Confessors in Harmony

Charles Fourier was an early socialist utopian, part of the French tradition of thinkers who came up with various schemes for the complete reorganization of society on more rational grounds, and whose views now read to us as an unstable admixture of obviously sensible notions, delusional crankery, and things that seem to encapsulate both of those elements at once in a way that brings out the weirder aspects of our own dominant forms of social organization. Fourierist communities, known in as phalansteries, got off the ground in several countries, including a few in the United States. The basic social unit he had in mind was called a phalanx; in his mind, this would consist of 1,620 people, because of course there are 810 types of personality and you need two of each kind. A phalanstery is thus the large housing complex that houses a phalanx. Horace Greeley founded a couple, including the Sylvania Colony in Pennsylvania that eventually became the town of Greeley, PA.

Reading Fourier in his context is of course a matter of careful intellectual history, which we are going to skip here. I just wanted to make a note of a passage I came across this morning where Fourier discusses aspects of his plans for relations between the sexes. Fourier had many interesting views here that flow from his rejection of the constraints of “civilization”.¹ He coined the term “feminism”. His vision was of a kind of liberation of human creative energies and capacities of all kinds, from work to sex, that would be organized in a manner at once fulfilling to individuals and socially productive and harmonious. As is often the case in utopian visions, there’s a desire to have all of the benefits of an advanced division of labor while avoiding its overall problems and rejecting the social mechanisms we seem to have to coordinate it (which is to say, usually, an oppressive state or an open market). French utopian socialism, in particular, often ends up with schemes that are at once clearly hierarchical, or at least occupationally differentiated, highly integrated and solidaristic, but also fully accommodating of individual freedoms and liberties. A magic wand that grants some theory of human nature, or posits a general conversion to some sort of religion of science, is often waved by the author to accomplish the hard parts.

A side effect of this line of thought is that the twin beliefs in rational administration of the social order and the harmonious satisfaction of individual needs and desires can result in ideas that seem strangely familiar to us. For example, in this passage Fourier is discussing the problem of how people should pair up in phalansteries, and in particular how a traveler from one settlement to another should be able to make the best use of their time in matters of love. His answer is that we clearly need some sort of organized matching system that optimizes on the combination of people’s present sexual wants and their basic personality types:

We will now take up one of the most interesting branches of the calculus of the passions: the art of enabling anyone anywhere, even in places where he is a total stranger, to make instant contact with people with whom he is in complete sympathy. If the theory of attraction offered no other advantage, would it not still be a boon to all mankind? Would it not be a blessing to the people of civilization who often spend years in a city without encountering sympathetic partners in love, friendship or any of the passions? In Harmony any traveler will make such acquaintances on the very day of his arrival in a city. … The art of the sympathist, which is unknown in civilization, provides the means for the instant matching of personalities and sympathies, anywhere and under any circumstances.

Let us first consider the enormity of the calculations entailed by sympathetic matching and the speed with which they must be performed. … Let us suppose that a horde of one thousand adventurers and adventuresses has arrived in a Phalanx at four o’clock in the afternoon. They are immediately served light refreshments and then, even before they take time to wash, they rush off to confession. The most skillful confessors and confessoresses of the region have been gathered. Their job is to examine these thousand knights errant, each of whom must submit a written declaration concerning his or her most recent adventures. The confessors go over these declarations as well as the reports of previous confessors; they study the immediate inclinations and physical needs of each individual, and attempt to provide him or her with appropriate sympathetic relationships. Putting all the relevant information together, the confessors determine, by means of an equation, the balance of contrasts and identities that will be most attractive to each of the adventurers.

When an individual is still basking in the enthusiasm of a romantic passion, the delicious contrast provided by a sympathy in the composite mode, should the confessor intervene to provide a diversion? Yes, very likely. For someone who has just concluded a sympathetic relationship in the composite would probably be incapable of duplicating the experience immediately. Then should the confessor provide the visitor with a cabalistic liaison by offering him a choice among several candidates of identical character? Or should an appeal be made to the visitor’s alternating sympathies, his penchant for variety and contrast in both the moral and physical realms? Such are the first questions considered by the confessor. For there are three basic types of sympathies, and the initial problem is to decide which should be employed. A variation may be in order. Or it may be advisable to continue on the same scale of sympathies. For if an individual’s appetite has not been exhausted by his previous adventures, he will be capable of engaging the same sympathies in a higher or lower degree.

That is the heart of the matter; now let us turn to subordinate problems. No matter which of the three sympathies is brought into play, should it be presented directly or should it be preceded by transitions or complements? In the latter case, should the individual be subjected to a direct unitary sympathy or to an inverse unitary sympathy or perhaps even a diffracted sympathy? Should simple movement be relied upon?² This is sometimes a wise course of action, though rather inglorious, as simple movement always is; but it may be necessary in exceptional cases which will be determined by the confessors and the fairies. It is not for the individual to choose between these alternatives. He is too much absorbed by his recent memories. It is up to the calm and judicious confessor to determine the type of charm that will arouse his enthusiasm. On the basis of his declarations the confessor will decide what sort of relationship is most certain to engage his sympathies. Then the fairies with the best knowledge of the Phalanx will designate the matching individuals from whom he may make his choice.

All of this work, which involves the use of algebraic formulas, should be completed for the thousand adventurers within the short time of two or three hours. For if each visitor was not systematically informed concerning his sympathies, if there was no one to inform him about the individuals with whom he could instantaneously establish sympathetic relationships, he would run the risk of getting involved in purely sensual intrigues, intrigues wholly lacking in illusion. Like the people of civilization, he would fall back upon trivial, simple sex. (Sometimes this is necessary, but only as a respite from composite relationships or, as a transition, in moments of hesitation and of overabundant pleasure.) After a two days’ visit, at the moment of his departure, he might accidentally encounter people with whom he was truly sympathetic. Then he would regret having spent his two days without having known their merit and without having formed a liaison which might have charmed him. He would leave the Phalanx with a feeling of resentment, with bad memories instead of delicious illusions.

This goes to show that the functions of the confessor are most important and that a skilled confessor is an invaluable member of any Phalanx. The job is not one that can be confided to the first comer, as it is in civilization; it requires the greatest degree of tact, human understanding, and familiarity with local circumstances. Women will excel more than men in this sort of work, and as a rule in Harmony there will be two confessoresses for every one confessor. They will be magnificently paid for their services and promoted to the highest ranks. As for the formulas used by the confessors in their work of sympathetic matching, they cannot be explained just yet. It will first be necessary to classify the 810 personality types, any one of which may be represented in an equation of sympathy and may appear in a number of cases.

This translation is from The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier, edited by Jonathan Beecher and Richard Bienvenu (Beacon, 1971, pp. 378–80). They note, somewhat dryly, that “Fourier does in fact go on to explain—at length—the process whereby the confessors do their matching. Unfortunately, his ‘algebraic’ formulas do not lend themselves to translation.”

Here’s a taste of that, from volume eleven of Oeuvres complètes de Charles Fourier:

In any case, I like the idea of a full filing system containing an information card for each person, classified according to a system of 810 personality types, and including regularly updated information about needs and recent activities, curated and administered by experts, and which people consult upon arriving in a new town or city when they are considering how best to match up with someone it would be enjoyable to hook up with. Obviously a completely unrealistic and impossible-to-implement scheme that bears no resemblance whatsoever to how anything in contemporary society works.