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World War of Small Pastries
Fourier enjoys the honor of being the first thinker to push Rousseau to the logical conclusion of a complete condemnation of Civilization. Not only did he blame it for what we call Capitalism, he also saw it as the source of the evil of Work as alienation (to use Marx s term). The fact that we must labor at what we do not love in order to make a living defines the essence of Civilization s primal error. Fourier ascribed his big revelation to a rigorous application of Newton s law of attraction, not just as a cosmic force but also as a social force. Fourier realized that Passion, far from being the cause of sin, might actually serve to enable the emergence of a human society (he called it Harmony) in which everyone does exactly as they please; as a result, everything will be done well (passionately) and everyone will be happy. And if everyone is ecstatic and joyful, how could there exist any disorder or violence? The present text is excerpted from Le Nouveau monde amoureux, Fourier s magnum opus on the New Word of Love, which was too hot to publish during his lifetime. Food and sex are his answers to all problems. And if Fourier exalted erotic pleasure, he went even farther in his obsession with food....
- GenresPhilosophyNonfiction
94 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
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About the author
Charles Fourier
263 books103 followersFrançois Marie Charles Fourier was a French philosopher. An influential thinker, some of Fourier's social and moral views, held to be radical in his lifetime, have become main currents in modern society. Fourier is, for instance, credited with having originated the word feminism in 1837.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 22, 2021
This is fucking hilarious.
It's like Bataille without the perversion; a speculative political economy based in excess that diverts prestige from neurotic enactments of violence and domination towards Olympian games, Kabbalistic gatherings of the world's empires, whose soldiers fire little crème pastries into one another's mouths from the repurposed armaments of yesterday's wars. As with Bataille, there's a collapse of high and low; soldiers are both cobblers and pâtissières, warring against the worn boots and hungry stomachs of their enemies. Revenge is a gift; the production of ever finer delicacies with each world war. Fourier transforms war from a collective act of destruction to one of creation. The horde becomes a signifier of hospitality and bacchanalian joy.
Despite its frivolous surface, Fourier develops a deep critique of our collective desires (to conquer, possess and annihilate the other) as constituted through state religions, what we'd recognise today as ideologies (i.e. media narratives) that normalise the injustices of the world. Fourier's speculative reality only appears frivolous to our lives conquered by capitalist realism; by the pragmatics of survival in an environment of artificially-induced scarcity, precarity and competition.
What's most disheartening is that Fourier's dreams have come true, but in the most cynical sense possible. We do have empire-spanning cooking competitions, but they're driven (or at least presented as driven) by neurotic antagonisms and the chase for fame. We also have the Olympic Games, which deploy the imagery of multiculturalism to drive host countries into billions of dollars of debt (paid off by its citizens through austerity) and deliver exorbitant profits to transnational sponsors. These are not peace-making events, but capitalist spectacles that exacerbate class divides and reinforce cultural and economic imperialisms.
I think the most inspiring thing to take from this book is that myth-making doesn't need to be cynical, exploitative and repressive. It can be a joyous communion, a world war of small pastries, as absurd as any national or religious myth, but one that screams YASS rather than NO.
It's like Bataille without the perversion; a speculative political economy based in excess that diverts prestige from neurotic enactments of violence and domination towards Olympian games, Kabbalistic gatherings of the world's empires, whose soldiers fire little crème pastries into one another's mouths from the repurposed armaments of yesterday's wars. As with Bataille, there's a collapse of high and low; soldiers are both cobblers and pâtissières, warring against the worn boots and hungry stomachs of their enemies. Revenge is a gift; the production of ever finer delicacies with each world war. Fourier transforms war from a collective act of destruction to one of creation. The horde becomes a signifier of hospitality and bacchanalian joy.
Despite its frivolous surface, Fourier develops a deep critique of our collective desires (to conquer, possess and annihilate the other) as constituted through state religions, what we'd recognise today as ideologies (i.e. media narratives) that normalise the injustices of the world. Fourier's speculative reality only appears frivolous to our lives conquered by capitalist realism; by the pragmatics of survival in an environment of artificially-induced scarcity, precarity and competition.
What's most disheartening is that Fourier's dreams have come true, but in the most cynical sense possible. We do have empire-spanning cooking competitions, but they're driven (or at least presented as driven) by neurotic antagonisms and the chase for fame. We also have the Olympic Games, which deploy the imagery of multiculturalism to drive host countries into billions of dollars of debt (paid off by its citizens through austerity) and deliver exorbitant profits to transnational sponsors. These are not peace-making events, but capitalist spectacles that exacerbate class divides and reinforce cultural and economic imperialisms.
I think the most inspiring thing to take from this book is that myth-making doesn't need to be cynical, exploitative and repressive. It can be a joyous communion, a world war of small pastries, as absurd as any national or religious myth, but one that screams YASS rather than NO.
January 5, 2024
Time to start honing my skills for the future pastry war!
August 29, 2023
I really have no idea what I just read other than it being Fourier's quite literal version of a food fight. Like Cupcake Wars but actual war?
July 22, 2019
Little must be said about Fourier and The World War of Small Pastries that is not already observed in its introduction. Fourier is, indeed, a madman: his faith in human spirit and capacity is as whole as his attribution of its corruption to Civilization, his utopian pipe dream is thoroughly absurd, and his complete lack of explication as to how we arrive at it from here (beyond “some generations”) is either an admission of fantasy or a return to that misplaced belief in humanity.
And yet, one’s conclusion after his endless accounts of rounds of pastry battles and shoe repair can only be that in the face of a truly mad, truly unjustifiable Civilization, one madman spinning an alternative tale can only be regarded as sane, or at the very least less insane. Why are our customs imaginable and his fanciful? The foundational flaws of “Western Civilization” are by now well-documented and yet still we dismiss peaceful, devoted alternatives outright.
At the same time, it must be noted how Fourier, in rejecting Civilization, finds himself, intentionally or not, bound by its methods of dialectic and valuation. Perhaps this is by rhetorical design, to better use our own language to understand his, but the extent to which the same Civilizational notions of conflict and passion, the same regressive ideas of honor and shame, of sexual repression, of victory and defeat pervade the structure of his thesis cannot be ignored. Undoubtedly, his conception of these values moves them in a more positive direction, but his intentionality here is unclear.
And yet, one’s conclusion after his endless accounts of rounds of pastry battles and shoe repair can only be that in the face of a truly mad, truly unjustifiable Civilization, one madman spinning an alternative tale can only be regarded as sane, or at the very least less insane. Why are our customs imaginable and his fanciful? The foundational flaws of “Western Civilization” are by now well-documented and yet still we dismiss peaceful, devoted alternatives outright.
At the same time, it must be noted how Fourier, in rejecting Civilization, finds himself, intentionally or not, bound by its methods of dialectic and valuation. Perhaps this is by rhetorical design, to better use our own language to understand his, but the extent to which the same Civilizational notions of conflict and passion, the same regressive ideas of honor and shame, of sexual repression, of victory and defeat pervade the structure of his thesis cannot be ignored. Undoubtedly, his conception of these values moves them in a more positive direction, but his intentionality here is unclear.
April 29, 2025
this guys is crazy but i love him
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews