Sound of Music & American Nazism

2/18/2017

The Sound of Music was the first musical in English that my wife saw on video and grew to love as we would watch and rewatch it with our young children. Last night, we attended a wonderful performance of it at the Nashville TPAC. Completely taken in by the staging, choreography, and singing, we were all the more moved by the final scenes' portrayal of the pressure to accept the Nazi regime & the Captain’s resistance. In a song not in the movie, the opportunist Max and luxury-lover Elsa sing “No Way to Stop It.” “It” refers to Nazism or any aspect of oppression that does not interfere with one’s own comfortable lifestyle. The song concludes that this lifestyle is centered on “I” rather than “we” (and, by implication, “us” versus “them”). Little did we suspect when watching the movie with our young children that Ruka’s new country of citizenship would, 25 years later, have a president supporting neo-Nazism.
To what degree will we sing "There's no way to stop it"? To what degree will we resist? The title of my website indicates an interest in transcending divisions. But when I see the posts of Facebook "friends"--including relatives--with posts indicating their love of Jesus, racism & nationalism, I wonder if transcendence of these divisions is possible.
One little step I have taken is sending the following to TN's Senator Bob Corker, chair of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee:
I am an independent voter. I trust you are well informed about how the Nazi movement gained power in Germany, including passive support of churches and opportunism of politicians. I hope you will have the courage to resist this in our own country, now. I see no news item on your site indicating that you were appalled--or at least disappointed!--by Trump's press conference but am glad to see that you are at least "pushing President Trump for answers on Russia contacts."

2 Comments

Donald

2/24/2017 12:37:22 pm

I have just read 'Sound of Music & American Nazism' and I thank the author for bringing me to question whether I am, perhaps, a bit too content with my watching the coming and the going of things. That is, perhaps I need to say some of the things that I am seeing, which very well might be, dare I say it?, controversial to, shall we say, the national view. President Trump's slogan for the new America, namely "America First" would be abhorrent to all of us if we were to translate it down to the local places of where we live. It would sound like "Donald First," which just wouldn't work at either the family or the local place. Why then would one think that it would work at the Global place? I see, currently, families torn apart by the new administration's simplistic and just-place-your-hands-over-your-eyes-and-enforce-the-laws dealing with what are human and global problems.
But the author disturbed me even more when he questioned, as we all do, whether "transcendence of these divisions is possible." It is. And to stand in the Place of the human being is to transcend these divisions in the here and in the now of our living. So, in that spirit, I will finally take the audacity to say that such things as nationalism and idealism are poisons, and they are poisons because they state that for their value we may sacrifice another human being, another sanctity. They wedge themselves between the seeing of one human to another. There. I have said it. I wave no flag. I make no pledge. And I ask, each and every one of you, what is it to live out of the Place of transcendence? I will write my senator today.

Tim

2/24/2017 05:02:44 pm

Thanks so much, Don. How to "translate [the slogan] down to the local places of where we live" might be a good starting place for real dialogue between members of opposing political parties or ideologies.

Trails & Transcendence