the politics of The Sound of Music

1 Reply

(in Atlanta) My family watched The Sound of Music over the winter break. I am not a big fan of musicals, but the music, lyrics, and cinematography of this movie are famously good. I had always thought the politics of the story were problematic, in a naive sort of way. Thanks to an impressively researched essay by Robert von Dassanowsky, I now believe that the politics are quite sophisticated and perhaps a bit less problematic.

The von Trapp family is threatened by Nazis. The hero of the film, Captain von Trapp, explicitly opposes Nazism. But he doesn’t object to the obvious problems: Antisemitism, militarism, or authoritarianism. His concern is the threat that Nazi Germany poses to Austrian independence. That stance had always struck me as implausible as well as offensive. Austria, after all, was the accidental product of defeat in World War I. It was only a few years old at the time the movie is set (“The Last Golden Years of the Thirties”): a rump, landlocked, German-speaking, Tyrolean republic created very much against the wishes of people like Captain van Trapp, a former officer of the Austro-Hungarian Imperial Navy. Veterans with authoritarian, hyper-conservative, nationalistic sentiments would be drawn to Germany and to Nazism. Hitler himself was Austrian, and Austria was a crucible of his movement. So I always thought that The Sound of Music was a Hollywood confection, a fantasy of a Germanic nationalist who could be anti-Nazi without having to mention Jews, democracy, or war. You could even suspect that Uncle Max (the money-grubbing urbanite) is meant to be Jewish. That would be a kind of soft Antisemitism, since Max does save the von Trapps at the end, but he is clearly their inferior.

But von Dassanowsky shows that the movie is very carefully contrived (down to the smallest detail) to evoke the specific ideology of the “the anti-Nazi authoritarian state, the 1934-38 Austrofascist Ständestaat of the Chancellors Engelbert Dollfuss (1892-1934) and Kurt von Schuschnigg (1897-1977).” This regime replaced the first Austrian Republic. It was authoritarian; the government jailed political opponents and even executed people accused of “rioting.” But it was also explicitly anti-Nazi; in fact, it imprisoned Austrian Nazis. It was not aggressive, militaristic, or Antisemitic. Numerous prominent Austrian Jews supported the regime. Its natural ally was Mussolini’s Italy, and once Mussolini withdrew his protection, the Ständestaat collapsed.

Von Dassanowsky traces the rather learned evocations of the Ständestaat in the film. For instance: “Captain von Trapp is defined by a white Austrian decoration in the shape of a crusader’s cross or Kruckenkreuz around his neck, and displays the Austrian flag in his entry hall during the ball. … The Austrofascist Chancellor Dollfuss believed the Kruckenkreuz to be a Christian symbol that would show Austria to be a ‘better’ Germany in contrast to the Third Reich, which found representation in the pagan symbol of the swastika.” The invented nationalism of the Ständestaat combined several distinctive elements: the Austro-Hungarian military aristocracy, the Catholic church, Tyrolean peasant culture and folk music, patriarchal families, a peaceable and friendly foreign policy, and the Baroque heritage. Once Maria and Georg are married, and the former naval officer is the leader of a large family folk music ensemble from Baroque Salzburg, the Ständestaat ideal is complete.

I find it very surprising that Hollywood producers in post-War America would know or care enough about this episode from Austrian interwar history to evoke it so carefully, especially since Austrofascism was not remembered fondly in post-War Austria. The ideological motivation, however, is understandable. In the midst of the Cold War, it would comforting to view a highly conservative and authoritarian cultural movement as an ally in the fight against Nazism.

Emerson’s Circles (in verse)

playing the horse race game

Late last week, we issued a press release on the trend in voter registration, with the the phrase “Warning Sign for Barack Obama” in the subhead. The release was quickly picked up by Politico, National Review Online, US News (Ken Walsh’s “Washington” blog), Andrew Sullivan, and the Charlotte News & Observer. In contrast, our much more ambitious and nuance-filled study of young voters proved relatively hard to place. I would give our PR firm, Luna Media Group, lots of credit for the success of the latter release, but comparing the two products tells you something about the way the news media work today.

Basically, any information–no matter how complex and arcane–that seems relevant to whether a given candidate will win the next election interests reporters. Any information–no matter how broad and durable–that doesn’t help predict the winner falls to the wayside.

Back in 1996, CNN political director Mark Hannon explained that his network conducted daily polls because they “happen to be the most authoritative way to answer the most basic question about the election, which is who is going to win.” I’ve saved his quote all these years because it seems so characteristic of the whole profession.

In my view, “who is going to win” is absolutely not the most important question. Voters need to know what the candidates stand for, what they have done in the past, how government works, a range of opinions about the issues, and information relevant to assessing the candidates’ positions. For example, they need to know what each of the Republican presidential candidates would do about the federal budget and what the federal budget currently pays for.

Reporters are leery of those matters because (I suspect) policies and issues seem complicated and dry; they can be intimidating to write about; and they involve value-judgments as well as simple facts. In contrast, reporters feel they are experts about who will win, and they see that as a value-neutral topic. (It’s a prediction, not a recommendation.)

Yet making predictions does transmit values. It suggests that you’re wasting your vote by choosing a candidate with low poll numbers, it implies that your only role as a citizen is to vote, and it depicts politics as a horse race in which winning the next election is the overriding goal. It makes doing anything to win seem natural and acceptable; to expect anything else looks naive.

Incidentally, the last time I complained about horse-race coverage (in June 2011), my example was the unfair treatment of Rick Santorum. If he does well in Iowa, the same dynamic that frustrated him then will boost his candidacy now, for equally arbitrary reasons.

Cedar Rapids Gazette editorial on youth voting

1 Reply

This op-ed of mine was published in the Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette on Christmas Day (Dec. 25, 2011), but is not online.

America is watching the Iowa caucuses for clues about how the whole 2012 election will play out. Who will be the nominee? What themes and issues will predominate in the campaign? What new political and strategies will work this time around?

One of the most important questions is how youth will participate. By turning out, they can affect who wins and which issues are discussed, because they have distinctive values and concerns. Their participation also shapes the future of our democracy. A generation that votes and participates while its members are young will remain engaged for decades to come, whereas a generation that is alienated will take but slowly to politics.

In 2008, youth played an important role in the Iowa caucuses, more than tripling their turnout compared to 2004 and opting strongly for the eventual winner, Barack Obama. Four fifths of young Iowa caucus-goers participated on the Democratic side, but young Republican caucus-goers also helped to pick the state’s winner, choosing Governor Mike Huckabee by a substantial margin.

The Iowa caucuses set the tone for the whole season. Youth turnout was strong in the primaries and general election. Young people supported Obama to an unprecedented extent. Not only did they vote, but they set the record for campaign volunteering and were generally enthusiastic and engaged.

Certainly, 2012 could be different. Like older Americans, many young people are discouraged and angry. Recent focus groups conducted by Harvard’s Institute of Politics found Iowa’s young people much less enthusiastic than they were in 2008.

Yet Iowa has a strong and durable tradition of youth participation. The state’s youth turnout rate in general elections always exceeds the national average and is sometimes near the top of the rankings. The same is true of community service and volunteering, in which young Iowans excel.

Although a discouraged national mood may push youth participation down, Iowa’s strong civic traditions should boost turnout if campaigns, politicians, and civic leaders work to engage young people in the election.

The research on youth voting offers some lessons.

Reach out to young people personally: they respond much better to individualized encouragement and two-way conversations than to mass advertising and news events.
Keep the message relatively moderate and bipartisan. Of the young Iowans who participated in the 2008 GOP caucus, more considered themselves “moderate” than “very conservative,” and that balance reflects national trends.
Don’t forget the 17-year-olds, who have a right to participate in Iowa’s caucuses if they will turn 18 by November 2008.
Finally, give young people serious responsibilities in the campaign—they will perform well and bring their peers with them.

Peter Levine directs CIRCLE (the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement) at Tufts University’s Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service.

the feds want your input about deliberative democracy