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Issues

19th c. Liberalism | Theatrical Symbolism | Renewal | Wholeness
Vegetarianism | Socialism | Nationalism


Critique of  Austrian Liberalism

This broad topic could almost be held as a general theme from which the other issues derive.

It can be argued that, for the generation represented within the circle (born circa 1850-60), a powereful adolescent rejection of the values of their parent's generation was a common and formative experience. This rejected value-set was can be broadly labeled Austrian Liberalism, and was associated with:

  • the rise of
  • a faith in reason and science as the foundations for progress;
  • a scholarly, dispassionate intellectual style;
  • a cosmopolitan emphasis;
  • industrialization and bourgeois capitalism;
  • individualism;
  • the dual monarchy of the Hapsburg empire; and
  • resistance to German national unity.

The antiliberal stance, as exemplified by members of the Pernerstorfer circle, was often radical in its flavor, espousing:

  • dismantling of the Habsburg empire;
  • German nationalism and reunification;
  • socialist economic structures;
  • democratic reform and expanded suffrage;
  • a culture of unity rather than individualism;
  • passionate and engaged art, politics, and ideas;
  • social and cultural renewal; and
  • a return to nature (and a turn from industrialized, urban culture).

19th c. Liberalism | Theatrical Symbolism | Renewal | Wholeness
Vegetarianism | Socialism | Nationalism

Vienna 1900 - The Pernerstorfer Circle | Close Window |