Utopian and Scientific

Utopian and Scientific

“Gray Light”—Paul Brown in the New Harmony Gazette (1825–1827)

February 3, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur
The inception and first instance of any mode, when not immediately perceived, is not an object of intuition or demonstrative knowledge. Such as that of the commencing of a customary way of subsisting, among the individuals of a race of animals with whatever degree of intelligence endued, must be abstracted to the most general sense, before it can be an object of assurance. To go to particulars, as of time, words, &c., is to carry the subject into the province of fiction. If we take into our purport the ideas of the names or shapes of persons,—the place where and the time when, i. e. the number of revolutions of the earth since, such a circumstance took place, as the herding together of several individuals of the human species, or the consociating of two individuals of that species, we cannot make the proposition an object of assurance, by the scale of a dialectic process. True logic excludes sophistry.

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Utopian and Scientific

King C. Gillette, “The Human Drift” (1895)

January 16, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] The recent Gillette ad is little more than “woke” capitalism—the familiar process of “turning rebellion into money”—but there are certainly worse messages out there. And it offers an opportunity to recall the more radical politics of King Camp Gillette, who believed that “business principles” led pretty directly to a form of utopian socialism. Gillette’s first book, The Human Drift, is largely forgotten now, but it caused quite a stir among those radicals who had been attracted to Bellamy’s Looking Backward, Gronlunds’ Cooperative Commonwealth, etc. Twentieth Century—which by that time was nothing like an anarchist paper, […]
French texts

Charles Fourier in the “Phalange” (2nd series, 1836–1837)

January 14, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur
[IN-PROGRESS] Translations: Remedies for Various Slaveries (pdf) SCIENCE SOCIALE. Remède de divers Esclavages. (Article de M. Fourier.) Au moment où l’Angleterre fait un folle dépense de cinq cents millions pour affranchir ses esclaves coloniaux, qu’elle pourrait libérer sans aucun frais et sans risque de déclin de l’industrie aux Antilles ; Au moment où le France, dans un accès d’Anglomania, veut faire chorus de duperie et projette un nouvel impôt ou emprunt de trois cents millions pour affranchir ses nègres coloniaux, qu’elle peut libérer sans qu’il en coûte rien ; N’est-ce pas le cas d’examiner la méthode qui affranchirait GRATIS tous les […]
encyclopedia entries

Dictionary of Phalansterian Sociology — A

January 13, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur
ABANDON. — L’abandon des faibles, des enfants el des vieillards est un des caractères de la civilisation empruntés à la sauvagerie. N. 109, 407, 424. — L’ordre civilisé ne pouvant produire que le mal et l’hypocrisie, est impuissant à assurer la protection efficace des faibles; l’assistance de l’enfance y dégénère rapidement en exploitation, sous le masque de la charité, et celle des infirmes et des vieillards en abus. ABANDONMENT. — The abandonment of the weak, of children and of the elderly is one of the characteristics that civilization has borrowed from savagery. New Industrial World.109, 407, 424.—The civilized order can […]
Utopian and Scientific

Charles Fourier, “Neology”

July 13, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
NEOLOGY. Has not a new Science the ability to use some new words and to create for itself, if necessary, a complete nomenclature? Would we refuse to the sciences the prerogative granted to the subordinate functions, which have their collection of technical terms chosen without method? I will use that license with moderation, and when I am forced to resort to neology, it will be with a care to avoid NEOLOGISMS and arbitrariness, and support the denominations already accepted in the fixed sciences. The same regularity will reign in the signs, the special numbers, the gamut  sand series, and the whole […]
Utopian and Scientific

Fourier, “Intermeshing of the Series by Cabalistic Gastronomy”

October 7, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] THE NEW INDUSTRIAL WORLD CHAPTER XXVI. Intermeshing of the Series by Cabalistic Gastronomy. In the course of the preceding sections and the Preface, we have had occasion to jest about a thesis several times repeated and laughable at first glance; it is that (224) in the societary regime gluttony is a source of wisdom, insight, and social accord. I can give that strange thesis the most regular proofs. No passion has been more badly esteemed than gluttony. Can we presume that God considered as a vice the passion to which he […]
Utopian and Scientific

Charles Fourier, “Melons that Never Deceive”

January 14, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur
THE THEORY OF UNIVERSAL UNITY   VOLUME 3, pages 47-50.   CIS-AMBLE,   Melons that never deceive, or prodigies of composite serial Gastronomy.   Let us give some articles to each of the classes of readers. There are those who love amusing demonstrations, connected to their favorite pleasures; the gastronomes are among this number: I attempt, in this mediant, their conversion. I suppose that they are already moved by the depictions of the refinement that the Passional Series introduces into good food. I will give gormandizing some more nobles colors, and present it as the principle aide of the economic […]
Utopian and Scientific

Charles Fourier, “Major or Gastrosophic War”

January 14, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur
  A colleague and I have been working on a translation from Fourier’s New Amorous World, which focuses on the “wars” between the armies of Harmony to determine the most generally pleasing series of means of preparation for petits pâtés. This is a companion piece from The Theory of Universal Unity, which describes variations on the same process.    Major or Gastrosophic War.   Let us banish calculations from an article dedicated to beautiful subjects, to nice tastes. Let us not, however, entirely neglect method. We call nice tastes those with which we can form at least a regular series […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Charles Fourier, Cardinal and the Principal Movements in the Harmony of the Universe

September 16, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
FOURIER. I am aware that it is very humiliating for an age in possession of so much physical and mathematical science, to be branded with ignorance concerning other branches of knowledge; to be openly accused of entertaining false notions on many subjects, and of not being initiated even in the most elementary details of several very important sciences; such, for instance, as the four following:— Industrial Association. Passional Attraction. Aromal Mechanism. Universal Analogy. If the pride of modern learning feel offended at this sweeping declaration, let it reflect upon the following table of distinctions in the branches of universal unity; […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Charles Fourier, Framework for the Integral Study of Nature

September 12, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
FOURIER ON THE UNITY OF SYSTEM IN UNIVERSAL NATURE. Modern sophists, particularly in France, have generally aimed at explaining the unity of system which is remarkable in universal nature, and yet the philosophical world never was farther removed from the right line of study on this subject than at present. There is hardly a correct idea abroad concerning the fundamental basis of universalism or general unity, which may be thus resumed:— Unity of man with man, Unity of man with God, Unity of man with the universe. In this book it will be demonstrated that philosophers have either purposely or […]