Exploring Nationalism through Musical Nostalgia

This chapter examines the character dynamics in 'The Sound of Music' alongside historical nationalism, particularly focusing on the von Trapp family. It critiques popular media's sanitized history while encouraging critical reflection on morality and authority through personal anecdotes from a musical production.

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Part Two: Matthew remembers the snow job of “The Sound of Music.” Also: more on Sophie Scholl, introducing the Edelweiss Pirates, the “adult gaze”, what trusting kids means, notes from Emma Goldman and Janusz Korczak, and excerpts from a poem by Aku Päiviö, father of Jules, who traveled from Northern Ontario to Spain in 1937 to volunteer in the International Brigade.

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When fascism rises, and some young people are drawn into its orbit, because everyone from Jordan Peterson to Andrew Tate has figured out how to exploit resentment at the failures of capitalism, we have an opportunity to give our kids a lot more than moralistic calls for a return to normalcy, compliance, warnings about screen time, striving to be better students, doing more sports, and not making too much of a ruckus.

The kind of parenting that limits itself to restoring the status quo for younger people in an age of fascism is not engaged parenting.

It’s not enough to be a good boy or girl. Antifascism takes more than that.