ABSTRACT
The hallmark of Simon Critchley’s work has always been timeliness and clarity. His current proposal of the citizen’s catechism is no exception because it touches on deep-seated anxieties within Western culture, namely, a loss of cultural identity, an uncertainty about religion, and an increasing lack of political engagement. In response to this cultural crisis, Critchley takes up Rousseau’s concept of a “civil profession of faith,” a civil religion that reaches the human heart, binding it to the law and government with a greater force than theoretical or practical reasoning alone can provide. In Critchley’s words,
if human rationality is fallible, to say the least, if it cannot be assumed that citizens will always will the good, then this requires a political account of formative passions that might force citizens to love the law, that is, to overcome the obstacles of alienation and inequality through an act of association.1
