Charles Fourier: Utopian Socialist

1573 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Cultural Revolution history Essay

Francois-Marie-Charles Fourier, one of the most influential utopian socialist was born on April 7th, 1772 at Besançon. He was the son of Charles and Marie Muguet. His father Charles was a small businessman who ran a business of cloth but enjoyed a good reputation in the town he lived. Since his early age, Fourier enjoyed more the work of engineering and architecture rather his father’s trading business. As he did not come from a noble family he could not pursue the engineering carrier. M. Victor Considerant, shares his memories of Fourier as a child by saying that his genius and strong character were early noticed when Fourier was only five years old. He claims that even though young he judged the falseness of commercial world and because of his outspoken character he was often punished by his parents. During his childhood he was known to defend justice and to always have consideration of smaller and weaker people. Later on, as his father dies he inherits one fifths of the testimony. The property that he inherited will be taken later on after 1793, by the Republicans. Therefore, the historical event that had the most impact in his life and later on in his original outstanding ideas of how the world should get out of chaos was the French Revolution. As Fourier states in his book “Such was the first consideration which made me suspect of the existence of a Social Science as yet unknown, and which excites me to attempt the discovery of it.” (Théorie des Quatre Mouvements). Charles Fourier was known to be a lonely, bizarre and often insane man due to his often vague ideas of human nature, morality and reality. But, besides that it is hard to contest his genius in his writings, visionary spirit, original thinking and influence in many... ... middle of paper ... ... be afraid of ideas.” (The Marseilles Block, 22). Works Cited Bowles, Robert. The Reaction of Charles Fourier to the French Revolution. French Historical Studies. Vol. 1, No. 3 (spring, 1960), pp. 348-356 Fourier Charles. Théorie des Quatre Mouvements. Published in 1808. Fourier Charles. Théorie de l’unité universelle. Le Nouveau Monde Industriel et Sociétaire. Published in 1829. Goldstein F. Leslie. Early Feminist Themes in French Utopian Socialism: The St.-Simonians and Fourier. Journal of the History of Ideas. Vol. 43, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1982), pp. 91-108 Serenyi, Peter. Le Corbusier, Fourier, and the Monastery of Ema. The Art Bulletin: Vol. 49, No.4 (Dec., 1967), pp. 277-286 Vidler, Anthony. The New Industrial World: The Reconstruction of Urban Utopia in Late Nineteenth Century France. Perspecta. Vol. 13/14, (1971), pp. 243-256

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of Harvey's 'The State Of Paris In 1850'

    769 Words  | 2 Pages

    Paris in 1850 was in an precarious condition. In the Prologue, Harvey compares the state of Paris to a double straitjacket, each of which fortified the other. The first straitjacket refers to the economic crisis that occurred during the late 1840’s. During this time, there appeared to be an upsurge of rural workers coming into Paris from the countryside searching for employment or assistance. With this sudden increase in the population of Paris came a high rate of unemployment and an overaccumulation of capital wealth. This surplus of labour, however, was problematic, since employment was scarce in comparison to the population. Predictably, this situation instigated thoughts of reformations in the capitalist system in place. This economic catastrophe, Harvey argues, is one of the reasons that urged Louis-Napoleon and Haussmann to

    Read More

  • The Events and Impact of the Seven Years War

    1517 Words  | 4 Pages

    Cobban, Alfred . "Historians and the Causes of the French Revolution." Aspects of the French Revolution. New York: George Braziller, 1968.

    Read More

  • To What Extent Did Women Make an Impact on the French Revolution?

    1554 Words  | 4 Pages

    Throughout history, women are often included as a side note to occurrences of their ages, most often seen as small and unimportant among patriarchs. Despite this shortcoming in historical documentations, some events do look more closely through the eyes of women. The French Revolution of the eighteenth century is one of these events. This investigation will be exploring the French Revolution, and asking: to what extent did women make an impact? In Thomas Streissguth’s book, Women of the French Revolution, he highlights several women of France, while also analyzing their contribution to the course of the revolution. With his book as a major source, the investigation will explore the topics of women’s riots and salons, individual women, and women as a whole.

    Read More

  • Karl Marx And Engels View The Criticisms Of The French Revolution

    1124 Words  | 3 Pages

    Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels see the French revolution as a great achievement in human history. However they also discuss serious criticisms of it. Marx and Engels discussed the struggle between two distinct social groups during the French Revolution which are the city poor and the privileged classes and what happens when power fell into the hands of the revolutionary “petty bourgeoisie” and the paris workers creating a class struggle and it impact on political issues . This essay will explain how Marx and Engels view the French revolution and their analysis of the revolution’s achievements and shortcomings.This essay will also apply their analysis of the French

    Read More

  • The Sans-Culottes: A Powerful Driving Force in the French Revolution

    1204 Words  | 3 Pages

    Ed. John Hardman. French Revolution Documents 1792–95, vol. 2. “Père Duchesne, no. 313”. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1973.

    Read More

  • Napoleon Betrayed the Revolution

    1330 Words  | 3 Pages

    Furet, Francois ‘Napoleon Bonaparte’ in G, Kates(ed.) The French Revolution: Recent Debates and New Controversies Clarendon Press, Oxford (1997)

    Read More

  • french revolution

    823 Words  | 2 Pages

    Damiens, Robert F. Pièces Originales Et Procédures Du Procès, Fait à Robert-François Damiens. Paris: Pierre Guillaume Simon, 1757. Print.

    Read More

  • The Abolition of the Feudal System in France

    1337 Words  | 3 Pages

    New York: Barnes & Noble, 1969. Print. The. Kreis, Steven. A. A. "Lecture 12: The French Revolution - Moderate Stage, 1789-1792.

    Read More

  • Cause of the French Revolution

    384 Words  | 1 Pages

    The essential cause of the French revolution was the collision between a powerful, rising bourgeoisie and an entrenched aristocracy defending its privileges”. This statement is very accurate, to some extent. Although the collision between the two groups was probably the main cause of the revolution, there were two other things that also contributed to the insanity during the French revolution – the debt that France was in as well as the famine. Therefore, it was the juxtaposing of the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy as well as the debt and famine France was in that influenced the French Revolution.

    Read More

  • Analysis of Mourning Glory: The Will of the French Revolution by Marie -Helene Huet

    523 Words  | 2 Pages

    The book Mourning Glory: The Will of the French Revolution Marie-Hélène Huet gives a great insight to different angles on the French Revolution. She elaborates on what the intent and purposes are, and how they would fuel The French Revolution. Huet argues that the ideology of the normal everyday lifestyle has been overlooked, and that revolution with violence is the key idea for the attitudes of revolutionist during the time period of 1789 and years later. She explains the comparison of how everyday lives and ideologies of the scientific reason and enlightenment made the people of France have the will and courage to establish a new regime.

    Read More

  • Plan of Champ de Mars, Paris 1889

    2205 Words  | 5 Pages

    Levin, Miriam, When the Eiffel Tower was New: French Visions of Progress at the Centennial of the Revolution. South Hadley, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1989. Silverman, Deborah L., "The Crisis of Bourgeois Individualism", Oppositions 1977, vol. 8, p. 70-91

    Read More

  • A Brief Summary of the Nicaraguan Revolution

    1926 Words  | 4 Pages

    Nardo, Don. A. The French Revolution. San Diego, California: Greenhaven Press, Inc., 1999. Print.

    Read More

  • Capitalism In Charles Fourier's 'The Arcades Project'

    2259 Words  | 5 Pages

    We may locate Benjamin’s central wish image in the Parisian arcades themselves. According to Benjamin, the arcades—those architectural marvels unthinkable before capitalism created the material conditions for them—ladening with tantalizing products, and overflowing with plenty, formed the basis for Charles Fourier’s imaginary utopian dwelling, the phalanstery: “Fourier saw, in the arcades, the architectural canon of the phalanstery. Their reactionary metamorphosis with him is characteristic: whereas they originally serve commercial ends, they become, for him, places of habitation” (5). The abundance in the arcades suggests a dwelling of human plenty, where everybody’s needs can and will be met. Indeed, the products in the arcades appear to

    Read More

  • Paris, Paris And Modernization

    1320 Words  | 3 Pages

    At the height of the Second Empire, Paris was one of the leading centres of capitalist culture in Europe during the mid-nineteenth century, made possible by the city’s reconstruction. The modernisation of Paris initiated an unprecedented method of urban planning under Baron Haussmann. It is this concept of modernisation that people immediately think of in terms of Paris and modernity. This focus on Haussmannisation, however, obscures the fact that Paris was already changing before Haussmann, as was evident in the arcades that sprung up during the 1820s and 30s. Plans of renovating the city were already being thought of in order to manage problems of overcrowding, diseases, social upheavals and infrastructure collapse. However, these plans were never realised; it was the small business owners—or the petit bourgeoisie—who saw to the creation of the arcades that drove the changes made within the urban landscape of pre-Haussmann Paris.

    Read More

  • Architectural Utopia or Dystopia?

    2400 Words  | 5 Pages

    In 1516 Thomas More published Utopia, thereby kindling for the Renaissance as well as four our own times a literary ritual designating an idyllic future society and by outcome evaluating the society already in existence. Throughout history, humans have obsessed with projected Utopias of the world that revealed their perception of it. These multidimensional projections can be viewed as naiveties that leaked to the peripheral world nothing more than subjective thoughts. Half a century after More, Leon Battista Alberti promoted a parallel Utopian tradition of designing the Utopian city, one dedicated to Francesco Sforza. This utopian urban planning initiated a multitude of efforts to install a desirable geometrical pattern for future living without narrating how to achieve it. Another few centuries into the future and we view how this obsession with planning for a Utopia still lives through Le Corbusier’s Villa Radieuse master plan. A master plan proposed as the resolution to the enigma of human existence in an industrialized world. Nonetheless with the acknowledgment of the concept of Utopia and the designing for this we come to ponder even more on whether a Utopia can truly exist aside from within ones mind and whether it turns to dystopia when physically established. Can one collective Utopian vision exist or does a Utopic city stem from the coexistence of a variety of utopian thoughts and ideas.

    Read More

More about Charles Fourier: Utopian Socialist

Open Document