Karl Of Austria Quotes

Karl Popper was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1902. He studied philosophy at the University of Vienna, after which he spent six years as a schoolteacher. It was during this time that he published The Logic of Scientific Discovery, which established him as one of the foremost philosophers of science.

My paper has to be very long and complex,” I said. “I shall cite all the great thinkers—Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud.” “What about Adolf Hitler?” “Oh, him. He’s not a thinker. He’s just a ranter and raver.” “There may come a time,” said Pepi, “when people cannot tell the difference.” “Impossible,” I solemnly predicted. “I have read Hitler’s book Mein Kampf and also some works by his colleague Herr Alfred Rosenberg because I am a fair-minded, objective person and I believe one should always hear out all sides before making a decision, and so I can tell you from firsthand knowledge that these men are idiots. Their ideas about how the Jews have poisoned their so-called superior Aryan race and caused all of Germany’s troubles are utter nonsense. No intelligent person could possibly believe them. Hitler is laughable. He will soon disappear.” “Just like all your old boyfriends,” Pepi said with his sly smile.

The fascist solution of the impasse reached by liberal capitalism can be described as a reform of market economy achieved at the price of the extirpation of all democratic institutions, both in the industrial and the political realm. ... The appearance of such a movement in the industrial countries of the globe, and even in a number of only slightly industrialized ones, should never have been ascribed to local causes, national mentalities, or historical backgrounds as was so consistently done by contemporaries. Fascism had as little to do with the Great War as with the Versailles Treaty, with Junker militarism as with the Italian temperament. The movement appeared in defeated countries like Bulgaria and in victorious ones like Jugoslavia, in countries of Northern temperament like Finland and Norway and of Southern temperament like Italy and Spain, in countries of Aryan race like England, Ireland or Belgium and non-Aryan race like Japan, Hungary, or Palestine, in countries of Catholic traditions like Portugal and in Protestant ones like Holland, in soldierly communities like Prussia and civilian ones like Austria, in old cultures like France and new ones like the United States and the Latin-American countries. In fact, there was no type of background -- of religious, cultural, or national tradition -- that made a country immune to fascism, once the conditions for its emergence were given.

Although it was never conceptualized by a Czech movement, paradoxically enough, Czech 'organic work' in economic, social, and cultural modernization advanced strikingly during these decades. The Czech lands, politically and administratively subordinated provinces of Austria without any kind of cultural or political autonomy, flourished economically and culturally. The Czech provinces achieved by far the highest level of economic advancement in Central and Eastern Europe. Rapid and successful industrialization, social modernization, and the highest literacy rate in the region made the Czech lands more similar to the West than any other part of it. In other words, Bohemia and Moravia profited a great deal from being a hereditary province of the Habsburg empire and as a consequence enjoyed an equal status with Austria proper. Rapid economic progress certainly contributed to the further failure of Czech national demands during the 1860s and 1870s. The boycott of the imperial Diet and Reichsrat in 1867 in favor of the reestablishment of the statni pravo, or a Rechtsstaat, that is, equal legal-political status with Hungary, was again rejected. The Bohemian Declaration of August 1868 that renewed this demand generated mass rallies of support around the country. The imperial cabinet of Count Karl Hohenwart was ready to accept the concept of a 'trialist' reorganization of the empire and granted cultural autonomy to the Czech people, although not equal status with Hungary, in the fall of 1871. Emperor Franz Josef, a hard-nosed defender of Austro-Hungarian 'dualism,' rejected the 'trialist' Austro-Hungarian-Slav concept, however, and dismissed the Hohenwart cabinet. The Bohemian and Moravian representatives in the imperial Diet renewed their boycott of it. As before, such passive resistance was ineffective. It did not shake the empire, and the prosperous Czech provinces were not ready for violence. The Moravian Czechs gave up the boycott in 1873, and a split in the Czech national movement in September 1874 led to the reentry of the 'Young Czechs,' a newly organized National Liberal party, into parliament. In the fall of 1878, even the 'Old Czech' National party joined. The peaceful Czech national movement lost momentum and dried up for several decades. 'Organic work' nevertheless became more vigorous and successful than ever.

In 1878, the Christian Social Party, which combined antisemitism with critiques of secularism and free-market capitalism, had been founded in Germany. In the 1880s, the Christian Social movement spread to Austria, and the Austrian Christian Social Party was founded in 1891. The sparkplugs of Viennese Christian Socialism were the journalist Karl von Vogelsang and the charismatic city councilman Karl Lueger, who brazenly and repeatedly accused the Jews of dominating banking and the press, and who had nothing but contempt for the complacent