Charles Fourier (1772–1837)

This little book is a translated excerpt from Le Nouveau Monde Amoureux--a compendious early-19th-century envisioning of Harmony, i.e. the social conditions to supersede and abrogate Civilization. If Harmony had come quickly, the World Wars of European hegemony might have been replaced with the gargantuan conflict of petits patés described here. The ur-socialist Charles Fourier (called by his later detractors "utopian") proposed the wholesale replacement of what we have come to know as the show more military-industrial complex by a gastronomic-passional enterprise, where food, sex, and humane service would be the channels by which "the omnimode play of the passions" might be developed in honorable competition among empires.

Peter Lamborn Wilson's brief introduction supplies a sense of the relation of Fourier to the history of ideas, along with some information on the value of the present text (not published even in the original French for nearly a century and a half after his death). Translators Shawn P. Wilbur and Joan Roelofs offer a reasonably approachable English for this material that is somewhat mystifying regardless, taking for granted as it does the reader's appreciation of Fourier's passional calculus along with a future history in which the human population of the globe has reached an abundantly-supplied and sustainable four billion.

There are lacunae and interruptions in the text, which I take to be artifacts of the emergence from manuscript in 1967. These enhance its perversely oracular character with something like the documentary conceit common to older adventure fantasies and science fiction. The basic social unit of Harmony, known in other texts as a phalanstery, is here called a tourbillon. As the translator-editors note, this name "suggests the constant, restless movement by which communities in Harmony find the means of satisfying all the passions" (18 n.). show less

Well that was mostly terrible but not entirely so. I'll try to break this down.
We have about 5% cult-leader style self-promotion and praise, the author compares himself to Columbus and Hercules at various points.
About 10% wacky interpretive fiction, something along the lines of Phrenology or Astrology but he applies it to everything in his 7000 year old universe. From peacocks to the northern lights to the fact Earth doesn't have cool rings like Saturn (he seems particularly bitter about show more that :P ), in the authors view these are all symbols placed by a god to tell us we're doing things wrong.
Another 5% is fairly well aimed critique of civilization and capitalism, the critique is far longer than 5% of the book but only about 5% is not tedious.
So i think we're up to 25%, now, add 65% mind numbing tedium and we're left with a 10% golden nugget of wisdom.

The authors utopian ideas are not terrible, his attempt being to create a system in which peoples greed, jealousy, ambition, sexual passions etc. are beneficial rather than destructive. Using a sort of rival club system combined with the usual commune idea.
However the real highlight is the authors views on slavery and especially the role of women in society. Frankly in some ways his views are more advanced than those of today. Although he doesn't go into too much detail, meaning his views on female equality may not entirely be the same as a modern view of female equality.

Nevertheless some really interesting stuff, like i say a lot of the time after reading an old book, nothing much seems to have changed :( , the authors critique of capitalism and gender equality still being annoyingly relevant.
Overall though still boring as hell :) . show less

Best introduction ever. (1808 version)