phalanstery
/ˈfælənˌstɜɹi/
Etymology
From French phalanstère.
phalanstery means An association or community organized on the plan of Charles Fourier, with living space divided hierarchically and higher pay for those carrying out unpopular tasks. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
Why this word is great
PHALANSTERY — [Noun] A self-contained, utopian community building conceived by Charles Fourier to house a cooperative association sharing labor and property. From French phalanstère, a blend of phalange (from Greek phalanx, meaning 'battle line' or 'community') and monastère (from Greek monastērion, meaning 'monastery'). Unlike a “commune,” which implies an improvised or agrarian sharing, or a “monastery,” which retreats from the world for spiritual discipline, the phalanstery is a meticulously engineered machine for secular harmony. It is the grand, symmetrical palace rising from the speculative page, the synchronized hum of workshops and salons, the scent of communal kitchens serving exact portions to 1,620 precisely matched souls—a poignant architecture of a hope so specific it could never be inhabited.
noun
- An association or community organized on the plan of Charles Fourier, with living space divided hierarchically and higher pay for those carrying out unpopular tasks.“[S]he seemed to him a revelation of a class, and a multitude of socialistic figures, of names and episodes that he had heard of, grouped themselves behind her. She looked as if she had spent her life on platforms, in audiences, in conventions, in phalansteries, in séances; in her faded face there was a kind of reflection of ugly lecture-lamps; with its habit of an upward angle, it seemed turned to”
- The dwelling house of a Fourierite community.“2005, Andrew Loman, "Somewhat on the Community-System": Representations of Fourierism in the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Taylor & Francis (Routledge), page xxiv,
When Hollingsworth and Priscilla retreat to a cottage at the end of the novel, they are spurning not only reformatories and phalansteries but also boarding-houses, tenements, and hotels.”