ABSTRACT
In the great majority of studies, discourses, and policies concerning citizenship, consensus occupies a central place. The idea then easily follows that by increasing consensus we shall diminish disturbing and disruptive differences. This assumption about the goodness and political desirability of consensus is widespread. A certain amount of consensus is a necessary prerequisite for social and political order. The behaviors of slave and master fit together, but there is no consensus. Fit may or may not go together with consensus. Consensus is not a condition but a problem that citizens have to work on. Consensus is not a precondition but rather a desired outcome of citizen activities. This character of cultural facts, once it is appreciated, makes it tempting to see them as based on consensus in the sense of shared normative convictions of all subjects who are involved in the "creation" of those facts.
