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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
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