Rousseau casts the social contract both as a genealogical account of how governments arise and a prescriptive account of how they ought to be made. He can also be read as casting the social contract in a critical role: showing how society would organize itself in certain counterfactual circumstances. A merely hypothetical contract can serve the critical role of reconciling us to our actual circumstances while at the same time specifying what reforms are demanded. Rousseau’s social contract creates a general will, volonté générale, which is not an aggregation of separate wills, nor is it simply the immersion of several selves into a “hive mind.” It is what each wills, even those who disagree with the majority, which announces what the general will wills. Especially interesting is the act by which the general will arises: Citizens abstract from their own selves and situations and surrender all their rights to the political community. And “since each gives himself entirely, the condition is equal for all, and [thus] no one has any interest in making it burdensome to the rest.” Rousseau’s social contract requires there be a civil religion intolerant of those who believe their own faith to be the unique way to salvation.