Henry James, Sr. - Social Thought

Social Thought

James became interested in the late 1840s in former members of Brook Farm, the experiment in communal living at West Roxbury, Massachusetts that lasted from 1841 to 1847, and in Fourierism, the school of utopian socialism that grew out of the thought of French social philosopher Charles Fourier (1772–1837) and which was a major influence in the last several years of Brook Farm. James was interested in utopianism as a stepping stone to the spiritual life. In his view, man is

under a threefold subjection, first to nature, then to society, and finally to God. His appetites and his sensuous understanding relate him to society or his fellow man; and his ideas relate him to God. . . . He who obeys his appetites merely finds himself speedily betrayed by the inflexible laws of nature to disease and death. He who obeys his passions merely binds himself by the inflexible laws of society to shame and seclusion. But he who obeys his ideas, he who gives himself up to the guidance of infinite goodness, truth, and beauty, encounters no limitation at the hands either of nature or society, and, instead of disease and shame, plucks only the fruits of health and immortal honor.

James was a stern critic of the "gross materiality" of American society, and found in Fourier's thought a useful critique. He held most of the leading writers of his day in low regard, with the possible exception of Walt Whitman, though he met and cultivated many of them, including Emerson, Bronson Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, and William Makepeace Thackeray.

James was an advocate of many social reforms, including the abolition of slavery and the liberalization of divorce.