Fantastic Metropolis

Does it really matter that he believed the stars to be animated beings like ourselves, or that he credited the planets with an androgynous nature (although he also suspected them of having intercourse with each other)? In what way are his very interesting observations on human nature discredited by the belief that the moon was once a lady named Phoebe and that her death caused the Flood reported in the Old Testament? These and other fantasies, too numerous and grotesque to be listed here, surely point to nothing more alarming than a hidden vein of poetry for which he had found no suitable outlet. They should not be allowed to take precedence over his prophetic warning that real progress was something other than the mechanical confection of instruments for destroying human happiness.

—George Lichtheim, The Origins of Socialism

All of this might have been delightfully amusing to most Harbinger readers if not for three things: (1) the mind from which those thoughts sprang had been absolutely serious; (2) that mind was supposed to guide them in what leaders of Association called “the science of society”; and (3) Fourier’s invasion of a sacred precinct, creation according to scripture, alienated allies both committed and potential, and it placed another powerful weapon in the hands of those opposed to social reorganization.

Negative reaction to “Cosmogony” appeared quickly from both inside and outside the Associationist camp. From the outside, John Humphrey Noyes, founder of Oneida, said in his Bible paper The Perfectionist, “If the Fourierists received this as a direct revelation, we have no fault to find, except with their credulity. But if it is to pass for the result of human investigation, it is evidently very silly, impudent stuff.”

—Seymour R. Kesten, Utopian Episodes

Noyes was the founder of the Oneida community, a more than thirty year experiment in the creation of an ideal Christian commune, “Bible Communism” at its most developed. This is a man who developed the concept of complex marriage, where every man and every woman in the community was considered married, and who put into practice the eugenic concept of stirpiculture, wherein the actual breeding of children by the community was carefully selected. (Noyes’ community managed to take all of the fun out of being in a community where everyone was considered married to everyone else, since in order for members of Oneida to consummate their sexual relationships they had to ask an elder first and they had to stop before the man could climax, so even there they fell far short of Fourier’s ideas of freedom, liberation and pleasure in novelty being important to the maintenance of a stable society… but the potential was there.) Noyes had first attempted to practice his ideas of Bible Communism in Putney, Vermont, alongside his rich wife Harriet (who he married either for his high-minded ideals of the communal love of all of God’s children for each other, or because he needed her cash to publish his Perfectionist newspapers, you make the call) but was ultimately forced to move to Oneida in New York to avoid public outrage over his intent to completely change the very nature of marriage and society. Undaunted, Noyes continued his quest to create a perfect union with God in Oneida, by creating perfect Christians via stirpicultural breeding, ultimately selecting a crop of young followers to sign oaths and undergo the process. A committee was set up to approve or deny the requests of later members of the community as to having children, and sometimes the committee would tell young members of the community to have children who had not considered or intended it.

Therefore, in alienating Noyes, Fourier had basically (and unknowingly, since Fourier had by this time been dead for well over a decade) helped drive a stake into the utopian movement in the United States. I’m sorry to tell Mr. Lichtheim this, but for the strongly religious folks who composed the Bible Communists and others who were similarly willing to listen to Fourier’s message of sexual equality, social liberation, and efficiency by way of planned communities (like then-minister John Murray Spear of the Universalist Church, who would become famous later for his own eccentric views), Fourier’s arguments that, say, the aroma of the planet Jupiter created oxen or that the moon had caused the Great Flood did matter, and as much as any of the other reasons, be they economic or social, utopianism died as a result of the schism between Associationists, Owenists and Bible Communists that followed the publication of Fourier’s more fanciful theories.

Which is a shame, because they’re excellent in their detail and insanity. I mean, the stars and planets getting it on in a vast asexual celestial orgy, transmitting the matter of creation via cosmic smell? The oceans, Fourier told us, would be transformed into lemonade and 37 million Newtons, 37 million Molières, and 37 million Homers (the poet, not the Simpson) would come into existence. I mean, this is some kickass stuff, and I think it’s a damn shame that the American Utopians didn’t roll up their sleeves and put some of that gumption and determination into making it happen. But instead, it’s as if Fourier’s more unconventional thoughts poisoned the sugar, as it were, of his more coherent social theories, and the movement floundered. Their worldview, or paradigm if you prefer, couldn’t swallow the whole of the man, since it had been originally formed on just his writings on the phalanstere and the attractive labor theory: even Fourier’s American defenders were ignorant of much of the man’s writings.