Charles Fourier Quotes on Knowledge
Charles Fourier (1772–1837), the French utopian socialist whose Theory of the Four Movements (1808) and the long subsequent works on the phalanstery and "associative" society gave early-nineteenth-century radical thought one of its most idiosyncratic systematic visions, defended the case that genuine knowledge of the human passions is the indispensable foundation of any rational reconstruction of social life. The framework analyzes the twelve fundamental passions and their proper combinations within the phalanstery community of 1620 souls, with the corresponding programme of "attractive labor" in which the passions are not repressed by moralism but harmonized into productive cooperation. The Fourierist analysis was an important influence on the early Marx through the Manuscripts of 1844.
Quotes
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“Wisdom, virtue, morality, all these have fallen out of fashion: everybody worships at the shrine of commerce.”
The Theory of the Four Movements (1808), G. Jones, ed. (1966), p. 269 -
“The Theory of Social Organization”
Nowhere is there more constancy and more unanimity than among the French to subordinate that sex which they pretend to honor so highly. -
“Ignorant as regards the unity of man with himself, the world is still more ignorant in respect to the two other unities - unity of man with God and the universe.”
Wikiquote -
“Le nouveau monde amoureux”
All repressed passion produces its counter-passion which is as malevolent as the natural passion would be beneficial. -
“Oeuvres completetes de Charles Fourier”
The familial union presents as well a mixture of inconvenient ages and characters that inhibit conversation. Morality engenders a frigid atmosphere, as in all places where it reigns. -
“There is no idea more novel, more surprising, than that of associating three hundred families of different degrees of fortune, knowledge and capacity.”
The Theory of Social Organization(1876) | The Theory of Social Organization . Harmonian Man: Selected Writings of Charles Fourier , p. 5.