Tocqueville and the laicism in America

Abstract

We have only afforded the political –not the cultural– aspect of the laicism although Tocqueville clearly supported both aspects. When approaching the religious fact, the author of the work The Democracy in America is not interested in the theological dimension but merely in the social one. The religion plays a stabilization role whether in the day life of each person or in the community life. In fact, its irruption in the public life takes place, when the main causes are analyzed, and, among other points, it is considered necessary to preserve the democratic republic. Its crucial importance was previously suggested when listing the quick list of people which it affects and it is enhanced when it becomes evident that its influence covers both the field of the thinking and the field of the action: this will be analyzed subsequently. Anyway, in our critical consideration, we have focussed not only in the confinement of the women in their homes according to the religious doctrine or in the expulsion of the atheists from the kingdom of the humanity because identified and considered as a devil sons –in the American society, a so religious kingdom– but also in the function of the religion as a counterpoint to the passion of the welfare which can be ruled with a minimum of success.