There I stood, wearing my best suit and my new Viennese bow tie. Yet, despite looking the part, I was standing on the wrong side of a door that would not open for me because of custom and tradition.

Weeks of planning to take in Richard Strauss’ Eine Alpensymphonie with Ulrich Krenmayr from Austria, had culminated in this moment; but Ulrich was inside the hall and I was staring at a large, ornate wooden door that smothered the sound of music inside.

But, I suppose I should back up and tell this story more fully so that the Hayekian lesson I learned in the economist’s hometown can be fully appreciated by all.

In chapter 1 of Law, Legislation, and Liberty, F.A. Hayek wrote:

Many of the institutions of society which are indispensable conditions for the successful pursuit of our conscious aims are in fact the result of customs, habits, or practices which have been neither invented nor are observed with any such purpose in view…[man] is successful not because he knows why he ought to observe the rules which he does observe, or is even capable of stating all these rules in words, but because his thinking and acting are governed by rules which have by a process of selection been evolved in the society in which he lives, and which are thus the product of the experience of generations.

Hayek’s anthropological reasoning for the explanation of human behavioral practices was on full display at the Musikverein. Having studied musicology in both undergrad and now in my PhD work, I am all too familiar with the cultural conventions of attending a symphony. After hundreds of years of live musical performances in the setting of a concert hall, certain rules of etiquette and behavior have emerged that lend themselves to the best possible musical experience for all attendees. Of course one should not talk during the performance, but other morès include not clapping in between movements of the same composition (only at the end of the piece), and, my folly, entering and exiting the hall only when there is no music being performed. While these rules were not designed by any one person or governing body, and despite there being no official regulating agency that executes the maintenance of these practices, seasoned concert goers still conform their behavior in accordance with this etiquette.

The logic surrounding  such rules makes sense if one takes the time to analyze their emergence.

The Goldener Saal at Vienna’s Musikverein

Concert halls were built for acoustics, and as a result any coughing, talking, or the opening and closing of doors can distract from the music, as well as generally appearing rude and unappreciative of the musicians’ efforts to entertain. Concert goers who each arrive at the symphony with the explicit goal of taking in a show do themselves much benefit to follow these rules which establish a certain orderliness to the experience.

I know this, yet I still dithered and delayed during the intermission. Perhaps a product of my American idealistic culture that believes, ”anything is possible, nothing is ever truly as rigid as it seems,” I had to buy one more drink. And as my Viennese friends scurried back into the hall, I figured I would run into the bathroom and quickly check the mirror. But upon my return, I was met by a closed door, and a blunt usher who informed me that 20 minutes should have been sufficient time for my errands. My immediate reaction was to curse Old Europe for its pompish traditions, but I heard the voice of Hayek in my head describing rules and order, and I plopped down at the bar, ordered another drink, and laughed with the bartender – a music major at the University of Vienna – about my observations on symphonic culture.

After a few minutes, I noticed that people in the lobby were still milling about, and I discovered that there was a second concert about to start in the next hall. The usher let me go in that one instead, and I took my seat right as Franz Schmidt’s Quintet in G major began. This piece was performed by a chamber ensemble, and with its piano focus spoke much more directly to me as a pianist than Strauss with his large symphonic sound ever could. Additionally, this piece was composed for Paul Wittgenstein, a fellow musician and the older brother of the philosopher Ludwig, both of whom were cousins to Hayek.

As I crawled into bed that night and reflected on my experience at the symphony, the many Hayekian lessons of the night were not lost on me. Cultural rules and practices are not always the products of tyranny and autocracy, sometimes rules are beneficial and the emergent order produced lends itself to harmonious dealings among humans. But sometimes the best made plans cannot substitute for the beauty and serendipity of spontaneous order, and no master designer could architect the perfect experience when so much valuation in life relies upon subjectivity. Rules that provide a loose and open framework for a multiplicity of individuals to make their own path result in a liberal, free order.

Strauss, Schmidt, Wittgenstein, and, of course, Hayek — my night at the Viennese symphony only cemented further my Austrian approach to life. And the Austrian approach to life is quite good, indeed. Das Leben ist schön.