NP: Charles Fourier

[Glenn Scheper]

Studied Newton? 12 sexual passions? Planets copulate?

I'll bet Charles Fourier has some insight to that core
metaphor I'm trying to decode from book of Revelation.
Maybe Charles Fourier's work informs P's core metaphor.

Fourier, Charles (1772–1837). Born in Lyon of a rich family which lost its 
wealth during the Revolution, Fourier was an eccentric Utopian socialist whose 
peculiar style, sharp criticisms of the horrors of civilization, and exultation 
of desire and complexity, continue to excite interest.
  -- http://www.answers.com/fourier

Applying Newton to the social world, he proposed that in a harmoniously 
organized society attractions would be proportionate to destinies and the 13 
passions would all be satisfied—those of the five senses, of honour, friendship, 
love and parenthood, of concordance, of intrigue, and the ‘butterfly’ passion 
for variety (in work or sex), plus unityism (the opposite of egotism). Such 
harmony could only be realized by organizing society into phalansteries of 
around 1, 620 members each, where equality would not be practised but where a 
complex system of shifting hierarchies, occupations, and relations would be 
created, all of which Fourier described in great detail.
  -- http://www.answers.com/fourier

astound, as do his pre-Freudian insights into the mechanisms of the passions 
(the limits placed on their expression by ‘civilization’ produce perversions); 
he was a profoundly original thinker. The full sexual amplifications of his 
theories were only revealed with the publication of his Nouveau Monde amoureux 
(1967). La Théorie des quatre mouvements (1808) is the first exposition of his 
system, which hardly varied thereafter. Le Nouveau Monde industriel (1829) is 
his most clear and concise work but leaves out his cosmogony (the planets 
copulate). Categorizing endlessly, ceaselessly indulging in neologisms, 
Fourier's tone is also quite idiosyncratic, with unexpected shifts from the 
serious to a comic which is at times wry, at times hilarious.
  -- http://www.answers.com/fourier

Fourier coined the word féminisme in 1837;
  -- http://www.answers.com/fourier

He believed that there were twelve common passions which resulted in 810 types 
of character, so the ideal phalanx would have exactly 1620 people. One day there 
would be six million of these, loosely ruled by a world "omniarch", or (later) a 
World Congress of Phalanxes. He had a touching concern for the sexually rejected 
- jilted suitors would be led away by a corps of "fairies" who would soon cure 
them of their lovesickness, and visitors could consult the card-index of 
personality types for suitable partners for casual sex. He also defended 
homosexuality as a personal preference for some people.
  -- http://www.answers.com/fourier

Oops, I thought he was the FFT guy:

Or did you mean: Joseph Fourier (French mathematician & physicist),
  -- http://www.answers.com/fourier

Yours truly,
Glenn Scheper
http://home.earthlink.net/~glenn_scheper/
glenn_scheper + at + earthlink.net
Copyleft(!) Forward freely.