close friends can be assimilated into it with a high degree of adherence and affinity. The whole family is enriched by every addition that is treated as yet one more star in the family constellation.
Painting by Franz Bohumil Doubek.
Similar absorbing unity can be observed in other social units, especially those where individuals experience together the vicissitudes of life, such as in a religious vocation, profession, school, or military unit.
John Horvat, Return to Order: From a Frenzied Economy to an Organic Christian Society—Where We’ve Been, How We Got Here, and Where We Need to Go (York, Penn.: York Press, 2013), 323.
