“The foundation and key strategy of the consensus process is the knowledge that all individuals have an inherent fear of being alienated from the group”
It works only when the individual thinks that he has been alienated from God. Many folks operate on acceptance from group think and are not strong enough spiritually to operate alone when needed. Granted the Bible says for Christians to also not’forsake the gathering together” but that is for mutual support and strengthening for the times when not all Christians in a given church or gathering could be together.
I remember recently a video report showig a girl from a local college campus criticizing the state AG for stating that only the state legislature could pass laws outlining the types of discriminatory practices banned on state campuses, the colleges could not enact those bans on their own. The girl stated “we’ll be laughed at in other states” as her reason as to why the AG’s policy should not be enforced. It didn’t occur to the girl that there might be others laughing at her already.
Fear of social ostracization, eh? Is it new?
John 9:20-22
20”We know he is our son,” the parents answered, “and we know he was born blind. 21But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself.” 22His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for already the Jews had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ[a] would be put out of the synagogue.
It works as well when the individual has no beliefe in God and has adopted the secular humanist standard. In that case human kind and the “group” become all important thus reinforcing power of alienation. This is precisely why the Communists always supress the Church and ulitmately find it necessary to kill believers. Thus for example, the Hegelian Dialectic is being daily used in the public school system to shame certain ethnic groups into the belief that because of historical events they are beholden to other ethnic groups notwithstanding the fact that those historical events were doubtless beyond the students control. In this manner, the public schools produce self-hating white liberals for whom the idea of acceptance and popularity with the “others” takes prime importance. Now of course the same technique is being used by the Gay rights groups to indoctrinate and recruit youngsters into alternate sexual preferences. Of course, by replacing God with secular humanism and moral relativity as opposed to moral certainty, the Communists have enabled the anti-life groups. Here the idea is that if everyone does abortion or infanticide then it’s o.k. and acceptable because everyone else is doing it. Same will of course hold true on pulling the plug on Granny. The connundrum this ultimately presents the Communist is that at the end of the day one finds that they have created a society not unlike Lord of the Flys and they can find themselves inadvertently careening toward anarchy.
” Many folks operate on acceptance from group think and are not strong enough spiritually to operate alone when needed”
Spirited: Recall the ancient Hebrews crying out for a king because they feared being ‘different from the herd.’