We raised our two daughters without TV. I'll take it back, without commercial TV. The only channel they watched was local Public TV. And they learned it is OK to cry from Mr. Rogers; wonders of reading from Reading Rainbow and, of course, life from Sesame Street (everybody sleeps...).
If I were to speculate we have a President, who is in office BECAUSE OF TV, but with all likelihood, grew up without public TV and very likely raised his children without Mr. Rogers or Big Bird (You are NOT going to end up as a Big Game hunter if you grew up with Snfulleaupagus).
60
A column worthy of the man it honors.
86
You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.
You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.
You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!
Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein from "South Pacific"
Evidently Fred Rogers did not use this as a lesson plan.
64
I always thought Mr. Rogers was a boddhisatva....
65
"In the gospel of Fred Rogers, children are our superiors in the way they trust each person they meet, the way they lack guile, the way a child can admit simple vulnerability." Too bad the Republicans now have no respect for children as they rip them away from their parents at the border, refuse them healthcare, shelter, education and even food.
56
Mister Rodgers is the anti-trump. Indeed, if the radically unkind shallow simpleton trump had a motto it would be "Won't you NOT be my neighbor?"
He hates neighbors so much he wants to build monumental walls to himself to exclude neighbors - paid for by his neighbors, of course. Indeed again, have his neighbors pay his taxes too.
Imagine the kind of personal insult the wretched man would come up with for Mister Rodgers - he loves to denigrate anything that is good in America - that's the gospel according to trump, Making America God-Awful.
Like Mr. Potter, the Grinch and Scrooge before him, the "Trump" name, character and slur will live in infamy - along with the anti-Mister Rodgers Republican party.
Mister Rodgers must be so viscerally disgusted and horrified at what we're doing to innocent immigrant children he isn't spinning in his grave out of shock.
What could Mister Rodgers say to an administration who manically abducts children and babies with NO INTENTION of ever returning them to their families. The mess we are in makes this clear, from the start they were never going to return these children - that was the plan.
That's as anti-Mister Rodgers as you can get.
72
There are plenty of mainline Protestant churches living this wonderful message. Unfortunately, they never make the news, only a very small subset 'loud political' evangelicals and prosperity types.
My church is wonderful and is made up of Reps and Dems. It is filled with love.
86
Conservatives and liberals are just the end points of a continuous spectrum. Regardless where we position ourselves, Mr. Rogers is right that we are neighbors on a continuum. Of course, there are different views of the world including a world of black and white/ good and evil. It is a tribal world where winners take all but share none. It is a world where our leaders tell us to fear "others" who may take our toys away. Mr. Rogers would have tell us that there is nothing to fear.
13
Fred Rogers was quite possibly the most Christlike person I’ve ever witnessed, as he consistently honored the value and dignity of every person in his neighborhood. This concept is straight from the Bible, where Jesus teaches the parable of the Good Samaritan: any person who is circumstantially close to you IS your neighbor and deserving of respect and kindness, especially when they are in need.
Even Coco the gorilla responded to his kind and loving spirit.
I most appreciate how he did not shy away from the truth and handled even the most difficult events and injustices with quiet confidence. He showed us that it is indeed possible to not return evil for evil.
I recall reading once his response to the question, “As an ordained minister, don’t you think you should be more overtly evangelistic?” He said (something like) “the Holy Spirit works in many strange and unexpected ways.”
Had he been more overtly “Christian” he probably would have been dismissed as a proselytizer. Jesus never said to make converts; He said to love God and love other people. Fred Rogers obeyed this with excellence.
His was truly a calling and I believe he was God’s ambassador, spreading love, light, wisdom and mercy to a broken and hurting world. If only I could do it a fraction as well as he did.
77
In the half century since the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was created under the Johnson Administration, every Republican president with the possible exception of George H.W. Bush proposed cutting its budget. George W. Bush attempted to do so every year he was in office. The only time that Fred Rogers testified before Congress was in opposition to such cuts by the Nixon Administration. Mister Rogers stuck his neck out for public broadcasting. Some Republican! Some neck!
40
"You can never go down, never go down, never go down the drain." Nearly fifty years later, I still remember that.
20
I was with the author in his description of a truly moral person, someone who's good has outlived him, without a hint of scandal. But we parted ways over his milquetoast whitewash of Trump as just a reflection of what we've become in the last few decades, not what we've become in the last two years. When did we ever cheer when children were stolen from their mothers to be sold to the highest bidder at phoney adoptions, reminiscent of child slave auctions two centuries ago. Where is the author's outrage at Trump's lies, bullying, self-aggrandizement, war mongering, lying and power grabbing, destroying the very fabric of all the commitments we've made, and all progress we've made in solving our problems. This is the kind of vitriol I hoped for in your conclusion, real moral indignation when juxtaposed next to Fred Rogers. Instead, blame it on the seventies, was all he could offer.
14
In this age of privatizing everything, it's worth a reminder that public television in Canada and the US enabled Fred Rogers to conceive and grow his Neighborhood.
73
I was 4-y/o when "Neighborhood" first came on television in 1968. I was Mr. Roger's first neighbor. I arrived in the U.S. just one year prior. In those days, my father was a busy pediatric resident on 36-hour shifts (12-hours off). My young mother was getting her footing in a completely different (& in those days, far more welcoming) society. My parents' sentiments about children & morality were identical to that of Fred Rogers. In that way, Mr. Rogers served as a surrogate parent. I suppose, however, that he was a surrogate for many children.
I rarely saw the program after I began grade school but I could still sing the songs from memory well into my adulthood. My father recalled that he was in the audience years later when Mr. Rogers gave a speech to Boston-area pediatricians. He stated that Mr. Rogers reminded him of (Boston-area) physician Dr. Timothy Johnson (one-time ABC medical correspondent) who also was an ordained minister.
I saw "Neighborhood" the movie last weekend. It was a poignant reminiscence. Partly, it's because I miss my friend; but also I miss some things about those times. In many ways America is a better place in 2018 than in 1968. Yet, Americans today are less hopeful, more callous, paranoid & less sociable. This can't all be attributed to social media, 9/11 or Trump. Something is missing in the social contract. I look to Mr. Rogers for guidance. How did his refrain go? "Won't you please, won't you please, please won't you be my neighbor." Yes I will.
68
He may have been an excellent representation of the ideal mainline Protestant but these values are found in any humanistic household, regardless of the particular religion - or lack thereof.
41
For me, the politician who most resembles Fred Rogers in his passion for the marginalized is Elizabeth Warren. Much of her life's work has been about studying what has happened to the middle class, and her experience in the ways in which the little guy is underrepresented in the corridors of power - both in the private and public sectors drove her to run for office.
Her strong identification with her native American heritage (as opposed to those who trace their ancestry to the Mayflower, or revolutionary war heros, or Presidents) is of a piece with her preference for the underdog, and was not, as some people would have it, a way of advancing her academic career.
I would liken the people who see something negative in her desire to identify as Native American to the little boy in H.C. Anderson's "The Snow Queen", whose heart has been pierced by the evil mirror which distorts everything beautiful and turns it ugly. In the case of our President, this is his perpetual state of being.
I would like to think that Mr. Rogers would have been appalled at the excuses Republicans made for opposing the ACA. Reagan, of course, mandate ERs to treat people, but neglected to specify who paid for it. If a Democrat had done that, it would have been loudly condemned by fiscal conservatives. Who would have imagined conservatives arguing that people shouldn't have to buy health insurance?
19
I recently spent time with my 3 year old grand daughter. She is bright, a hand full, and has a cadre of toys tied to various corporate marketing behemoths.
Her attention was divided between nonsense on TV and the associated toys. I was at a loss. It just appeared to me to be so much junk.
A very wise baby sitter lamented that Mr. Rogers was no longer available.
After a little searching and confusing interactions with a "smart" TV, Mr Rogers appeared.
My grand daughter was a little suspicious of the lack of bells and whistles, flashing lights, and the nonsensical drivel she was used to but, after about three minutes the magic of Fred Rogers took over and she was silently captivated.
The timeless appeal of Fred Rogers continues to calm, educate and uplift both children and anyone who is lucky enough to share the experience with them.
82
Back when I was a film student, doing a practicum at WQED in Pittsburgh, where Mister Rogers was produced, families would occasionally stop by, on their way to other destinations. They would stop in the hopes of seeing Mr. Rogers and his cast of characters--from Lady Aberlin to Mr. McFeely the postman--but rarely arrived on a day when the show was being taped. I was often asked to escort the families on a brief tour (I was the only film student with a child of his own). As I showed the Rogers puppets to the children, and introduced any cast members I could find to the families, I was struck by the children--their obvious feeling that Fred's message was somehow embodied in the puppets and any cast members I could find. The message? "You're fine. We like you so much. We're so glad to have you with us." When I'm tempted to be cynical about the effect one person can have on another, I think about those children, about their faces when they got to see Daniel Tiger--even lifeless--or meet Betty Aberlin in regular street clothes, when their imaginations took over and they could hear Fred's calm voice reassuring them of their worth and importance. This has nothing to do with whether Fred Rogers was a Republican or a Democrat. He was a decent, caring man, adored by his employees, essential to the children he understood so thoroughly, and respected by all who knew him. This is the difference between character and whatever it is we now have in our so-called leaders. Goodbye, Fred.
64
Until he reached adulthood my son was always of such small stature that he didn't even make it onto the growth charts.
One day, after watching Mr. Rogers, he excitedly explained to me about paintbrushes:
He told me that big paint brushes were good for painting large surfaces. But small paintbrushes could paint in small corners where big paintbrushes couldn't paint.
Needless to say, when the Mr. Rogers postage stamps came out, I bought a bunch.
94
The "song sheet", Mr Brooks, is not tucked away. It's there for each of us to sing if we choose. And sing we must (even though it feels incredibly lonely these days) if we want a society that mirrors Mr. Roger's neighborhood.
39
In the current climate of everything that "YOU-KNOW-WHO" (I can't type his name let alone say it outloud) stands for and espouses, I strongly recommend that everyone sees this important film. This is a film that demonstrates empathy for children, something all adults must show and teach to children. We need to be decent to each other, to family, friends, colleagues, strangers on trains, etc.
Teach decency! Teach kindness! Teach fairness! How? By your own behavior. You'll get what you give.
46
Thank you, David for this beautiful column... this is now the time for civility and kindness.
23
That old theology of power and money just comes up over and over. It was around before Jesus and every year since. There has never been a time when people didn’t naturally think that those blessed with money and good health weren’t somehow better in God’s eyes than those who are not. Or believe that those who get sick and lose their jobs are being punished by God.
It actually takes training for one to see that Jesus included the poor, the sick and children into the Kingdom of God. The old theology of power reasserts itself over and over, probably because God is viewed as so powerful. If he is so powerful than he can and will interfere in our lives, therefore those who are doing well in life must deserve it. It’s the simplest of faiths.
Then there those people who just naturally get Jesus. Mr Rogers was one. What a wonderful man. However, the old mainline churches had as much trouble with the power theology as anyone else. You can’t go back in time and say America was better then because we were all mainline Christians. This is a struggle we all need to keep working on. I can’t imagine it ever going away.
17
Mr Rogers taught me compassion. He cared. You could hear it in his voice. You could see it in the way that he took things apart and put them back together. He didn't hide things.
I'm deeply grateful for the light he shone in my life. He was so talented and so dedicated and he introduced us to such interesting people and ideas.
18
Also from a song sheet—part of Leonard Bernstein's Songfest—"To the Poem," by Frank O'Hara:
Let us do something grand
just this once Something
small and important and
unAmerican Some fine thing
will resemble a human hand
and really be merely a thing
Not needing a military band
nor an elegant forthcoming
to tease spotlights or a hand
from the public’s thinking
But be In a defiant land
of its own a real right thing
20
The Republican party of Mr. Rogers' day was quite close to his philosophy. There was practically no homelessness. The takeover of the party and start of the war on the poor and middle class by the wealthy started to expand around the Reagan administration and has intensified to date.
41
Thank you for the very lovely and moving piece, Mr. Brooks.
13
You neglected to mention a second Rogers film.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"I am your Friend" will star, Tom Hanks as Mister Rogers.
https://variety.com/2018/film/news/tom-hanks-mr-rogers-you-are-my-friend...
The Tom Hanks movie is about Rogers relationship with Esquire writer, Tom Junod. It will be out in 2019.
Perhaps with two films, a documentary and a docu-drama on Fred Rogers, we will see a resurgence of interest in kindness and childhood. I hope so...
6
I wonder, David, why you felt it necessary to mention that Mr Rodgers was a Republican?
Is because the party has become heartless,
lawless and unamerican, and you want the younger generation to know that it was not always so?
This is the party you get when they conduct a scorched Earth policy rather govern for the benefit of the nation.
55
He simply was an incredible force for good.
23
This is a joke, right? If all children are unique persons, of infinite worth, then why is everyone so worried that “their” child won’t get in to Harvard or that “their” child won’t turn out the way they planned, or that it is their right as a progressive modern to abort “their” child because he’s inconvenient and it is a woman's right to do what she wishes with "her" body. The truth is that parents only provisionally take the place of God in the care of persons that He has entrusted to them. And in the end, it is God that will determine, not men, women (liberated or otherwise) that will determine what they will become. I have no idea, or interest, in Fred Rogers. But if he was Presbyterian, he knew that. Commenters in the NYT ought to grow up a little.
2
There is absolutely NO way that Fred Rogers would remain a republican and approve of anything that the GOP and Trump are doing.
Just compare what the GOP and Trump are doing to children vs what Mr Rogers did. Any part of the GOP's agenda runs counter to what he supported and promoted.
Kindness, civility and compassion...non-existent in the GOP world.
Do me a favor and don't cover people like Mr Rogers if you remain a republican.
17
Nice piece here but Mr. Brooks should take note that Jeff Erlanger did not suffer from cerebral palsy but rather a spinal tumor that left him a quadriplegic.
7
I just wondered as I was reading this wonderful article how long it would be before they invoke the name of Trump. Please lets have something that is not a attack in some way on Trump. Just write an article. Leave Trump out if its not about him.
2
I, too, waited until the name of Trump appeared. And there it was. Jeepers creepers, can't the NYT write at least one article that does not equate Trump with all that is wrong? I was too old for Mr. Rogers. I spent my time reading and playing. He was a nice guy for sure but he wasn't the second coming. So please, NYT, leave Mr. Trump out of stories that have nothing to do with him. It is getting really sickening.
3
Good column David. Brought some goodness to my day. Thank you.
11
Mr Roger's effete mannerisms aside his message was harmonious and open seemingly intent on loving that little soul.
4
Mr Rogers was an angelic being........boy do we sure need more of him......
20
As we are now battered by violent gusts of unfettered egotism on the stormy seas of compulsory mass hedonism, it's good to be reminded that America was not always this way, which of course implies that what has been lost can also be restored. The Age of Trump will prove to be a great blessing if the ugly image in the mirror provides enough of a shock to awaken us from our stupor.
8
I loved the my children loved Mr. Rogers and I am grateful a children's television show exposed them to such a sensitive, caring and wise man. I am sure I will tear up when I watch this documentary.
You did a poor job of expressing two points. I don't think children tend to think they are going to "fall down the drains in the bathtub." My memory is that my little brother feared he might be sucked down the drain along with the water after a bath. And Donald Trump does more than "represent a cartoonish version of the idea the winners are better than losers." He represents an immoral and grotesquely evil version of that idea. And today's children are watching.
12
When I was a boy, going to church every Sunday in itchy pants and starchy obedience, old blue haired ladies -- several of them my Aunts -- looking sternly down on my wiggling ways, but I still always liked the sermon. Reverend Haines, a thin old man with wire rimmed glasses, a fellow who had written little inspirational books for children, preached a gospel of love and neighborliness, not hate or fear. As he neared his summation, tears would often stream down his cheeks, and he would dry his glasses to proceed. At that age, I learned God is Love. Then he retired; they brought in a Bible thumper. He got a new church built. The stiff necked and uncircumcised best stand back! His God was a hairy thunderer! I quit and never went back. If Fred Rogers preached, he was Rev. Haines. It seems to me that Jesus, though I now view him as a Buddha, just like Fred, would approve.
16
Least we forget Mr Rogers transphobia- "Girls are girls from the beginning, boys are boys right from the start".
We should consider placing him in the same shunned area as Laura Wilder.
Just sayin'
1
Please learn to see the world through a historical lens. Be kind. If Mr Rogers lived today, he would be more inclusive.
21
Mr Rogers political affiliation is completely irrelevant.
What mattered was his goodness, not whether he identified with one political party or none at all.
The coarseness with which we live nowadays is appalling, and might not have started with our CIC but his supporters chose to endorse vulgarity, meanness, ignorance, racism, sexism, etc, etc when they voted for him in 2016.
Oh, how I wish my grandchildren could have a daily dose of Mr Rogers! TV is a wasteland today, we could all use more than a little Good.
15
David, amazing column-- happy tears for sure, along with a little melancholy for what we have lost. My son grew up watching Mr. Rogers, in a household with very little TV time. As he grew to love his first grade teacher, Mrs. Rogers, he came home one day and said with the charm and open heart of a 6 year old: "mama, I think Mrs. Rogers is married to Mr. Rogers from TV!" I could not wait to tell my husband and walk to school friends this cuteness. Moreover, I was delighted to tell Donna Rogers, who was not married to Mr. Rogers as Sam thought (!), but was every bit as cheery, kind and impactful. Like him, she was enamored of children, focused on the every day miracles of childhood, and was grateful to help them grow.
12
My wife and I just returned from seeing "Won't You Be My Neighbor." We found it every bit as moving as Mr. Brooks describes. Fred Rogers was the embodiment of the good of which humans are capable. Not that he was perfect, he was not. But as a role model for adults I can think of no one better. Thank you, David Brooks, and most of all, thank you, Fred Rogers.
13
Amen, Mr Rogers, amen & thanks for reminding us of how little it takes to love.
5
Nowadays, Rogers would be controversial.
7
Well done, Mr. Brooks. I mean no disrespect to you or any of the commenters here, but most of us talk too much and do too little. We love to hear our own voices and opinions while avoiding actually helping poor or sick people directly. We take care of our own and then go shopping. I haven't a clue how to get rid of the financial corruption that has consumed our large corporations and our governments. I doubt civility of words will do it. Actions are all that matter.
6
I think David only can use the language of Protestants and Conservatism. It’s unfortunate because that can cloud the message and, at times, his thinking.
But what he’s really calling for is a return to decency and respect all around. Can’t really argue with that.
13
My initial reaction was to question how anyone could look at today's GOP (never mind Trump) and think that their values resembled anything that Mr. Rogers stood for. Cutting food stamps and children's healthcare? I don't remember Rogers ever saying, "It's a beautiful day to be sick and hungry." But then I thought to myself, if Mr. Brooks' article gets more people to identify with Mr. Rogers' ideals, I'll take that as a good thing. In the end if all of us, regardless of party, were to let even 5% of Mr. Rogers' kindness and empathy rub off on us, the world would be a better place.
7
Mr. Rogers still has a powerful influence on children. I have seen it, and been astonished by it, with our twin grandchildren, a boy and girl, soon to be six. They currently live in Singapore, where the Amazon Prime library of Mr. Rogers' programs is not available, but selected shows on You Tube are. On our most recent visit, I introduced the children to one of those old shows from Mr. Rogers on my iPad. They sat at my side, transfixed. The next day, in the middle of noisy playtime bedlam, I started another Mr Rogers show, and as the opening theme wafted through the room, they dropped everything they were doing, ran to my side, and sat transfixed for another half hour. This happened as often as I would click on the next show. I use the word "transfixed" advisedly, because they didn't move or say a word for a half hour until the credits rolled. Each and every time. So have no fear. Mr. Rogers still works his magic. All over the world. On the internet.
14
This is an article that should be published in every paper in the country, right or left. Mr. Rogers reflected ideas and behaviors of a gentler time. He gave us all balance. This is not about Trump or any other recent president. This is not about any one source with which to conveniently blame. WE ALL OWN THIS. This is about what has happened to our values over a long period of time in this country. This is about what we have allowed our children to be continually exposed to in our society. This is about the behaviors of adult role models that children are watching every day. And make no mistake-- they are watching and carefully absorbing our modeling every single day. And this is the next generation that will lead us. We could all do with a slow, deep breath and a major reset.
20
For anyone whose heart may have been broken to learn that Mr. Rogers was a Republican, let's remember that Abraham Lincoln and Jackie Robinson were also Republicans, whereas George Wallace was a Democrat. It was a different time.
13
Thinking further about my original post, this also means that Fred Rogers was a Republican during Nixon, Reagan, Gingrich, and G.W. Bush. No one can question the goodness of Mr. Rogers, but I would be lying to myself if this doesn't make me wonder if there was more naivete there than I've been willing to admit.
So I really don't know what to think.
2
In reading many of the comments, I decided to tell what I saw of Fred Rogers. For a brief time I lived in Unity Township in the Latrobe area which was his neighborhood. Several of my children attended grade school with his children. I also worked near his work neighborhood in Oalkland section of Pittsburgh. I often saw him at Lunch at Durante's restaurant across the street from the WQED studios where he did his shows.
I never really met him or conversed with him, but I did see him and how he acted in public. His aura was one of happiness and peace. Rest assured he was a good man!
16
Mr Rogers was a wonderful part of my childrens’ growing up years. I would sit down with them in the morning and watch Sesame Street and Big Bird and then after we were done singing, learning and playing, we would calm down and watch Mr Rogers together. We learned patience, kindness, and love and all for others. And we learned how to give of ourselves for happiness for all. What wonderful lessons. My kids who are in their 40s now, still remember and shared Mr Rogers with their children too. I still remember the moments of peace I felt with him.
11
Mr. Rogers was our graduation speaker (Middlebury College in 2001), and in his speech he managed to both celebrate the children we had been and encourage the adults we could become. What a memorable send-off from a remarkable person.
15
It was Fred Rogers' unabashed gentleness and concern for the littlest human beings that was a gift to our children.
Compare Mr. Rogers to Mr. Trump and Trump's total obsession with himself and tough macho stance, intended to mask a truly weak, insecure, hateful man, who is anything by manly.
I wish Mr. Rogers were still alive on his show and could talk to all the little children, parents, and mature adults about the truly frightening and appalling thing Mr. Trump and Mr. Sessions did by implementing a policy to separate children from their parents at the border.
I had no idea Mr. Rogers was a Republican. I automatically assumed he was a Democrat because he truly cared and was obviously concerned about little children and how they feel.
Says a lot about how far the Republican Party has fallen these days.
16
Perhaps it also says something about the bubbles we now live in, where we shout rather than inquire.
3
Thank you for the thoughtful article, Mr. Brooks. I'd like to point out, however, that the song sheet you refer to in your closing paragraph is still being used (never stopped being so!) by progressives and by religious leaders like Pope Francis and Rev. William Barber. It's only fallen into disuse by those "conservative evangelicals" you referenced. If they've lost their sheet music, the rest of us are glad to let them look on with us and sing along anytime.
16
The commenter under the name Socrates has provided the lyrics for anyone interested!
4
I'm still waiting for Brooks, a frequent commentator on the role of morality in the public space, to make a complete break with Trump and the present day Trump Republican Party. If his concern for children is genuine he would have already abandoned both following the cruel, despicable enactment of an immigration policy separating families and causing lasting psychological harm to children. If that inhumane approach didn't flip the "outrage switch" for this columnist, nothing will. He, like the rest of his morally compromised party adherents, is beyond redemption.
15
Mr. Brooks recently published a column stating that one can either be a conservative or a Republican. I recommend you read it.
3
Yes, Mr. Rodgers was a Republican, as was Jacobs Javits, Lowell Weiker and a host other decent, honorable, liberal Americans in years long gone.
I highly doubt this wonderful American would have aligned himself with today's Republican party.
20
In the 1960s my mom was a solid republican. She worked one housewife at a time, imploring them to join Caesar Chavez in his lettuce boycott. We lived in the bay area, a few hours north of the Salinas Valley, the heart of USA lettuce even then. Mom loved her salads, but she honored workers more. Bad enough they had rough housing and little time off. The worst was no bathrooms. She explained to people that this was not just bad for the workers, but dangerous for the rest of us. For sure there is not a republican today that would honor any workers, much less those who have the temerity to be brown, maybe illegal, and not English speaking or literate. A different world, now lost. Now the GOP is controlled by inhuman corporations and Southerners-- who have never admitted the immorality of slavery, much less care a whit about those who grow and harvest their food. That is why for so many dems, the GOP is just dead, or in need of dying.
9
What a disgrace! Brooks uses Mister Rogers to push his conservative anti-government propaganda. In his mind, the “loveliness of the little good” is always opposed to the ugliness of the big good—like social security or universal health care. If we wee little ones would just content ourselves with speaking kindly to children and stop making noisy angry demands for a just society, what a world it would be. I love Mister Rogers, and I resent this attempt to use the good man as cover for the menace of a reactionary right wing ideology that Brooks has spent his career enabling. The world is made safe for the little good by the audacity of the big goods.
13
Mr. Rogers knew what being "born again" was all about :-)
4
I appreciate this op-ed piece but I do not agree with the notion that we are lost and that goodness and decency has gone to the wayside. If Mr. Rogers taught us anything it was that we can find goodness and decency everywhere. We just have to be willing to see it. Let's not get too nostalgic about the past. During the time Fred Rogers was on the air there were plenty of awful things happening in our country and in this world. Rogers sang from a beautiful song sheet, but it is not lost.
8
I grew up in the Burgh when Fred Rogers played a secondary role of a morning children's show, called The Children's Corner. While I can still recall being amused and entertained by Daniel, Henrietta, and X, I missed the opportunity of growing up with The Neighborhood show. That is, until I had children of my own. Sharing TV time with my eldest, I reached the startling realization that Fred Rogers depicted everything that I wished my children to recognize and appreciate that is good in life. With my VHS recorder, I began taping many of his programs to fill idle hours. It didn't matter how often we replayed these programs together; they always resulted in the same emotional rush of happiness and validation for humanity. To this day, one of my wife's and my most cherished photographs is of our eldest son sitting in front of the TV (with Fred's face on the screen), and looking back into the camera with the brightest smile possible across his face
When I informed my (now) three adult sons of having seen the Roger's movie, their responses were quick and the same. "Dying to see it." "We're going tomorrow!" and, "I can't wait!" There is no doubt in my mind that my children are better people than I have ever strived to be. I'm now thinking that Fred played more than just a secondary role in that
13
"Greed is good" - Gordon Gekko replaced Fred Rogers as America's conscious. The idea that an individual striving and achieving, untethered from any moral compass and encouraged to "win" by any means necessary because "all blessings flow from taking care of No. 1," is a big part of how we got here. The "animal spirits" unleashed and untempered by anything.
3
Thank you for spotlighting the compassion of a home grown
American hero, Mr. Rogers. However in your Republican world today, Mr. Brooks, our president along with the silent and hypocritical Republican right wing Evangelical establishment, mocks the likes of Mr. Rogers. Our president uses every opportunity from campaign style rallies to tv slots to belittle the less advantaged. His braggadocio declarations of shooting someone on 5th Ave. and getting away with it echo his attitudes of wealth, privilege and immunity from the rule of law. Our president is despicable and our nation must stand strong against this tyrannical bully. Long live the mores of Mr. Rogers.
10
I see lots of children being torn from their parents on the television. What would sweet Mr. Rogers say about that?
Conservatives did something big, not small. It is from the momentum of their selfish views that Donald Trump was born.
14
“I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny, invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which if you give them time, will rend the hardest monuments of man's pride.” William James
8
I always thought of him as a man of exceptional courage--moral, emotional and yes, physical. He was someone whose very existence was a rebuke to bullies. He was an affront to the cowardice of cruelty.
And here we are now, in this time, in this place. It is a shame.
8
We need a Fred Rogers in each classroom, in each family, in all workplaces and especially in the White House , Senate and House of Representatives.
That song sheet should be passed along together with its strong , moral message .
4
Yes, do something little. How Fred Rogers' spirituality echoes Thérèse of Lisieux--or Mother Theresa! To think we might look hard at the exquisite beauty in humility and the grand impact of little good acts on our common life.
6
"That morality got reversed long before Trump came on the scene, by an achievement-oriented success culture, by a culture that swung too far from humble and earnest caritas."
Thank you for this article and especially this quote. You hit the nail on the head.
As the mother of a 9 year-old and a 3 year-old, I struggle with what our American culture is showing children and often wonder if it is the same in other parts of the world, at least the western world. My husband and I work hard to model decency, civility and kindness to each other and to our community because they will learn it best from us, even if they don't see it in other parts of our culture.
I grew up watching Mister Rogers and continue to be moved by his simple message of kindness and acceptance of difficulties. I share his show with my boys (who LOVE it, even my older boy) because I want them to see how powerful his message is. It strikes me that this documentary is out now, at a time when we need it the most, and I believe that is why we react to it with such emotion. We know in our inner being that we need his message now more than ever.
8
The gospel of Fred Rogers is actually the Gospel of Matthew, Mark, and Luke without the changes to Christianity introduced by Paul and subsequent Homoousian theology:
Jesus stays the second great commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself
Jesus washes the feet of his disciples to show that Christians are to serve. Fred Rogers did the same to demonstrate against racism.
Jesus encouraged the children to come to him. Fred Rogers lived it.
12
You mentioned that Rogers was a lifelong Republican. That’s from a time when decent, kind people were still able to find a place in a party that is now the home of racists, Neo-Nazis and Trumpists. Brooks and his “conservative “ friends created the GOP of today.
17
Thank you.
4
Is this all you have Mr. Brooks? Mr. Rogers was a Republican? Really? And a kind, compassionate human being - pretty much the opposite of YOUR Republican Party, and everything that criminal organization pretends to stand for, because they stand for nothing save greed, opportunism and expediency. And treason. Why of late you have so little to say about the daily atrocities perpetuated by YOUR Republican Party; the party YOU have supported, promoted and enabled for 40 years? One can just imagine your outrage if eight Democratic senators had gone to Moscow - on JULY 4th NO LESS - for a Treason Tour prior to their Traitor President traveling there to privately get his latest orders from his KGB handler who subverted our elections on his behalf. (Completely uncovered by the New York Times. Why?) Instead we get this inspiring sociological drivel. There will be a reckoning for Republican treason, and the willful Republican destruction of our democracy on behalf of the Koch Brothers and our Soviet overlords. And as the suddenly disturbed pundits and politicos like George Will and Steven Schmidt and you should recognize: this reckoning will include the media apologists who contributed to the rise of a Republican Fascism from which we will never fully recover. We want Republican traitors in jail - not running a government they profess to hate, ruling over people they have only contempt for, on behalf of those who seek to enslave them, out of pure greed and naked lust for power.
13
Amen, David.
1
It’s time for David Brooks to leave the G.O.P.
10
The Republican Party Mr. Rogers identified with is dead.
18
I enjoyed reading this in the New York Times... what a great tribute for a man who was a genuine Champion for Children. I loved the movie and it was a beautiful reminder that children are the greatest gifts to remind us that love and kindness is what we all need to make this world a better place for them and ourselves.
3
Mr Rogers was a true Christian man. I think "Oh, what the world would be like if all Christians lived their faith like he did".
I think he would have been very sad to read the article yesterday about why young people aren't having children since he saw them as such a gift, not something to interfere with adult's leisure time.
7
What a great column! Somewhat nostalgic. When did we lose the spirit of Mr. Rogers? The 1980s and 1990s maybe, the Era of Go-Go Greed? The dour reign of Political Correctness is a huge culprit here. Rogers is Pre-PC. Cultural revolutionaries are so cold, dour and humorless. So busy criticizing America. Don't think Mr. Rogers ever screamed "racist, sexist, homophobe!" Just gentle, kind polite. Never would have made it on cable TV!
6
There's some of Mr. Rogers in all of us. We let that softness show with some people and in some situations more than others. Here comes my Mr. Rogers: I like the comment section of The New York Times. You meet so many interesting people, people with ideas of their own they want to share with others. It feels good when someone takes the time to recommend your opinion, and, when no one does, maybe your next one will be a little better.
10
The morality that “the last shall be first” belongs to of a Rawlsian or even socialist tradition more than one which puts the individual first. The fact that Mr Rogers was a decent man has absolutely nothing to do with his being a Republican. These days that label stands for hopelessly immoral characters who are willing to see their fellow men go down the tubes as long as their own stomachs are full and they are covered by their employer’s insurance. When they one day wake up and find themselves on the wrong side of the tracks, there won’t be any “Theory of Justice” to help them, just a bible which would fail to deliver anything but empty words. Like the words of Republican politicians and the likes of David Brooks.
4
In the current, living world, Fox state TV is hammering out unalloyed propaganda originating from the global views of madmen but we are encouraged to look for life’s meaning in Mr. Rogers.
How much more trite can it get, Mr. Brooks?
1
David Brooks was once a great favorite of mine. Then, he seemed to lose his clarity as is shown in his commentary on Fred Rogers.. He ends with a snide attack on Pres. Trump!
For shame...Mr. Roger's would have done better.
2
"And here is the radicalism that infused that show: that the child is closer to God than the adult; that the sick are closer than the healthy; that the poor are closer than the rich and the marginalized closer than the celebrated."
Genius, and loving.
We have fallen so far.
10
"Often people are moved to tears by sadness, but occasionally people are moved to tears by goodness."
This statement is exactly the problem of sentimentalists. David Brooks cannot or at least does not discriminate between sentimentality, a phony self centered kind of emotion, and Joy or heart felt pain which leads not to tears but to action to prevent the causes of tragedy and useless, stupid suffering because of the lack of the compassion that would eliminate hunger, fleeing in terror, disease generated by greed and heartlessness.
Rogers was/is all about Joy all about living and appreciating the wonders that surround every and any situation. He was never about feeling sad or sorry . the tears were always "tears of gladness, not tears of sadness."
I understand this because I watched his program with my girls. Joy and love are real energies. Sentimentalists do not get this. This is why they fail to understand Art.
1
The documentary, which I saw and enjoyed very much, is worth watching for the edifying example Fred Rogers provides. It's also worth watching to see hosts on the FOX news channel desperately trying to tear him down. It's such a shock in a movie that almost seems like a prayer that it takes ones breath away.
So, yes, there's a lot of good in the world, and Mr. Rogers certainly embodied it.
There's a lot of bad, too. And if FOX can't even let Fred Rogers go untouched well....
20
Mr. Brooks writes, “In the gospel of Fred Rogers... .” But I think Mr. Rogers pretty clearly had another’s gospel in mind, and he took it seriously enough to live it in any encounter I’ve ever heard of. Even Rogers’ respect for children derived directly from Jesus. The neatest thing, though, is that his program was thoroughly secular. His words and actions proselytized for Love, not Christianity per se, and thus sought to embrace everyone. Truly a model we need now more than ever.
12
I was reminded on reading this piece that in my abhorrence of Trump (and his enablers) is a route to destroying my own better impulses. Making fun of him is not perfect, but it’s healthier.
4
Instead of following the "mainline Protestantism" of which Fred Rogers was an exemplar, we are now "mainlining" something else, something that calls itself by a similar name, but which is far shallower and far less genuine.
2
Brooks misses something really big here:
He longs for a Republican like Mr. Rogers who had a spiritual niceness and that Trump is the opposite of that.
Well we had President GW Bush and a candidate Mitt Romney who were certainly way more like Rogers and nothing like Trump.
The result? They were relentlessly savaged by media and Democrats to where Bush’s approval ratings were in the 25% range and Romney was made out to be a mean boss and tax evader.
Trump hits back and THAT’S why he won and remains popular.
2
Crass is the new normal, Mr. Brooks, thanks to the 2016 Election and its Victor In Chief. Truth has been evaded through distortion and distraction. And no one it appears is capable of taking the high moral ground. We miss you, Mr. Rogers!
2
Thank you, David. I have an idea. Can we gather the Republicans and Democrats, perhaps in the Assembly Chamber, and show the film "Won't You Be My Neighbor." We can't have them sitting separately; they must mix it up Dems sit with Repubs. Of course the President must be in the room as well.
7
"And here is the radicalism that infused that show: that the child is closer to God than the adult; that the sick are closer than the healthy; that the poor are closer than the rich and the marginalized closer than the celebrated."
Maybe he picked that up from Jesus--Evangelicals take note.
7
No, Jesus said “Suffer the children...”. Republicans take that as a commandment.
4
is the irony then not lost that the republicans, one of whom was Mr. Rogers, are the ones to want to cut funding for such programs? how do you square that?
9
The answer isn't a return to childhood or to a worldview from the past that America as a culture has outgrown. If Mr. Rogers was successful, the child grows up, leaves childish dependency behind, and takes responsibility for the world he or she lives in.
To me, this is Trump's worst lie. He is spinning a fantasy where he is the "good father" who will make everything right for his supporters. He is asking them to remain children, dependent on him, but these are adults. When adults act like dependent children, never questioning, bad things happen.
11
I can only imagine how Fred Rogers would view the current administration. I think that he might feel the need to have King Friday and Lady Elaine talk about some faraway kingdom where an angry leader says very mean things about people. They might explain to children that sometimes, mean people say things that children don't understand, and that children should talk with their parents about those things they hear the leader say. They might remind children that mean people sometimes make mistakes, and that not all people from other countries are a threat to them, and that we should help people who need us to protect them. I just can't imagine how this kind, gentle man would explain how evil has taken over our government...
13
Fred Rogers' most radical teaching is that one doesn't have to be politically affiliated, opinionated or, most importantly, religious. One only has to be kind.
11
his spirituality was deep. the scene with mr rogers soaking his feet with the black characters, drying one's feet with his towel reminds us of the stories of jesus washing the feet of his disciples, and mary drying his feet with her hair. all metaphors for loving one's neighbor unconditionally.
6
I love this article and I appreciate it being written. Can we please stop blaming Trump for all our problems. Every response below blames Trump and the Republicans. I'm sick of hearing it ad nauseam. Where is the personal responsibility each and everyone of us has in our power to create a better world for children? Please NYT readers let it go........
6
An in addition to your piece David, the following says it all..[Mister Rogers went onstage to accept the award(Daytime Emmys)—and there, in front of all the soap opera stars and talk show sinceratrons, in front of all the jutting man-tanned jaws and jutting saltwater bosoms, he made his small bow and said into the microphone, "All of us have special ones who have loved us into being. Would you just take, along with me, ten seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are. Ten seconds of silence." And then he lifted his wrist, looked at the audience, looked at his watch, and said, "I'll watch the time." There was, at first, a small whoop from the crowd, a giddy, strangled hiccup of laughter, as people realized that he wasn't kidding, that Mister Rogers was not some convenient eunuch, but rather a man, an authority figure who actually expected them to do what he asked. And so they did. One second, two seconds, three seconds—and now the jaws clenched, and the bosoms heaved, and the mascara ran, and the tears fell upon the beglittered gathering like rain leaking down a crystal chandelier. And Mister Rogers finally looked up from his watch and said softly, "May God be with you" to all his vanquished children.]
10
Late post to BRIAN, who I replied to, but forgot to put the link in so he could access the article I mentioned....sorry!
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mister-rogers-francois-clemmons_us_...
David, you neglected to mention a second Rogers film.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"I am your Friend" will star, Tom Hanks as Mister Rogers.
https://variety.com/2018/film/news/tom-hanks-mr-rogers-you-are-my-friend...
The Tom Hanks movie is about Rogers relationship with Esquire writer, Tom Junod. It will be out in 2019.
Perhaps with two films, a documentary and a docu-drama on Fred Rogers, we will see a resurgence of interest in kindness and childhood. I hope so...
2
Fred Rogers is, and will remain, one of my heroes. He had the courage to be gentle, the focus and determination to be considerate, and an endless well of gratitude. Courage, gentleness, consideration, and gratitude. How rare those can seem to be in today's world. Even as an adult, tuning in "the neighbourhood" at the end of the workday, it could be an oasis of humanity in a maelstrom of urgency, distraction, noise, and constant salesmanship.
6
"Rogers was drawing on a long moral tradition, that the last shall be first. It wasn’t just Donald Trump who reversed that morality, though he does represent a cartoonish version of the idea that winners are better than losers, the successful are better than the weak. That morality got reversed long before Trump came on the scene, by an achievement-oriented success culture, by a culture that swung too far from humble and earnest caritas."
David is correct. It was reversed long before Trump. It started with Reagan and his Republican party. Now here we are.
4
There have always been those who exhibited the character and standards we tend to believe all Americans hold dear, but civilizations slowly sow the seeds of their own decline when it becomes increasingly obvious that not enough of us actually express and practice kindness, empathy, compassion and a shared sense of community as a nation. Simply having a democracy and wealth isn't near enough to compensate for the fading civility, respect and fairness that demonstrates a nation in deep trouble.
This was never the greatest country in the world, but it has shifted ever more toward less great. Over the last forty years the Republican party has become the home of the most selfish, unethical, hateful conservatives in the modern world. If there is a hell, it really would be the special place for those who pretend to treasure life while treating poor children with disdain, reducing their access to food and health care, cutting school budgets and now taking them from their parents who are immigrants.
Trump and the mental midgets who serve him, along with the fools (including evangelicals) who support him, will destroy everything that we say matters most. There is no goodness in the twenty-first century conservative in the US. Real conservatives left the Republican party years ago.
Eclectic Pragmatism — http://eclectic-pragmatist.tumblr.com/
Eclectic Pragmatist — https://medium.com/eclectic-pragmatism
6
That such a simple basic philosophy as his should make Fred Rogers a standout, is the saddest commentary of our era.
8
He stands out because he put the philosophy into action.
Not always the easiest thing.
1
Mr. Brooks needs to be reminded that he, as a cheerleader for the policies of the Republican party has contributed to the anti-Rogers-ness of the current hour.
17
Brooks's column continues to be irrelevant. Obviously, he can no longer support the right wing in America so now he writes about ... Mr. Rogers? Does he get paid for writing this stuff?
The Dalai Lama (Happy Birthday today) says it best, "Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible."
13
Although this is a lovely reflection, it's just not true that Fred Rogers only occasionally touched on politics. Brook's point fuels the myth that "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" was largely negligent of politics and mostly focused on feelings.
The truth is that Rogers developed numerous programs that addressed a wide variety of political issues: the Vietnam War, racial injustice, the Cold War, political assassinations, police violence, women's rights, gender inequality, world hunger, abuse of the environment, the nuclear arms race, the Persian Gulf War, and even the War on Terror.
One doesn't have to look hard to find these issues in Fred Rogers's work, but it seems that most of us, Brooks included, are inclined to transform Rogers into an apolitical personality obsessed with personal feelings and development.
We've not dared to like him just as he was -- a deeply political person devoted to creating an alternative polis, a time and place marked by racial reconciliation, economic and environmental justice, and, yes, peace.
14
This is a powerful reminder of what is possible, good, and decent in purposeful and planned acts of kindness. Contrast that with Trump’s recent degrading of John McCain and 1000 Points of Light spoken by George H. Bush as a call to volunteerism and serving one’s community at a characteristic rally reminiscent of declining Rome’s Bread and Circuses for the masses.
What we learn from Mr. Rogers so beautifully explained by Mr. Brooks is that kindness is not random. It is modeled, taught, and practiced, not unlike Aristotle and others who explain that what may be difficult can be practiced until it becomes a habit, and then practiced until it becomes natural, then beautiful or even magical. The same is said differently by Rogers and Hammerstein in South Pacific’s You Have To Be Carefully Taught. Sadly, in Trump’s world, ignorance of important cultural references are the norm.
No doubt, the president was carefully taught – avarice, rapaciousness, hostility, hatred, and inhumanity (witness the separation and the faux taking of credit of children taken away and much later back with their parents.) There are too many words to list that describe the manifest indecency of this president. But no doubt he was taught all from an early age – modeled, practiced over and over again, until for him indecency became natural. Trump who in his vanity has put such a premium on beauty forgets that beauty skin deep is contrasted with an ugliness for those that care to see that goes to the bone.
8
I had no idea that Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian minister before seeing this film. His entire approach to children is explained by his Christian theology where each human being is valued--and equal-- in the eyes of God. Lovely film in these turbulent times.
9
God bless you David Brooks
Mr. Rogers is an American Hero. Real and mythic heroes reflect the true values individuals and cultures hold dear. Many are inspired by Fred Rogers because he practiced his loving and accepting values in spite of external critics. We all admire those values.
My relatives support Trump, yet they too admire Mr. Rogers and cried at the movie. At an emotional level, we all want to love others and be accepted just the way we are. But psychological experiments such as the famous Milgram studies and advances in neuroscience show how our values and brains get hijacked by fear, tribalism, and authority. Human history seems to be equal parts hero and villan. We need to shut down the evil humunculus voice or we will get nowhere.
5
Can anyone view the photo of Fred Rodgers, with the disabled fan and not weep? I looked at the photograph, read the caption, and began weeping before even reading the article...What a special man.
4
David Brooks should keep Fred Rogers' good name out of his priveleged, Republican-helping, pro-Conservative mouth.
I know Brooks is paid a lot to rationalize right-wing talking points in semi-religious words, but his discussion of Rogers is flat, hollow and phony. Yes, Rodgers was made by his faith ... but he never mentioned it. And his medium, public television, has been threatened by greedy Republicans who consider education less important than bombs for well on 70 years.
Brooks wants to praise Fred Rogers in one column; the corporatist fascist-leaning party Brooks supports in every other column would rather bury Rodgers and PBS. Brooks is as much of a puppet as Daniel Tiger -- except Daniel Tiger is likeable.
6
as was once was said by a fairly well known writer, 'THIS was a man'......
3
this is as true today as ever:
https://www.scrapbook.com/poems/doc/842.html
All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten
by Robert Fulghum
It’s still there. You just have to know where to look.
2
Agreed. The civility of Fred Rogers, and the sweet kindness and caring he carried to us has been lost. But restoring it is not an answer to the political revolution Trump has brought to the Nation. No more that Anne Frank's story was an answer to Hitler's SS brigades in Europe. You can cite Rogers as a cultural norm that we need to work towards in the future, but Trump and his legions need to be stopped now. His message and actions are a danger to our democracy and civic life.
5
I saw that video and was much moved. Oh, oh, has anyone seen Christianity lately? Maybe you passed it on your way to work. If anyone sees it, please report the encounter to the bureau of missing religions.
4
I don’t believe in God, but I do believe in the Gospel of Fred.
7
While so many are waiting for the second coming of Jesus Christ, it seems that he may have already come and gone and we never knew it.
3
Hmm! I saw the same documentary that Mr. Brooks did and thus, I have two questions for him:
(1) Why no comments Mr. Brooks, about the segment that showed Fox News' on-air attacks on Mr. Rogers' use of calling every child "special" and (2) Why no comments on the video clips that showed members of the Westboro Baptist church demonstrating at Mr, Rogers' memorial service In NYC and carrying signs that read "Mr. Rogers, Burn in Hell" [This sign referred to the fact that the African American, who played the policeman in the neighborhood, was gay; and that Mr. Rogers had subsequently embraced the individual's identity as a gay man.
Sorry Mr. Brooks, but it seems to me that leaving out these important facts is unconscionable for a journalist of your stature. For these individuals are the haters, these are the people who gave us Donald Trump.
12
Thank you, David Brooks.
1
When you identify with the wretched of the earth, you are in touch with your humanity; when you side with the politically powerful, you lose your humanity.
6
Don’t think he would be a MAGA Republican today....
1
Thank you Mr Brooks. Great way to start off my Friday morning.
Fred Rogers was the kind of conservative who would never marry his research assistant who is young enough to be his daughter.
Imagine Fred Rogers responding to the Fascist behavior of the GOP at the border, separating children from parents.
Fred Rogers was not a hypocrite.
To borrow a phrase from our life long racist Attorney General, ‘good people do not support Trump or the GOP’.
There’s no way Mister Rogers would vote for Trump.
9
I was with the author in his description of a truly moral person, someone who's good has outlived him, without a hint of scandal. But we parted ways over his milquetoast whitewash of Trump as just a reflection of what we've become in the last few decades, not what we've become in the last two years. When did we ever cheer when children were stolen from their mothers to be sold to the highest bidder at phoney adoptions, reminiscent of child slave auctions two centuries ago. Where is the author's outrage at Trump's lies, bullying, self-aggrandizement, war mongering, lying and power grabbing, destroying the very fabric of all the commitments we've made, and all progress we've made in solving our problems. This is the kind of vitriol I hoped for in your conclusion, real moral indignation when juxtaposed next to Fred Rogers. Instead, blame it on the seventies, was all he could offer.
2
I missed knowing Mr. Rogers but find no meaning in his political persuasion. Those whose caritas is love of God will recognize the lessons offered here. Pray for me oppressed in this world; pray for me those who are friendless, homeless, shunned by all the civilized and wealth of the world, pray for me all who seek better lives but find so many doors closed to you. Pray for me for I have sought and found and live in comparative luxury. Pray for all of us who in our quiet well educated, well fed, well housed enclaves no longer see and identify with those in the world who are in dire need and cannot find a way to the promised land. Pray that we may see, that we may seek and find ways to bring aid and comfort .......
4
The most shocking thing I’ve heard all year is that Fred Rogers was a lifelong Republican. I was already in my late twenties when his show started up, so I don’t feel a personal sense of betrayal, but still... This means that while Mr. Fred was exemplifying tenderness, charity and brotherly love on his show, and no doubt in his life, he was voting for the party of Nixon and Agnew, John Mitchell and Roger Stone. His ghost isn’t available to interrogate, so I must accept that this seemingly simplest of men was complex to the point of being able to wall off his politics from the rest of his life. While he sincerely believed that the child was closer to God than the adult, he must have built his politics on the God vs. Caesar dichotomy and taken to heart St. Paul’s admonition to “put away childish things.”
1
Be honest with us, Mr. Brooks, and admit that Fred Rogers would not be a Republican today.
7
To my shame, I've never heard of Fred Rogers but that article just brought tears to my eyes.
2
I bet Fred would have left the GOP decades ago! He would not recognize the GOP today!
2
"Rogers was singing from a song sheet now lost..."
We can take our pick on the day the music died on a national level:
-1980, Reagan launched his campaign near Philadelphia, Mississippi, the town where the Klan lynched 3 civil rights volunteers (Reagan's own public racism goes back decades earlier to his governor's campaign when he announced landlords had the right to discriminate against people of color.)
-1980, when the GOP pushed for a constitutional amendment protecting “the right to life for unborn children" - reversing the GOP
platform position of 4 years earlier, when Republicans said abortion “is undoubtedly a moral and personal issue." By 1992, the platform included a call to appoint judges who oppose abortion.
-1984, when GOP's earlier calls for government workers to receive “salaries which are comparable to those offered by private employers" were changed to denigration of public-sector workers as “bureaucrats” and “Washington’s governing elite,” and blamed for “an epidemic of crime, a massive increase in dependency and the slumming of our cities.” Republicans pledged a major cut in the government workforce.
-The change in national religious dogma from the 1980s to 2000 - from rare mention of religion in 1980 to demanding prayer in public schools and public posting of the Ten Commandments 20 years later.
From there, the groundwork was laid - sowing hatred and fear nationwide instead of just in discrete regional pockets - cleaving our nation in two.
5
Mr., we could use a man like Frederick Rogers again!
3
Fred Rogers’s philosophy and teachings certainly mirror the teachings of Jesus. But though I was brought up a Protestant, I don’t think a study of American history would support Brooks’s assertion that Rogers’s show was “an expression of the mainline Protestantism that was once the dominating morality in American life.” Time to go back and re-read Weber’s “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.” Study the world view of the Puritans who settled Massachusetts, for whom one was either a member of the Elect, God’s chosen ones, or not. When was Mr. Rogers’s saying, “I like you just the way you are” ever characteristic of the dominating morality in American life? Brooks also speaks of “the radicalism that infused that show”: “radicalism” is a much better descriptor. Fred Rogers demonstrated radical empathy for children and other adults. And radicalism is not “mainline.”
2
Mr. Brooks never misses an opportunity to mention his republican party if it is in support of something praiseworthy.
That is why he so often chooses to write about small things that are not worth a lot of column space at the NYT. There just is not much value to the average reader in what Mr. Rogers did way back in the day or what some community based effort is doing for a handful of people. And there is not much support he can give to his team of fact-deniers and gropers-in-chief.
Those things cannot really solve the big problems that the republican party has created for our nation and mankind. He plays republican small ball in hopes to keep us from getting in the real game.
1
To paraphrase a song, "Where have you gone, Mr. Rogers, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you..."
2
And so the Brooks angst continues, poor tortured soul."Rogers was singing from a song sheet now lost, a song sheet that once joined conservative evangelicals and secular progressives." It is not lost David, the radically hostile conservatives burned it.
6
We mainline protestants are still around, though fewer in number. Some of us are even African American, and sing some gospel from time to time. There are still millions of people letting their lights shine. None of the work or the worship will be considered newsworthy, but it continues all the same, as it must.
7
'There’s nothing obviously moving here,' - Nothing moving about assassination? or more like assassinations? The children were reflecting what much of the country was experiencing in 1968. But David you confirm that you really are a true cold blooded conservative at heart.
2
The messages were important but so was the style. Mr. Rogers, like Bob Ross on his painting show, was an example of being quiet instead of loud, gentle instead of strident, open and receptive and adaptive instead of closed, didactic, and rigid. Both left it up to the individual to light the spark, not up to rules, codes, group identity, and inflexible stances or assumptions. Neither wanted to tell you what to do or how to think; both hoped you would figure out for yourself the thing that gave the most happiness and wholeness.
9
i didn't watch mr rogers until my kids were born in 1973&77.
it was a marvellous experience.
he had the power of love.
not sure why, but I rarely see the fact that mr rogers was hired to work for cbc in Canada for three years starting in 1963.
he brought along an assistant who stayed in Canada and became mr dressup--the Canadian version of fred rogers tho he was from the usa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Coombs
5
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Mr. Brooke’s piece and the comments seem to omit that idea. If we turn the clock back 2000 years, Jesus was the quiet radical. Turn the clock forward to the 1960’s and Fred Rogers emulated that model.
The names change, the problems change but at the very core, that which is good remains and that which tries to deviate from it will always exist. This is not a religious statement: I’m an agnostic at best. However, I know the difference between right and wrong, good and evil and see the perpetual struggle between both driven by the engine of greed that has defined human nature from the beginning of time.
Pick any period in history and there was both great beauty and horrible misery always side by side. Pick any period and you’ll find there were always those that allowed their greed to cause the misery and those quiet radicals that helped steer us to our better angels.
7
It is interesting to note that comments to Times articles are now "moderated for civility." That speaks volumes as to how far we have apparently strayed from the unfailing civility, respect, and, most importantly, love, which Fred Rogers incorporated into his shows and expressed in his life.
I have seen "Won't You Be My Neighbor," and it is a masterpiece about a man who fully understood what he had called "the inner drama of children," and that love or its lack is at the root of all that binds or separates us. This film should be on everyone's "must-see" list.
Thank you, David Brooks, for capturing so accurately what this documentary captures so well about one of the finest human beings who ever walked among us and our children.
6
It's long past time we self-reflected as a society and culture. When did we decide that winning is more important than character? When did we decide that demonizing the "other side" was preferable to understanding them? When did we decide that fear is essential to our political arguments? When did we decide that kindness is not crucial to life?
9
By today's standards of masculinity, Mr. Rogers would be considered effeminate and many of his gestures would be only appropriate for a woman to do. When classes of human beings are denigrated, their roles, behaviors, work and ultimately their personal selves are also denigrated. It's how power is retained, actively or passively -- makes no difference. If you want a country in which the meaning of the small, soft, simple is elevated and valued, then those less powerful must be recognized and honored and protected. This country does not do that.
8
Thank you for giving this film a lot of attention. I am looking forward to seeing it this weekend! I wouldn't have known about it unless articles like this existed - as this kind of film rarely has a big marketing budget and folks like me are often hard to reach otherwise. Can't wait to go!
Brooks claim is interesting as the WSJ editorial page had a regular piece denouncing Mr. Rogers' philosophy and the view that we are all valuable.
4
In "Won't You be My Neighbor", there's a small piece on what happened when Fred Rogers appeared before Senator Pastore, the powerful chairman of the Communications Committee in the House. Nixon wanted to de-fund Public Broadcasting, a Lyndon Johnson legacy to free up money to pay for the war in Vietnam and Pastore was the guy who was clearly ready to make it happen.
Watching Pastore's interaction with Rogers reminds us that at one time we had a Congress that was honorable and capable of making independent decisions, something that would doom any reelection bid for a GOP member today.
It was a better time for the country.
10
You say, wistfully, "His show was an expression of the mainline Protestantism that was once the dominating morality in American life." I would say that morality (alas not dominating at the moment) now lies in the Democratic Party. No, not all Democratic politicians are saints (who among us is?), but the ethos of the party generally aligns with mainstream Christian principles (minus the supernatural element) in a way that is hard to find in the I-got-mine prosperity gospel of the opposition. What I can't understand for the life of me is why you don't embrace it.
7
Thanks for your words.
2
Rogers' song sheet hasn't been lost, Mr Brooks. Turn around and you'll see 48% of all registered voters singing from it. They just aren't the ones in your party.
9
I wept (but also laughed) through screening of this terrific film at the Maryland Film Festival with about 200 others equally moved and inspired. Nicholas Ma made some remarks afterward. It was a great conversation and he was both impressive and warm.
One of the final questions was, "Who is out there? Who will be the next Fred Rogers?" With genuine sincerity he replied, "I hope each of you."
11
Mr. Rogers cared deeply about children and ask them to pray for him. Today's Republicans take children away from their mothers and put them in cages. "Whatsoever you do to the least of these . . ."
7
I am not at all sure why Mr. Roger's political affiliation has anything to do with his kindness and goodness. It seems David Brooks is stretching so far to try to justify his party affiliation that is filled with crooks, haters, and thieves.
5
The Rogers song sheet is ready for reuse, but no one in the GOP will sing. Instead we hear a cacophony of hatred, bigotry, misogyny, racism, gluttony, greed, and ignorance. We try to plug our ears, but the din is relentless -- a barrage of offensive clashing cymbals on the daily.
How would a modern day Rogers song cut through this hurricane? I fear Trump's bully pulpit is too big. His tweet organ a massive propaganda echo on every street corner. The game has changed. Gentle acts of kindness on TV are good, but I fear we have left that era long ago.
A new social media Rogers needs to rise. One that muffles the constant echo of bully "winning", hoarding money and neglecting the needy. We need an army of Mr. Rogers singing. An orchestra. An opera. Online everyday. Tweeting good. Posting grace. And not just online. Also marching for justice. Making the streets safe. Protecting immigrant children. All children. Setting an example with real action.
Maybe it could be each of us, since we all have access to the airwaves, and since we all live in a "neighborhood". We can all strive to make our neighborhood like Mr. Rogers' neighborhood. We can all be a counter song, a foil, to Trump's noise.
6
Fred Rogers was a truly good man. I just cannot bear to read anything David Brooks has to say about the lovely man.
3
Maybe what many of his fellow Republicans now need to ask themselves is "what would Mr. Rogers do?" The answer could help to lead an America that has gone far astray into a kinder, gentler and altogether more admirable way of living and a proud place in the world. That truly would help to make American great again rather than damage it, and the world, seemingly beyond repair. Those who are currently enamoured of that slogan are clearly making it far, far worse than most of us could have imagined.
2
How about showing “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”to every one on the first day of high school? And then discuss it for the first period? Starting with a lesson in kindness might be a good way to start the year.
8
"the poor are closer than the rich "
It is no sin to be rich.
Is it "justice" when a judge rules in favor of a poor person, just because that person is poor ?
Justice should be color blind and oblivious to wealth of the two claimants.
Anything else is not justice.
Fred Rogers would not be a Republican now, just as my father is no longer a Republican. The party has changed. And I can't believe you can write a column about Fred Rogers and children and not even mention that children from families seeking asylum from awful violence are still separated from their parents thanks to the policies of this president. For shame!
6
Now Trump has ushered in an era where cruelty is seen as strength, exclusivity is seen as America First, and violence is taught through the media to the youngest children, many of whom will begin shooting guns before they even become teenagers.
5
That song sheet hasn’t been lost; it’s been misplaced. Maybe rediscovering Fred Rogers will help us find it.
1
Fred Rogers was a saint like the Abbe in Victor Hugo's Les Miserable, one who gives unstintingly to those in need without ever stopping to ask why they are in need.
5
It's amazing that the generations of kids raised on Mr. Rogers Neighborhood grew up to vote DJT into office. Maybe TV wasn't all that powerful, after all. BoBos in Paradise, after all.
Brooks is a frequent advocate for small kindness. I wonder if he realizes that it is meant to be the seed stock for larger kindness, not just to stand on its own.
Absence of guilt in one area doesn't absolve fully complicit guilt elsewhere. For one, the casual complicit racism of Republican election wedge strategy over 50 years has led us to this single divide (of many.) Brooks helped, every time over the years he refused to recognize it. He still can't call it for what it is, even as the whirlwind reaps.
This is why his columns, his parables, often seem so smarmy and smug. They ignore reality. A reality he helped bring about.
He's the prosperity preacher, telling us all to love one another, without practicing it himself. Keep those checks coming.
7
Years ago I lived in a place where there was no cable and only two TV stations. At a certain time of day my choices were either Geraldo Rivera or Mr. Rogers. I always picked Mr. Rogers. I grew up before Mr. Rogers began his TV program, but I became hooked as an adult. He was such good mental therapy early in the day.
2
As conveyed in Matthew 18:3, Jesus tells us that unless we become like little children we will never enter the kingdom of heaven . Fred Rogers' message to children is one that we too should hear, we are all children of God , just the way we are.
4
Nice. Do you know who else was a life-long Republican? Chuck Connors. You should/make do a column on "The Rifleman." He never shot to kill, and only to defend himself. He taught his son that guns were an absolute last resort. And the utmost respect for the rule of law, and equality before the law. How many lynch mobs did he stare down? Then, you could branch out and do the original Lone Ranger: the brotherly bound between a caucasian and a Native American. And the inherent respect for Hispanics and African Americans, not to mention a number of independent, self-sufficient? You could then branch into shows like Bonanza and Gunsmoke, same values, same lessons.
3
And yet for decades, Mr. Brooks has supported the policies of the party that is the antithesis of everything Mr. Rogers stood for. Sad.
3
Rogers was an exception from the rule. The rule of the sanctimonious, the greedy, the righteous, the obsolete!
1
There was a time when acceptance of folks in their own merits and personal ethic of citizenship would have been defined as a person having a liberal view of their place in society. The coded language of today feels like a huge wet blanket when it comes to the level of tolerance Fred Rogers exhibited; and with kids no less, whose minds are yet to be fully formed. All of us need to rediscover our inner Mr. (and Ms.) Rogers.
3
"Rogers was singing from a song sheet now lost, a song sheet that once joined conservative evangelicals and secular progressives. The song sheet may be stacked somewhere in a drawer in the national attic, ready for reuse once again."
Amen!
My. How things have changed. Now Trump sings the song "It's not a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Could you, won't you expel your neighbor." And a third of the country tunes in every day while the sweater is changed to a jacket with "I don't care. Do you?" on the back and the sneakers are changed to stiletto heels. And they walk around the house singing the new version of the song. And Fred Rogers lies in his grave, his eyes filled with tears. Of sadness. There's an awful lot of people in America who got their moral teaching from the bullies on the playground instead of from Mr. Rogers. And a lot of ministers who stopped turning the other cheek and started turning away..... from Mister Rogers message. All these folks keep telling themselves they are on the right path. If they were in charge of today's version of the show, they would have a guest to show how to change magazines on their M-16, and explain how gerrymandering can help win elections, and to explain how Black people are lazy and shiftless. And bring a whole new level of meaning to Mr. McFeely up there in the big White House. Impeachment. It's a big word, but I think you can say it if you try.
5
Some of previous commenters have wished that, "Mr. Rogers was still with us." The reaction to the article and the movie indicate that in fact, he is still with us. Heaven and hell only exist as paradigms that are carried forward via both the collective memory of society and also the DNA and moral lessons that we pass on to our children.
2
That episode where Rogers puts his feet in a tub with a black man was even more touching when the man says he has no towel and Rogers said then you could share mine. You don't share a towel with someone not worthy of complete acceptance. That's way beyond a seat on a bus or place at a counter. The message was brilliant.
Trump would never share a towel. Never, ever.
17
Every person working in the Trump White House, including Mr. Trump first and foremost, should watch and reflect on “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”
3
Brooks is not stupid. His comment about Rogers being Republican and mainline Protestant is his way of saying that this is what the GOP once was and no longer is. Humility, kindness and care for others are sadly no longer important Republican values.
4
"Rogers was singing from a song sheet now lost..."
No, not really. Sit in on a Sunday school class for any of the younger grades and you'll see that Fred Rogers lives on. It will not matter if the church is evangelical, mainstream Christian, or Liberal (think UCC or UU). Fred lives!
2
I miss him.
7
I wish Brooks would repent before he preaches. For himself, not for us. It's as though he didn't have a clue what he's been supporting all these years.
7
This one really got me thinking. Thanks, Mr. Brooks.
Hoping of course this will be dubbed into Spanish soon as possible, then made available for viewing by those kids confined to the Texas Walmart holding tanks… Surely they'll be charmed to learn what a sweet haven the US once was.
8
Mr. Rogers, great human.
Mr. Trump great liar.
6
Yes, we do need kindness again. But I worry about the use of religion when it makes people accept the world's inequities today because they believe there will be a better afterlife. I worry about those who have little, yet donate to megachurches because they are told God loves the rich and wants people to be rich. I worry about those who are uneducated and act on emotion rather than logic. There was a reason the forefathers wanted separation of church and state. They knew the history of the power struggle between the two and the corruption of the church in European history.
8
I credit Mr. Rogers for my liberal ideals. As a child of the 70s, his influence along with Sesame Street, were powerful teachers of kindness, delivered with wit and intelligence.
Mr. Rogers may have been a Republican, but I can only imagine that he did not identify closely with the GOP after Reagan.
5
It was the Protestant moral ethic, exemplified by Fred Rogers, that rallied Republican support for the passage of the Civil Rights bill and the Voting Rights Act. Neither could have passed without that support. However, whether it was Roe, the ERA , Vietnam or Gay rights the Protestant commitment to social justice was lost. The country has suffered terribly as a result.
5
It does make me cry - the kindness. And I believe that means something important.
2
I tried not to cry, but at at least I escaped total dehydration
2
In my early adulthood l made gentle fun of Mr. Rogers. To give myself solace. I think he understood.
3
My grandsons, ages four and seven, watch Mr. Rogers Neighborhood on Youtube regularly, though it's sometimes hard to find episodes that haven't been blocked. I think PBS should release his programs into the public domain. The late Fred Rogers testified before Congress in favor of then-new VCRs so that children could record and watch his programs at any time. I'm sure many others would join me in making contributions toward this cause.
12
I am currently in a humane education program through the Academy of Prosocial Learning. The program familiarizes learners with "humane education" and how to incorporate the tenets into any teaching/training curriculum. Fred Rogers was doing this long before the term, "humane education" was even around. We desperately need humane education in every public school program today. Kids are engulfed in so much negativity, so much stress, etc. Support your humane educators - mention it to your school board - and take the training yourself if you are an educator. It's extremely interesting and rewarding.
3
David's little trip to a happy place is actually one of the causes of despair. These happy moments sweep away the reality of starvation of the poor at the behest of the wealthy. However, this is how conservatives see the world, the "thousand points of light" that they wait for to solve the world's ills, while they feel safe and human in this delusion. For an example, why do we have charitable groups for maimed Veterans? Shouldn't the tax payer's dollars take care of these people that gave so much for their country? Another, why doesn't the tax payer sufficiently fund research for medical treatments for our life threatening diseases? You get the idea.
9
How dare you! Reagan and republicans have done everything they can to destroy a world that Mr. Rogers was guiding us towards. They destroy public television, they destroy health care for the vulnerable. They destroy civility and they encourage racism. How dare you claim the mantle of this man, and hide in his coattails. How dare you!
28
Thankfully, they have not yet destroyed public television. For a good look at someone who seems to embody Mr. Rogers philosophy, without saying so out loud, try out Hari Sreenavasin (sp.)on weekend PBS news.
Yes Mr. Brooks: how dare you!
How dare you think for yourself. How dare you talk about anything else but the oppression everyone suffers because of people like you. How dare you not align with one of the two dominant discourses. Bad, bad David Brooks!
An excellent tribute, Mr. Brooks. It serves as a reminder that there is another option which America has cast aside in favor of separating families, turning its back on environmental well being, thinking before brashly acting on tariffs and boasting about successes that don't exist.
Today, Fred Rogers would be running for his life.
6
Today I can see the rare wisdom in Fred Rogers' words and deeds and I respect them.
But I also remember the strong controversy around his show when I was a child. Many people at that time were strongly opposed his show. They said it would weaken us, that boys could become effeminate and indecisive if over-exposed to the show.
We always carry the seeds of our future within us. We just have to be careful which ones we choose to nourish.
3
When times get harsh like they are now. People, most people, search inside themselve for comfort and balance. The search typilcally brings them closer to home, their own commuinty or neighborhood. It is there that they find grace. The grace of a sincer glance, friendly smile, warm welcome, genuine handshake of hugh.
I've discovered a heartfelt apprecaition for my comminity lately.
2
"Moral elevation gains strength when it is scarce."
If nothing else, I will see this movie for that reason. Because it's come to that.
6
"Won't you be my neighbor?" That was part of the opening song. There's not a lot of neighborliness going on in America right now. And guess what Mr. Brooks, the party you have shilled for, written op-eds in favor of, set up straw men to demonstrate the moral and political superiority of, is one of the main contributors to that lack. Mr. Rogers neighborhood was written and produced in a time when people were hoping things could improve. We could see our government work for us on occasion. Now, and for the past 40 years, our government has worked against us. However, the Trump administration has gone over the top.
Trump is mean, small-minded, vengeful, and not at all interested in being a good neighbor. He's promoting and putting into effect policies that are not beneficial for us or the world. And yet the GOP, the party you support, nominated this creature. The GOP, the party that believes in government handouts for everyone but the people who truly need them.
Rogers was a humble personality. He believed in kindness to all. He probably believed in justice for all and not throwing the first stone. He had a quiet presence something that the GOP and Trump do not have. They are crass, rude, bombastic and, above all, unkind.
To paraphrase what Spock said in "The Wrath of Khan", their motto is that the needs of a few outweigh the needs of the many.
19
Thank you, Mr. Brooks, for writing this. Who knew kindness would seem so revolutionary today, something we'd be craving like it's an essential vitamin we're lacking. This kindness is why I always appreciate what you have to write or say. I may fervently disagree, but I always feel you've arrived at your position following your own understanding of the greater good, and treating those who feel differently with dignity and respect.
12
Why did Mr. Brooks feel compelled to say that Fred Rogers was a life long Republican? Was he trying to say that even Republicans could be good or that we should not fear Republicans because they are Republicans? In any case it was fatuous to bring up politics in a piece dedicated to Fred Rogers humanity and dignity which transcends politics which is based on fear, fear of the other and one up man ship.
We live in a cynical society and even children sometimes made fun of his gentleness including myself. Fred Rogers was a strong man in his gentleness and his standing up for the under dog and the suffering going to the point of seeing the value of that suffering. I wish Fred Rogers would not be considered a saint, but a regular man whose attributes could mirror the things we as regular people could be everyday.
11
Have you seen the movie. The fact that Mr. Rogers was a republican is mentioned in the movie. I think actually was a powerful statement. Republicans were not always so heinous. My highly principled father was one and I am sure he would be appalled at todays version of republican.
14
Years ago I watched Mr. Rodgers with my challenging preschool son. I was a single mom doing my best in a very difficult situation. I don't know who was helped and assured most. We both heard the words "you are special just the way you are", and it provided us both with the grounded kindness we needed most. Thank you, David Brooks, for recognizing him, but most of all, thank you, Mr. Rodgers.
20
In the picture that accompanies this column, why is the child identified as a “disabled fan”? Why can’t the caption just say “a fan” of Mr Rogers?
7
As the mother of a child with disabilities, I appreciate your point. But I think the point of the caption was that at the time of the photo, disabled children were hidden away. Mr. Rogers was celebrating them specifically, and that makes “disabled” a righteous modifier in this case.
4
I have no doubt that today Mr. Rogers would have invited an immigrant family fleeing violence into his home to celebrate family and compassion and humanity.
10
Radical kindness - what a concept. Mr Rogers was a true saint.
9
If Mr. Rogers were around today, he would definitely not be a Republican.
9
In my children’s growing up (they are in their 40’s now), Mr Rodgers was an opportunity to slow down, take a breath, enjoy the “small things” like simple puppets and a man who spoke kindly and took time to change his clothes when he came home.
Do kids have anything like that now? Would they be able to appreciate it?
6
A few months before my mother died, I discovered she was an avid Mr. Rogers' fan. She sat on the edge of her bed, wearing a cardigan sweater, and singing his, "Won't You Be My Neighbor!" She looked at me and placed her finger in front of her lips - "Shhh, Quiet!"…and then whispered, "He's really a very nice man. Judith!" As usual, her keen judgment of character… got it right." He was a very nice man.
6
In my younger years the GOP showed some of the general ugliness we see now but it wasn't predominate. It still had enough good people serving that would do the right thing to add weight when it was needed. Remember the GOP helped usher in the Civil Rights legislation of the 60s.
Nixon was about the worse they had - and even they knew it and snickered. Still he had some good points. For me Kennedy vs. Nixon was a hard choice back then. And maybe I should have been devastated when he won in 1968 but I wasn't. More on him later vis-a-vis the GOP. My point here is even their worst at that level seemed (unfortunately) tolerable.
Yes it always seemed to me they were institutionally skewed toward the rich and a bit negligent of the less fortunate and the working classes. But they weren't ugly about it - it was more their slant on how to best advance overall our economy, etc. Generally it was honest, sincere, and cogent. Not so often right in my view but nevertheless legitimate.
And yes they were sort of out of touch with changing social times but most of our elders were - so what.
Nixon hanged the GOP - his evil genius psychopathy turned an alternative view point Party into a win at all costs Party. He knew that in order for the GOP to win their sustenance had to be marinated in demagoguery and authoritarianism. To radical evangelicals, bigots, etc. he subtly turned them. The GOP fanned the flames of that base. A fire that consumes and deforms them to this day!
9
I suppose Mr. Brooks wrote this piece to announce that not all republicans are evil spawns of the devil. The problem with this view is that republicans of this ilk are seldom heard from these days. The most sordid incompetent administration in history, it's mentally-ill leader and it's toady congress are all complicit in the decline of American greatness. Trillions of dollars in debt, that will be borne by our children and grandchildren, while rewarding corporations and the wealthy at the expense of everyone else is beyond the pale. Cozying up to dictators, like Putin (make Russia great again) fomenting descent, encouraging racism and misogyny, destroying the social fabric one law at a time, ignoring science are all the result of a republican party platform devoid of patriotism, morals, ethics, honesty, and humanity.
15
Paying attention to the little things is our only hope. Same as it ever was.
5
I was so moved by this movie. I loved learning more about this very evolved soul. At the same time it was very painful to see a grown adult pouring bleach into a swimming pool while shouting "get out" to a group of frightened black children. The audience gasped out loud at this footage. I hate that this type of behavior is once again being stoked by our current national leadership.
8
Small acts of kindness, like Fred Rogers showed us, are the good in human beings. Attacking others, as Trump does, is the evil in human beings. We need to celebrate the good and disavow the evil.
5
We watched him as kids. Recently for fun I watched a few of the old "Speed Racer" 1960's cartoons and was surprised to see how similar Speed's ethics are to Mr. Rogers'. Except Speed drives an exotic race car, has a loyal equal footed girlfriend, faces down bad guys, wins races.. and his little brother and pet chimpanzee keep stowing away in the exotic race car's trunk.
So it was that or goody two shoes with the hand puppets.
Or Ultraman or Bugs Bunny or the original Star Trek.
Tough choices.. but what a spectrum of programming, right?
Abe Lincoln was a Republican, too. The name Republican has remained the same, only the meaning has been perverted beyond all recognition.
Mr. Rogers strikes me as having been a Christian in the very truest sense. I don't believe he would have had anything to do with today's Republican Party had he lived to see what it has devolved into.
12
I watched the film a few nights ago and I was moved to tears at points. I was shocked when it was stated that Fred Rogers was a life long republican. I compare Mr. Roger's kindness, respect, concern, gentleness, love, and compassion to today's leader of the republican party with his bullying, disrespect, bombast, arrogance, egotism, and hatefulness, and it moves me to tears.
3
Thanking you David for taking the time to write about this beautiful person and what it means to our world now.
6
Thanks for this one, Mr Brooks, from an old, white mainstream Protestant who has been missing what he was taught was Christianity for quite a while, but didn’t quite realize what Mr Rogers had done for it.
8
In the modern era it is so difficult to comprehend that a human being, on television or otherwise, as compassionate as Mr. Rogers was actually existed that people who watch the show now or in the future may think he was part of the land of “make-believe” as well.
3
The NEW "deep but simple" triumph over "shallow but complex" is Trump not having to worry about tire air pressure because our automobile no longer has any wheels.
2
Nice to read your review of the Mr. Rogers movie. I didn't know he was a Republican (or maybe had forgotten it). But certainly mentioning that has excited a number of anti-Republican comments here. It is a measure of how much people have forgotten the kindness and gentleness of Mr. Rogers himself. It is Biblical--"love your neighbor as yourself," "do to others as you would have them do to you," "Blessed are the poor for their's is the kingdom of God," "If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also." And so on. And then Jesus stopped and healed the man with the withered hand in the synagogue (Mark 6: 6f). It is all there--very accessible. To bring Mr. Rogers back, all we have to do is start acting like him, towards children and adults.
13
Brooks blames "achievement culture" but doesn't mention the cruel policies of the GOP -- policies that devalue children, and hurt the sick, and blame the poor for their poverty. The GOP is run by men with no empathy who claim to be religious but use religion the way the slavers did -- hypocritically.
Government policy matters. It's hard to build community bonds when you're working three jobs and still can't pay your medical bills.
The GOP values money and power and they don't care about people which is why Trump represents them so well. Fake Christians all!!!
12
I use the term hypochristians.
1
When Mr. Rogers came on the air in 1968, I didn't get him at all and dismissed him outright. I was ten years old at the time. It wasn't until I was in my early thirties that it finally dawned on me what the man was all about.
Visiting my sister's home one day, I noticed her preschool children watching him transfixed. He hadn't been talking to ten year old Tommy Degan in 1968. He had been talking to my three year old sister Sally!
From that moment on, he was my hero.
www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
9
Mr Rogers' songbook hasn't been lost, Mr Brooks. Turn around and you'll see 48% of registered voters still singing in that chorus. Maybe you haven't noticed them because they aren't in the Republican party.
11
Opinions by Brooks are thought provoking, stimulating and well worth reading. Too many of the other weekly Opinions are essentially vitriolic political rhetoric and mind numbing like propaganda.
3
Pete Seeger once said " I think the world is going to be saved by millions of small things." I don't know if they ever met, but I imagine the radical socialist and the Republican Presbyterian minister would have gotten along famously.
25
We can all strive to be like him. I believe we should.
7
Replying to MadelineConant: Twelve words here, and you've said it all! Beautiful.
2
I love that this article on the gentile, kind Mr Rogers is sandwiched between an article on the generational damage from Pruitt and the article of mr. trump's illicit gains as president.....at least on my iPad that's how it's presented. If the degeneracy of mr trump's trifecta can be illuminated this couldn't make it more evident. Will we ever see the decency of a Mr Rogers' again?
3
Lamentations, however sincere or slyly put, do not mitigate the role played by conservatives like you who so carefully paved the way for the outrages perpetrated by the crime family now occupying the White House, Mr. Brooks.
6
I wonder what Mr. Rogers would say about the Trump administration ripping children away from parents.
How would he explain caging babies, toddlers and children?
How would Mr. Rogers explain that clean air and water don't matter?
Or that is is okay to lie? Okay to always lie every day and in every way.
The show explaining Trump's tweeting would be something to see.
Or the "very nice people" vs the "vermin, animals" episode.
I miss Mr. Rodgers.
8
Mister Roger’s neighborhood was, unfortunately, dismantled by a New York real estate mogul. Mr. McFeely, the one-time owner of Speedy Delivery Messenger Service, now stocks shelves at an Amazon warehouse. Mayor Maggie was run out of office by a Koch-supported candidate, who immediately terminated the sign language program. And Neighbor Abner, abandoning all his hobbies, took to bagging groceries to pay for his mother’s hospital bills (it was all he could get; the stubborn man just wouldn’t learn the newest software). The beautiful little neighborhood is now a distant memory, though you can sometimes still see Mr. Negri playing his guitar on 30th Street in Kip’s Bay.
11
Mr. Brooks: "And here is the radicalism that infused that show: ... that the poor are closer [to God] than the rich."
This opinion is niether new nor radical: see Matthew 19:23-24
"Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”"
7
>
Great Brooks, the Titanic is going down and you're writing about Mr. Rogers.
We aren't playing children's games here. We are in a fight for survival. And as if it couldn't get darker, the oblivious and lost Dems are our only hope.
If DJT, Putin, and the rightwing get their way, the Constitution, the Civil War, D-Day etc....will all be for naught in our life time.
This Op-Ed is a complete waste of cyberspace.
Mr. Roger is as much out of place in this munching world as organic matter is in the universe, i.e., they are both extreme abnormalities.
David,
Instead of saying a “black character” it would be more respectful and accurate to say “Francois Clemmons,” a famous singer, who played the part of Officer Clemmons. It’s a glaring omission/oversight, is there some latent disrespect in your world view? As this documentary makes very clear, it’s not the 1960s anymore.
5
I noticed that too, and it really stuck out. All it takes is to google “black character Mr. Rogers neighborhood,” the name Francois Clemmons pops up, and Mr. Brooks demonstrates effort (the smallest amount) and understanding of what Mr. Rogers was teaching. If nothing else, where was an editor to catch that?
1
"Mr. Brooks provides us a glimpse of what it means to be a compassionate conservative, a really compassionate one!”
Have I slipped into another dimension? We’re giving Brooks a pass on the children that HIS party is traumatizing FOREVER?
1) Flint, MI-The pediatrician who spearheaded the breaking news of lead in the drinking water that resulted from an austerity move has ALREADY damaged children’s brains. There is NO safe level of lead in a child, yet the government is using blood levels NOT water levels to test safety!
2) The refugees of Syria who have now been waiting over 2 years of vetting while living in squalid tent cities are now being told by Trump AND SCOTUS that the ban is just fine! National Security! But Saudi Arabia is FREE to come and go even though 15 of the nineteen 9/11 terrorists who flew passenger jets into the WTC, the Pentagon, and Flight 93 into a field after the passengers fought back were from Saudi Arabia!
Oh sorry---the Trump mafia family owns hotels, condos, and businesses in Saudi Arabia!
Have we all forgotten the body of drowned 3 y/o Syrian toddler Aylan Kurdi on a Turkish beach? How it sparked anguish and outrage? Part of a group of 23. In all, five children from that journey were reported dead.
3) Over 2,000 babies, toddlers, and other Latino babes crying all day for their mama and papi! All.Day.Long. But as Fox and Friends says “Not like these are OUR children from Idaho or Texas!
Fred Rogers would be OUTRAGED with this column!
8
David, if you are going to continue this line of tsk-tsking” about how “achievers” and “meritocracy” is ruining the country, maybe you could do us the favor of revealing your own net worth and posting a picture of what I am sure is a really nice house you live in, as well as letting us know where your kids went to college. I suspect the “meritocracy” has been very good to you. While I certainly agree with your words about the values espoused so wonderfully by Fred Rogers, our current social problems require solutions far more complex than just being nice to each other. And If I recall correctly, you are a longtime supporter of the party that has steadfastly blocked almost every effort at finding these solutions, even if you are holding your nose at the current embodiment of that party.
5
"The Child is Father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety."
William Wordsworth
6
Thanks a lot, David Brooks, for tarnishing Fred Roger's legacy by pointing out that he was a Republican.
I guess it goes to show, he was only human with his own faults.
4
That fact is mentioned in passing in the movie, but it isn't dwelt upon, nor is Mr. Rogers' specific (Presbyterian) faith.
Today, Grace is mocked and reviled in the United States.
Did Fred Rogers fail?
3
How do I say the following, while honoring the spirit and the lived-life of Mr. Rogers while also honoring the commitment of what his life embodied, Mr. Brooks you are co-opting the tenets of a great man as if some of the fragrance of the perfume will rub-off on you and those who share your ideology. It stinks.
Would Fred Rogers be a Republican now? I'd wager 'no way!' and yet it's important for you to note that he was a "life long Republican". Vicarious redemption? Not a chance.
"The last shall be first..." Not in this country Mr. Brooks. Not with 'trickle-down economics', 'welfare queens', 'lift yourself up by your bootstraps', and the rest of the lies of Horatio Alger and the LIE, the LIE, that 'anyone can make it if they only work hard'. It is not true.
Morality? Is it moral that the #1 reason for bankruptcy is profiting off of sickness? Is it moral that 40+ million live in poverty in the USA while the richest have sums of money they will never ever be able to spend?
I watched Mr. Rogers because it breathed possibilities if only the parents of the world desired it. As I became older I realized that powerful forces of men had determined that compassion, empathy, genuine caring were trivial if they could not be monetized. How can the good-of-spirit survive when it's antithetical to modern capitalism? It doesn't.
In this country the ONLY thing rewarded is MORE...it doesn't matter if 2.5 million kids in the US are homeless...at least they are not 'my' neighbor! #resist
9
Hoping of course that the Mr. Rogers biopic is dubbed soon as possible in Spanish, then made available to the de-parented children currently held in Texas Walmart holding tanks… Likely they'll be charmed to learn what a pleasant soul was once resident in U.S.A.
9
Mr. Rogers truly embodied manhood in a way most blokes will never comprehend.
3
Mr. Brooks would've made a great violinist on the Titanic.
4
A perfect subject for David Brooks. Maybe next time an ode to Herman Melville, or Mother Theresa, or the Supremes.
Anything to divert attention from the gathering menace of Donald Trump and the Republican Party, and the role Mr. Brooks played in creating the latter and bringing the former to power.
While Mr. Rogers was delighting children and adults with his saintly appeals to goodness, Mr. Brooks was demanding we invade (that is, kill people in) Iraq, and questioning the patriotism of anyone who disagreed.
A little self-awareness, perhaps, Mr. Brooks?
5
As long as somebody as vile as Trump is president that's not possible. He is the enemy of democracy. He is out to destroy decency. You can't compromise on this.
6
For me born into a family of criminals......
My salvation came from
Mister Roger’s show and the original Mikey Mouse Show.
Vivid memories of chaos around me as I sat in a big soft living room chair from ages 3 onward and picking up on the morals and values and the fact that these television personalities said I was good and they all liked me too.
Hope , Mr. Rogers gave kids Hope and because of it we were brave and not afraid.
Some of us became successful despite the dysfunction around us
Due to the lessons we were able to integrate.
Thank you Mr. Rogers , Walt Disney, and Miss Francis Ding Dong School.
24
Yet another chapter in Brook's never ending quest to identify key personalities who have appealrd to our better angels dedicated to creating a more humanistic and communal social order. May his quest continue to flourish.
4
Fred Rogers seems particularly prescient, and a particularly good role model in this era of escalating nastiness. Most evident, and even unsettling to our ridiculously puffed up macho sensibility, is his gift of empathy, evident in his steady, affectionate gaze. The film ends with a deep sadness at the deplorable state of our nation.
1
I remember watching Mr. Rogers with my children. Fred Rogers not only reminded my children how special each of them were. He also reminded me how important it was to be a a kind and caring parent.
2
The morality of Presbyterian ministers - having been raised by one, I can say that they're not all virtuous but many do aspire to be. My dad helped raise us to be cynical of those who tried too hard to impress with bigness. He did look up to one guy, though: Norman Thomas, 6-time Socialist candidate for President, and also a Presbyterian minister.
6
Thank God America has David Brooks to remind us how we should behave as a society. My kids like so many others were mesmerized with the charity and kindness of Fred Rogers. Thank God we have David Brooks, our moral conscious, telling us to be better than what we have become.
2
Don't want to get in the way of the benefits commenters are showing, the positive memories, and especially the potential relevance to these times. So as an aside for now, but place-holder for future columns, there are a few themes here that show up elsewhere in David's columns and are wishful thinking.
The way of the world includes complexity, including its non-common sense properties of non-linearity, emergence, difficulty in proving causality. These don't go away if you don't want to talk about them.
Big change is very likely necessary as we're now so far behind where we need to be (such as carbon emissions, the loss of species which I've never seen David write about). Some tinkering here and there is not going to be enough. We may not have the time for them to add up.
That doesn't mean their opposites, simple and small change aren't also important, but these are not mutually exclusive, and the mindset that seems to see them that way is a barrier.
Regarding today's subject, we can try both person-to-person as well as large scale kindness.
Finally, in an echo of David's common espousal of traditional hometown community and its values, like a lot of things, OK up to a point. I can take more of kindness, but not such a fan of (another theme) conformity and what it does to those who don't fit in.
It's also wrong that all children are without "guile" or innocent. Not how things were my childhood or what my kids went through. I remember some painful mistakes assuming that.
2
I am delighted that Fred Rogers is being reintroduced to a population that desperately needs to hear his humble and profound message of love and compassion. Much has been made of his being a minister, but I think that clouds the issue. He was a humble and compassionate man. He was tolerant, loving, and supportive. What more needs to be said? We should focus on living as he did.
2
Fred Rogers was also the stand-in for the Good Father for the kids whose fathers had abandoned them one way or the other. He was a good man, and is greatly missed.
7
What a remarkable man Mister Rogers was.
What a fine example to us all.
I wonder what he would think about a Republican president taking children from their parents at the border?
I wonder what he would think about a president who imitates a disabled reporter and makes fun of him at a rally?
I wonder what he would think about a president bullying people?
I wonder what he would think about a president who calls black athletes sobs?
I wonder what he would think about a president who lies all the time?
I wonder what he would think about this Republican President?
9
I wasn't a big Mr. Rogers fan when I was young. I was 11 when his show came on the air and was more interested in older kid shows then. As an adult, I thought he was a little odd, unsophisticated, and so slow. Talk about low TV production values, his show epitomized underuse of the medium (I thought). Now I know how we got to where we are today. By thinking that busy and "productive" (for all that that means to adults) is better than slow and attentive. We lost our way slowly, steadily, inattentively, so much so that DT became the hero of a whole lot of Americans, not Mr. Rogers. Well done, David Brooks.
7
Too much capitalism over the years has led to the atomization of culture and commoditization of everything, including human relationships and based human decency.
5
"And yet, he was not a saint."
Many, many years ago, when my now middle-aged children were very young, while visiting the Nantucket post office, they spotted Mr Rogers. Their little hearts leapt.
To say that his response was underwhelming is a polite description of the encounter.
We quickly scurried away so as not to intrude.
We're all entitiled to bad days. I guess we hit one of his.
Fred was and has been as sincere as you saw him on the show. I was fortunate to meet him several times and he always remembered the last time we spoke. I work in the entertainment biz in Pittsburgh. Fred was a supporter of many of the arts in his hometown. Back in the mid 90's i was designing a show that featured a man who had been on the show. Fred and his wife came to the performance and a young colleague was so excited that Fred was coming to see the show. I asked him if he would like to be introduced and he said yes. So before the show i went up to Fred and his wife to tell him he had a big fan and wanted to meet him. Fred was gracious and sincere. Zach was overwhelmed. The moral conviction of Fred is not exhibited in many today. It shows how our country has fallen.
3
One of the great contributions to Christianity by Paul Tillich was his teaching that all persons are "acceptable " by God, and that grace experience enables believers to accept they are accepted and they are free to accept the neighbor. Mr. Rodgers lived this out in a "deep and simple" manner in his ministry to children and adults who have responsibility for children. In contrast to our present time actions of imprisoning the stranger and abducting their children, Mr. Rodgers offers the invitation, "Won't you be my neighbor?"
6
My daughter(now 53) loved Mr. Rogers. You could see her face relax and transform as he told her she was special.
7
The last day of school, four of my fellow teachers and I shared brunch and a movie, "Won't You Be My Neighbor." We ranged in age from mid-30s to 65. As we sat in the seats passing a package of tissues back and forth, I realized how traumatized we are as a nation, how lacking in basic kindness and manners, how deficient in harvesting human dignity, especially in the last two years.
As I now finish breakfast, I am weeping at this column; I am weeping for basic goodness.
39
As am I.
Fred Rogers created a safe holding environment for children to thrive. He was the surrogate for what had been lost millennia ago when most humans felt no rift from the social or physical ecology surrounding them. With the advent of agriculture we invented hierarchy - the notion that some were less than and others were better than. The resultant pain led to myth and philosophy in an effort to find its source. Mr. Rogers was a healer in a divided world who flattened the hierarchy to allow the helpless to be seen and the powerful, sight.
8
I among hundreds of millions of parents have a special memory of their child's relationship with Mr. Rogers. Mine is of my daughter turning 3 wanting to tell him that it was her birthday and asking if he could hear her through the television.
11
Won't You Be My Neighbor ? (by Fred Rogers, 1967)
It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood,
A beautiful day for a neighbor.
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?...
It's a neighborly day in this beauty wood,
A neighborly day for a beauty.
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?...
I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you.
I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you.
So, let's make the most of this beautiful day.
Since we're together we might as well say:
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
Won't you be my neighbor?
Won't you please,
Won't you please?
Please won't you be my neighbor ?
137
Beautiful essay, David. Very moving. Thank you for restating Mr. Roger’s voice. We need so much more of it in these angry and vain times.
12
Arguably the best column I have ever read anywhere on the need for the Good of the Little invading the Bad of Us Big. Too few want to hear this, but Mr. Rogers was a modern day saint, equal in powers and grace to St. Francis....only it wasn't the birds gathered 'round him, it was the children...always the children. Call his lessons puerile, but they were rife with enriched goodness and caring for others no matter who, what or why. To say his messages need wider distribution and acceptance for us all, and now more than ever is being "lovely on the inside and the outside." That loveliness has been gone too long. Let's become as little children in the way we accept and love one another. We could even ask for their prayers. God knows we need them.
16
We saw the film last week and were blown away at how relevant the film truly is. While not political the film shows clear parallels to where the world is today. From Fred's first lesson with the king putting up a wall to how to deal with death and differences. Acceptance of people who are different from you and embracing those differences. This is a truly heartfelt piece that the world needs now.
10
13 years before Bob Keeshan created a children's show centered on gentle interactions. He and Rogers are models and stand in contrast to the social acceptance of bragging and selfishness under Reagan. Born in 56 I recall a culture in which boastfulness was untoward and can pinpoint the change to the 80s.
19
Absolutely! I was born in 1945 so the fifties were my childhood. Bragging about ANYTHING was seen as a mortal sin. Calling attention to self or possessions was seen as bragging. We celebrated when our friends got new(used) bikes or cars and we didn't think of comparing. I too believe the 80's began our cultural descent into coarseness and money worship.
9
Thank you Judith. I too grew up in the 50's and still find bragging and posturing disgusting. It's as if we've all become the 4 year old waving our arms yelling "Look at me mommy, look at me." If 10% of the time and effort spent taking selfies and posting our greatness on facebook was spent helping others the world would be transformed.
2
I can pinpoint the administration. It was Reagan's, the one after Jimmy Carter's, who was the closest president we have had whom one can compare to Mr. Rogers. And so the pendulum swung the other way...
David Brooks has done it again; he has helped us to refocus our energy on something positive. The opinion shapers of our society, the politicians; columnists; news commentators; authors; movie producers and more, have a unique role to play. They can magnify the negative or, they can highlight the positive. Do we live in difficult times? Yes. But are things really so much more difficult than the past?
Aren't we better off today than in 1776, when many settlers in the Colonies still supported England? Aren't we better off than when our founding fathers owned slaves? We are certainly more united than in the years leading up to the Civil War. We are better off than during the Great Depression. We are even better off than we were in January of 2009 when the nation was losing 800,000 jobs a month.
The difference today, I think, is the 24/7 news cycle and the need for all events to be deemed "Breaking News". Everything that happens needs to have an exclamation point! Some commentators abuse their megaphone with divisive nonsense to increase their ratings. But if we slow down a little, and look around at our neighborhoods, at our neighbors, are we really so divided?
We are all Americans; much more unites us than divides us. Maybe we need to get back to the job of perfecting these United States; through cooperation and decency and trust. Which brings us back to David Brooks. Thank you for highlighting Mr Rogers; a beautiful example of the embodiment of what is good in all of us.
19
I am one of those fathers who appreciated Rogers along with my son, and I loved the film. But why do we find it surprising that an adult man showed respect and kindness to children? Have we forgotten that the capacity for kindness exists in every one of us, patiently waiting for us to choose it? In fact, there are many adults who practice the values that Rogers exemplified. We just don't pay much attention to them. We are too busy looking at the bad but exciting stuff, feeding our addiction to negative emotions like anger and fear, an addiction happily fed by a media establishment that has known for a long time that good news doesn't sell newspapers.
16
Pittsburghers love Fred Rogers. He is alive in our neighborhoods.
Thank you David, for reminding us that you know someone is a Christian by thier love.
7
Discovered Mr. Rogers when my son became old enough to watch TV. (This was the abysmal "Barney" era of children's television. )On one of the first shows we watched, Fred illustrated the meaning of the word "soporific" by playing a lullaby on the piano. I was agog. Anyone who tried to teach a word like that to pre-schoolers was okay by me. He never talked down to kids.
20
I had tears when I watched this movie and I have tears reading this commentary. I want the good to come back.
30
Fred Rogers, his beliefs & his actions are rejected by the GOP today, just as Jimmy Carter's beliefs & actions are rejected by politically-motivated evangelicals. The sole focus of both groups is power.
24
Mr. Rogers made it ok to be a gentle man. A gentleman.
His quiet serenity was beautiful. That sweet simplicity is so profoundly missing in our nasty, narcissistic president and our social media me me me society.
A great man. I am glad my son grew up as his "neighbor." We truly need more role-models like him now.
26
I always thought it was kind of dumb to applaud in a theater after a movie is over. None of those responsible for its production can hear it so what’s the point, right? I found myself instinctively clapping at the end of this film. The timing of it as an antidote to all that is Trump (the hatred, the vitriol, the insults, the lack of compassion and empathy), makes this documentary a must see for all.
20
Perhaps as I grew up before Fred Rogers, I was a "mistake. I had the kindest of parents and in a mysterious way accepted what David Brooks describes as the same "long moral tradition" promoted by Rogers. As an adult, I appreciated the Rogers programs, while as a child I also knew that children can be vicious, uncaring, bigoted and not just innocence observed. However, politically I was also always a Democrat and believed that the essence of Democratic politics was in sync with what is described as Rogers' Republicanism. Today's Era of Trumpism and the apparently-permanent end of the Republican party as accepted by Mr. Rogers suggests that the permanence of kindness and compassion are always at risk from the vicious, uncaring, bigoted, bullying hubris we first knew when we were very young.
Doug Giebel, Big Sandy, Montana
9
You must have been very disturbed to read about the raucous rally just held in Montana, with Trump gleefully and viciously going after your Senator Tester, he who humbly owns land and farms in Big Sandy. I hope you can reach out to your neighbors in the spirit of cooperation and shared values, because cheering a boasting, philandering, adulterous, demagogic bully is not okay.
I imagine as you watched the sun rise over Big Sandy this morning, it was or could have been a more beautiful day in your neighborhood.
1
To a Thoughtful Woman (and other Thoughtful Women): I lived in New York City at the time of Trump. I sat beside Mrs. Trump the First and her bodyguard at a Broadway opening. On Tuesday before Trump's "raucous rally" in Great Falls, a pleasant Wall Street Journal reporter showed up here in Tester's home town to interview folks.
I was not able to attend the Trump rally, but it would have been interesting. Here in Jon Tester's home town, it went 2 to one for Trump in the last election.
During my lifetime, Montana voters elected the revered Mike Mansfield, elected Democrats for House and Senate. The story of how Montana went from early day corrupt politicians and powerful men of influence to Mansfield Democrats to Trump radicalism needs a Robert Caro treatment.
And I guess for many, it's "a beautiful day in the neighborhood" when "thinking makes it so."
Thanks for your note.
Doug Giebel, Big Sandy, Montana
Thank you, Mr. Brooks. Beautiful column. Last summer I was dealt a devastating blow. I lost an animal rescue I spent twenty years building into something really special. I continued to help animals and found myself at Penn Vet (in Philadelphia) last summer with a lame Golden Retriever. Most of the staff knew what had happened and were shocked my board had terminated my employment. They had seen me in there all hours of the day and night with a sick or injured cats and dogs. As I was leaving a security guard stopped me and unexpectedly gave me a hug. She told me it was in times of distress or transition that God pays close attention to you. I'll never forget her kindness or the words that gave me hope that day to continue my work. I never watched Mr. Rogers - I was more a Gene London, Pixanne, Captain Noah kind of kid, but I think his kindness and his sensitive and thoughtful outlook are needed more than ever in these troubled times.
10
Well done David. Not an easy pitch to make but you tied it in nicely. Many readers and commenters recognize the meanness we adults are engaging in. While I personally think our attacks and outrage with Trump and his cult are more than justified and necessary, it's useful to retreat once in a while before we return to the fight in protecting our own and neighbors' children here and abroad from this twisted cult movement.
6
The most profound moment in the movie was his confrontation with Senator Pastore. His gentle response to the obviously annoyed senator was almost magical, it bordered on the surreal. $20 million was at stake, the future of PBS on the line and Mr. Rogers rose to the occaision. Senator Pastore recognized the sincerity and goodness of the man before him and he, in return, did the honorable thing. Mr. Rogers' request of us all at the end of the movie had everyone reaching for their tissues.
22
Mr. Brooks: Do you have to go back to Mr. Rogers, who was never political at all, to find an Republican we can admire? Your party has lost all decency. Donald Trump is President of the United States, aided by the Russians in the election. His campaign management had innumerable contacts with Russian operatives during the campaign and after his election. He is doing Putin's bidding daily, attacking our democratic allies and claiming Putin is innocent of any collusion. Republicans have become the pawns of the wealthy and big corporations, and they don't care when Trumps sells out the country and our allies in favor of Putin. They care about taxes for the wealthy and corporations and deregulation that guts protections for the environment, the financial system, and worker protections.
You have a big pulpit to represent the goodness and honesty of Republicans, but you have to criticize the outrageous actions of the current Republican politicians. Telling us that Republicans of the past who had no political power were good does no good. We are on the brink, and you are fiddling while our country is burning. Mr. Rogers has been dead for 15 years. He was a very good man, but he is gone with the rest of the good Republicans. Denounce the current Republican Party instead of trying to find good Republicans of the past.
et
20
That wasn’t the point of this column at all. Mister Rogers showed us that we all have value and that small acts of goodness can have far-reaching effects. This is something we all need to remember, especially in these days, when a narcissistic bully is in the White House.
3
Thank you, Mr. Brooks, for this thoughtful column.
The chasm that exists between the moral character personified by Mr. Rogers and that exemplified by Mr. Trump is unbridgeable; and either you are on one side of the chasm, or you are on the other, but not both; and you can admire the one or the other, but not both.
Perhaps, if we care to pause or pause to care, we could go into the "national attic" and start looking for the "drawer" where that "song sheet now lost" got stuffed.
7
And the new strategy of hoping we can “all sit down and talk” won’t work. Fred Rogers knew evil when he saw it, so do we. Wake up Mr. Brooks and fight like your kids and grandkids lives depend on it. Because they do.
We need to go back into the attic, find that song sheet and sing from it again.
Thank you for this kind column about a most lovely film on the value of kindness.
9
''Mister Rogers was a lifelong republican...'' Aye, he was, but he became one before the civil rights era when republicans were essentially Democrats. (as far as moral influences)
Here is another columnist claiming a republican of a different time and trying to extrapolate to what republican means today. It is a night and day difference.
Mister Rogers was on the same level of Sesame Street as far as a public voice trying to bring up children with sensible idioms that we are all created equal and in the same boat of society.
Let's leave it at that and forget the labels, shall we.
10
Two friends were off to see Mr. Rogers after church on Sunday. I shared an old story: at one time the letterhead of the Latrobe Presbyterian Church in Pennsylvania included a line which said "Home church of Fred Rogers and Arnold Palmer."
When I came home, I looked up the web page of that church and, lo and behold, the flowers on Sunday were given in
memory of Fred McFeeley Rogers. I wept.
7
"... Rogers was drawing on a long moral tradition, that the last shall be first. It wasn’t just Donald Trump who reversed that morality, though he does represent a cartoonish version of the idea that winners are better than losers, the successful are better than the weak. That morality got reversed long before Trump came on the scene, by an achievement-oriented success culture, by a culture that swung too far from humble and earnest caritas. ..."
Hate to say it Mr Brooks, but you are a member of the club of 'conservative' columnists that facilitated this swing over the past few decades, greased the skids, turned a blind eye, exploited all of the rhetorical devices (eg false equivalencies, false dichotomies, straw people,...), glossed over, cherry picked facts, spun narratives, ... Trump is simply the product of, and simultaneously the guy who finally lifted the rock on what has been festering (racism, god, gay, gun, greed, fake christians) in at least one third of Americans (alias deplorable's).
With few exceptions (golden rule, beatitudes, ...), morality is not to be found in the bible(s). Morality is in our brains (eg Mr Rogers), not in the book (every very rich temple money changing evangelical preacher). We no longer stone people to death for things such as adultery. The book condones slavery, but this is now seen as immoral.
4
Fun facts:
o Fred Rogers' lower-court testimony was cited by the US Supreme Court on a ruling in favor of fair-use television show recording (Betamax case); he also gave a famous six-minute testimony before a US Senate committee successfully advocating for government funding for children's television
o Mister Rogers was a vegetarian: "I don't want to eat anything that has a mother."
o Rogers' WQED Pittsburgh office had only a sofa and armchairs because he thought a desk was "too much of a barrier."
o The Mister Rogers/King Friday XIII US postage stamp came out in Pittsburgh in March 2018; 500 of the stamps sold out at my local post office in Tucson in about three days
o Michael Keaton was a stagehand on "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" before becoming an actor
o The asteroid 26858 Misterrogers was named after Rogers by the International Astronomical Union
o Rogers played a preacher on one episode of "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman," the only time he appeared on television as someone other than himself
o Fred Rogers actually liked Eddie Murphy's SNL parody of his show, commenting that it aired late at night when children would be unlikely to see it
o Like Dr Seuss, Mister Rogers attended Dartmouth College
15
On 4th of July, I sat on my porch talking about "childhood" with 2 real-life neighbors who'd both just seen, and wept, at "Won't You Be My Neighbor?".
One runs a school cafeteria. She spoke of local "summer camp" programs-- open from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.-- which many children of working parents attend for the entire 12-hour day. Doublespeak decoded, this is not "summer camping". It is joint custody.
Her 77-YO mother spoke of an Ancient Early Feminist goal-- an "imputed income " for Soc. Security purposes, to recognize the economic/societal value of those who work at home caring for their children. How is "kindness" modeled for kids working 12-hour-long summer jobs "camping"?
I will go and see "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" and I'm sure I'll have a good cry too, for the loss of kinder, gentler,slower-paced childhoods. But dry-eyed and realistic, I suspect that WYBMN is the 2018 nostalgia set-piece for adults, akin to "American Graffitti" in the 1970's. We have "moved on".
Fred Rogers, an ordained minister, developed a deep and personal understanding of Christ's life and message. He did the unthinkable: he worked hard to life his life accordingly and to project that meaning and message. So, naturally, someone had to invent the myth that he had been a Navy Seal.
4
I liked Morgan Neville's "20 Feet From Stardom" but I loved "Won't You Be My Neighbor". It was a privilege to spend 90 minutes in the company of Fred McFeely Rogers, this good, quiet, kind man.
4
It's all very simple, really. As a minister and a teacher, Fred Rogers preached the gospel of love.
As a culture and a nation, we are now subjected, on a daily basis, to the gospel of hatred and division.
I'll leave it to the psychologists with Ph.D.'s to explain why, but I've got my suspicions.
8
Such self congratulation David as you typically defend the most egregious "conservative" positions in our national politics. Fred Rogers was make believe television, like Reagan and Trump are television, brought to unfortunate life. It is the fantasy view we have of ourselves while, at the same time, implementing the most retrograde social policies imaginable. Sorry, no sale.
5
"His show was an expression of the mainline Protestantism that was once the dominating morality in American life."
I am too old to have seen Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, but did watch Captain Kangaroo, I suppose during the late 1950s or very early 1960s as a child.
From what I had seen later of Mr. Rogers, and in spite of Mr. Brooks op-ed, it always seemed so slow and heavy, so absolutely "Protestant", like Ward and June Cleaver (Leave it Beaver) coming to dinner every night dressed to the nines, always so laid back (and they drank). None of this was the way Jewish households functioned.
Captain Kangaroo et co. was to the best of my memory simply fun (and educational). Kids need fun. The rest can come later.
2
I believe that different educational shows appeal to different children, and offer them different perspectives. One other children's program that I think is effectively both educational and highly entertaining, for example, is Sesame Street. Mr. Rogers was invested in treating young children's feelings with dignity and respect. He didn't think that children should be treated as adults or inappropriately exposed to adult issues--in fact, he railed against treating children as "adults-in-waiting." However, he also was mindful that children's lives were shaped by adult events, decisions, and actions. That is part of what his program tried to address. I only got to watch his program as an adult at the beginning of my career as an educator, and I was amazed at how well he navigated difficult issues in a simple, child-appropriate manner. As adults we seem to forget that childhood has challenges that need appropriate adults to help children address them. Much as we would love it to be so, childhood is not one long, "fun" episode for any child. And for some children, it is a living nightmare.
5
Thank you, David Brooks, for your sensitive and insightful summary. I will see this movie.
Maybe the Trump family needs to see it as well.
8
Mr. Rogers was a beacon of light and joy for most parents. Yet, sadly, we had one friend who would not allow his children to watch because he mistook Rogers' gentleness and kindness for evidence that he must be gay. Sad.
8
Mr Brooks, we do not need to politicize every person, place or thing. What political party Fred adhered to matters nothing, unless you are trying to say,"see, Republicans used to be good people..." and this distracts from the work he did, and continues to do today.
This documentary comes at a time when we long for solace, for comfort, for the innocence of children. Don't bring Mr. Roger's political leanings into it at all.
9
My thoughts exactly. Can't believe you did that, David.
2
If only he were still with us.
Could his calm thoughtful voice cut through the cacaphony?
I'm not sure, but I prefer it over the screaming Tweets of our current time.
14
“Radical Kindness...”
Sounds good to me.
(Especially after just
digesting the other
radically unkind news).
Film will be my birthday
celebration - one needs
some hope on a birthday.
16
The measure of people today isn't success but wealth. They are not the same. Children instinctively relate to loving and kind people no matter their financial portfolio, skin color or accent. Long before they are indoctrinated by popular culture into believing they are either inferior or superior to others, they respond to smiles, hugs, simple gestures and soft voices. Mr. Rogers mastered the art of kindness, a perfect antidote for today's bullies, loudmouths and purveyors of excess.
39
I never watched Mr Rogers. His program was too quiet for me. However, my daughter, who is now an adult, watched with rapt attention. She was totally captivated by him. To this day, she is concerned about the homeless and the least among us. I do not know how much of this is the influence of Mr Rogers.
My wish is for a return to basic decency in our politics. We ought to at least insist that our leaders are not shamelessly lying to US on a daily basis.
25
"...morality got reversed long before Trump came on the scene, by an achievement-oriented success culture, by a culture that swung too far from humble and earnest caritas." And, let's add, by the series of Republican big lies that led us from Nixon to Trump.
15
My daughter gently complained that my grandson didn’t want to go see the Mr. Rogers movie. I told her it was an adult documentary and to just go see it by herself, as I did, and bring Kleenex. I added Mr. Rogers was brilliant, talented, genuine, but most of all Fred Rogers was kind.
I cried gently through the whole thing. This movie depicted the ability of a human being, a man, to put himself in the shoes and soul of a child, and touch the deepest concern that child might have. He was able to shed lights without being obvious. He could come into kindness through his back door, through a puppet stage, through those characters everyone got to know as their neighbor where Mr. Rogers lived. He did it with his music, the lyrics, the tune.
Fred Rogers was bullied as a child. He knew and lived kids’ pain and he set out to take away childrens’ pain and guide them into a life with love, unconditional love, instead. He was able to do it with his background in faith, music, personal talent, a combination that made him and his neighborhood the safest and most assured place to visit - on TV from a child’s very own living room.
For Christmas my daughters (and maybe others) are going to get the Mr. Rogers DVD when it comes out. He stood for what the world needs now, kindness, knowing that someone cares, knowing everyone is important, not in some phony sort of way, but from the depths of a human heart.
The answer to Fred Roger’s question, “won’t you be my neighbor?” Yes, every day.
73
A lovely tribute for a lovely man. Mr. Brooks could not have chosen a better person to profile while children are being kidnapped from their parents. Fred Rogers and all decent people are weeping.
A Republican you say ? That's surprising. I can't see him voting for a Ryan or McConnell or Cruz or Pruitt, but I can see him weeping and praying for them.
40
Fred's wife had a few words to say about that recently... https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/mister-rogers-wife-husband-speak-po...
1
So beautiful. The majority of the people in the world are kind gentle and neighborly. You can travel to the remote corners of the earth and you will find people who will treat you with dignity respect and hospitality. It is only our politicians (and religious leaders) of the world that bring divisiveness, pettiness and that notion of otherliness - inferiority superiority.
When we treat each other soul to soul there is no color, no gender, no religion, no nation, no age, no difference. The communion is soul to soul. We create our personal identities because of our conditioning. We treat children as objects who are inferior to us, who know nothing and have to be taught everything we in the society have determined teachable. Not knowing that the child is fresh arrival from a realm where every soul is most gorgeous drenched in unconditional love. My son was barely able to talk, when he remarked, I can't believe I am alive! It was as though he was surprised to be in this human earthly realm!
18
I just completed my 45th year of teaching kindergarten, and when my own boys were small, Mr. Rogers was the only tv show we allowed. Besides his focus on kindness and consideration for others, there was another reason we turned on Mr. Rogers, one that was a technical reason. Mr. Rogers relied on a simple format, with only one camera angle. There wasn't the jumping around found in other shows which tended to play to young minds in a way that reduced their own ability to focus. I found that when children came to kindergarten, many of them expected the same jumpy behavior that they had grown accustomed to as they watched television, a behavior that wasn't likely to occur with the teacher sitting before them. Mr. Rogers produced calm concentration, and the children who watched it reflected that centered-ness in their own world.
38
How easily Mr Brooks doesn't even light upon capitalism (though he does mention Trump) as a root cause of our troubles. In an incessantly competitive world, to succeed under capitalism others must fail, others must doubt their value, others must always be insecure. Capitalism 101.
Mr Rogers wanted everyone to succeed.
22
Maybe he doesn't light upon capitalism because he isn't a socialist, and therefore doesn't attribute success and failure to how the economic life of the country is organized. The vast majority of the country isn't socialist, either. They find ways to be kind and charitable regardless of their ideology. And most support a public-funded social welfare safety net. Karl Marx has some very good observations of how capitalism succeeds and fails, but you don't have to think that capitalism is the root of all evil in order to be a good parent, friend or humanitarian.
1
The capitalism you bemoan (winner takes all, devil takes the hindmost) is a recent phenomenon, an academic construct, vastly over-simplified for the convenience of economists. Before the Goldwater/Reagen era the concept was more about a shared prosperity. When JFK said "A rising tide lifts all boats" he wasn't being cynical; he was just reminding his audience of something they already knew and agreed upon.
Much of the fault lies with all of us for accepting the brutal new nonsense. We don't have to.
(Of course the Canadians and Europeans and many others learned to use socialism to temper the economic brutality. Just not here in the US.)
When we weep over Mr. Rogers we're weeping for "the ghost of our old ideals". And because he was just such a nice friend to have.
3
Mr Rogers reminds us of the power of truly caring about others.
He was an island of peace, sanity, kindness, and reassurance for millions of little kids.
Seems only right that adults should finally be getting the message as well.
27
Although I appreciate there are many non-believers, Mister Rogers' life is another illustration of why the teachings of Jesus still resonate with so many so many centuries later.
Love one another. So simple. So hard.
62
I agree that the teachings of Jesus can resonate many years later but it doesn’t seem to resonate with many of today’s Christians. They seem to be occupied by preaching hellfire and damnation rather than the love Jesus preached. The very idea of “the first shall be last” is anathema in their eyes. I know many agnostics and atheists whose moral compass far surpasses these Christians.
4
That 'song sheet' is not stacked in the attic, but is living in the generations of children who grew-up visiting Mr. Rogers' neighborhood day after day. Fred Rogers was a good teacher, which means that his teaching lives on. While I'm sure the film is wonderful and worthy, we honor him only by finding his lessons within ourselves and living into them.
BTW: that "long moral tradition that the last shall be first" is not some free-floating item. It is straight out the gospels, which quite Jesus as saying just that.
14
Mr. Rogers was a decent ,human being and it didn't matter to anyone who watched if he was a Minister or Republican. I wonder what he would say knowing that children were being separated from there families and put in cages.
For the power of television we all were able to bask in the glow of Mr. Rogers and the power of the television shows how far we have fallen . There are no do overs in life, people who have added more suffering on to individuals who no fault of there own live in war ravaged countries. How do we treat them we put them in cages and then forget where their children are.
Mr. Brooks is correct, this documentary once again refreshes our short term memories of what the neighborhood could be and what it isn't.
53
The Big Shaggy wore a sweater and emphasized at a pure human to human level. The ability to acknowledge the thou in others and reverence of the radiance. Lessons in humanism and ethnorelativism that do not dim in the light of time.
A primer for the ages.
19
I am a grand father. I helped raise two daughters and am watching 4 grand children grow and learn. I've learned that there is a wisdom in children that is profound. Mr. Rogers knew that. He honored it and was trying to show the rest of us its power.
33
It’s very late, and I come to David’s offering. I’m tired, but I always respond to David’s columns, so I put aside the scotch, fix a tea and get to it. Takes some thinking because I’m deeply conflicted about it.
On one side there is profound sympathy for a man who stood so far outside our normal ideological byplay and personified the best of an American world that only the oldest among us remember well; and who dedicated his life to children – the prototypical father. On the other is David’s interpretation of Mr. Rogers’s essential meaning, which is humility, probably the developed quality least evident in our public life today – or in our public life anywhen.
Fred Rogers represents to me an ideal that should inform our lives, but one that is beyond the true ken and mastery of most humans. Gandhi was like that – when in his presence even resolute adversaries wept, some even embraced, but upon leaving his presence they returned to burning Muslims and kicking Hindus out of what became Pakistan.
We are who we are. Mr. Rogers, Gandhi, a few others, serve as exemplars of what we might be but never quite manage to arrive at being, despite the best efforts of some of us. We need them as moderators of our true natures and examples of what true self-actualization represents … and why it is so rare.
But if one of his millions of children should resolve to do a “little thing” well, at least once in his life, then America is a better place for the sheer number of such acts.
53
By declaring Rogers as beyond the ken and mastery of most humans, you unwittingly diminish the power of his example. Compartmentalizing him into the extraordinary is safer, but I suggest taking up the mantel and doing one little thing well may be the better course.
7
Living as I do on the farm I grew up on, taking care of my mother, playing with my grandchildren in the muddy water of our 'lake', it's easy to be enchanted by little things. It wasn't always so easy when I was caught up in the drives considered indispensable to modern culture - success and acquisition.
And yet, the little things are present in everything, even the in the big two. If you can take delight in those, then the big holds less sway over your life and yearnings. Like Mr. Rogers, you can't be bought anymore.
For me, it opened up a world of freedom. I said no to the big jobs and the big money, lived small in things, and large in life.
I am heartened by David's homage to Fred Rogers and the "Loveliness of the Little Good." I believe this will be the way we heal our earth and ourselves and it's really not as hard to do as we might think.
2
Memi:
When access to economic advantage was not general (almost all of human history), then it was a lot easier to take pleasure and comfort in "the little good" because people had few options. We've found that when that access IS made general (while hardly guaranteed), the challenges are far greater to reject the ability to acquire "stuff" and be happy on the farm on which they grew up.
The inability of those who went before us to exploit options that didn't exist is not self-actualization. It's only today when distracting options exist so plentifully that placing them in proper context BECOMES self-actualization.
Mr Rogers show was filled with words to live by. I loved him because he was gentle, honest and kind. Ill try and be like him
when I work with children.
I experience happiness every day taking care of children. I wish other adults would take the time to appreciate children more.
15
I used to watch Mr. Rogers in college and graduate school. Don't know exactly why. His show just made me feel happy. For me it was a kind of escape from the world. I am a born again atheist and I never saw any kind of formal religious overtones in his show. It just had a calming effect on me.
55
Not quite.
I remember watching Mr. Rogers. He was friendly and nice, but also cloying and artificial. Simple and deep, or shallow and complex, aren't the only vectors: there's also deep and complex. Mr. Rogers' Republicanism was comfortable and comforting, but unrealistic. Kids aren't innocent angels, they're a mix of passions. They fight. That was papered over in Roger's world. The embrace of him now smacks of nostalgia, which Mr. Brooks milks. I'm sure this sounds cynical to some, but I'm bothered by the disconnect between the real Mr. Rogers memories I have, and the phony ones that I'm supposed to.
14
See the movie. Fred was so misunderstood. He was on a mission to provide good, honest TV to the very young. He provided moral teachings when TV had so little substance.
4
I don't agree that FR "papered over" the passions and fighting that are part of the world of children (and all people).
I remember FR looking at a range of typical human emotions. As part of this, he looked at everyday anger and capital-w war.
He taught -- through his conversation and through his Neighborhood skits -- that feelings are to be neither dismissed nor given control over actions. He taught that feelings are feelings; what people -- children and adults -- do with them can be within their control. Then he focused on what can be done with the feelings that are hard to control.
5
I did not mean to mark this persons comment as recommended. Fred Rogers was a kind man who understood children. His example of how to talk with children is one to follow. You should try it.
2
Everyone keeps saying "The old Republican Party". Most Republicans in office are old republicans!
I am 76, my parents told me when I was learning to vote, you must vote for only Democrats, the Republicans are only in it for the money. Seems like they were right.
Fred Rogers, I believe, was in the wrong party and religion had a lot to do with his decision.
14
It really is a sad commentary on what has happened to the Republican Party during the past several years. All you need do is read Teddy Roosevelt's "New Nationalism" speech and you will quickly discover how the GOP has lost its roots and entered a new Golden Age of the Robber Barons or Corrupt Capitalism.
1
I’m 77 and was raised Republican in a family that included one of Lincoln’s Union Army officers. They weren’t very dogmatic about politics and did not make a fuss when I felt I had to leave the Republican Party after Lee Atwater’s anti-urban-liberal campaign for George H. W. Bush in 1988.
If you’re our age you remember a quite different party. Before the fabled “Southern Strategy” of 1968 relieved the Democrats of their nativist rightists, Republicans like Eisenhower, Earl Warren and Mr Rogers were not so hard to find.
4
My three sons were closely spaced and all were "neighbors". I'd hidden the secret for turning on the TV. Two or all three would be sitting in front waiting for the 9:00AM broadcast in Boston. When the TV lit up it was total concentration. At the end, often tears filled their eyes. It was a very personal show for the boys. I fancy that I detected Mr. Rogers' teachings here and there in their everyday behavior. Now, in my dotage, I still tear up about Fred Rogers.
60
Wonderful movie, wonderful man. Kindness, what a concept.
29
Mr. Rogers may be gone, but the children are still here! We may not have his strength of character, but we can still attempt to treat them properly, as he demonstrated so well. There is a special word for this, and it is "grace".
133
Fred Rogers brand of Republican hasn't been on the scene in Congress for many years now.
I suspect he would have greatly admired Barack Obama, who also modeled his values by his behavior, and it is telling and alarming that Republicans in Congress hated him so and fought him at every opportunity.
And what were you, David Brooks doing during that time, when it was clear that the Republican party was going off the rails? You were depicting their opposition as reasonable.
I appreciate your recent columns, but perhaps you might be inspired by Mr. Rogers to admit that you took too long to recognize what was going on.
581
perfect post. thanks so much for writing it.
1
It feels like an assault to read Brooks tribute to Rogers. I really wish Brooks had not tried to acquire some of Rogers’ shine for himself.
I would urge everyone to go see this movie. It is unlike anything you've seen before. It takes us to a time where gentleness, kindness and respect were honored and practiced, particularly by this one individual. One reason this movie stands out is the contrast with today's harshness and lack of civility.
44
My niece's children grew up with Blues Clues, and old re-runs of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. My daughter watched Captain Kangaroo. Blessed are those who still produce some gentle programs for children. And, parents can still teach their children to be kind, to share, and to know that there are still children out there who have less than they need. This is an important lesson; I learned it from my mother, and from my grandfather who owned a market. He took me with him when he filled boxes with canned goods, fresh fruit and vegetables, and clothes my mother collected. We delivered these boxes to poor families from the Dust Bowl, families who lived in shacks and abandoned boxcars. Later when I was old enough, he told me to walk home with those children so no one would throw any more rocks at them. I did, and the rock throwing stopped.
73
and now you made me cry......
1
Mr. Brooks keeps searching for something lost, trying to figure out where it went and how we can get it back.
I suspect that when folks take a moment to pause their attacks on "the other", they feel the same loss of community and national unity. Until partisan gerrymandering is ended and the Citizens United decision is overturned, I don't hold out much hope for unity among our elected leadership.
On the other hand, the small and intimate gestures of kindness exemplified by Mr. Rogers' life suggest an alternative pathway to regaining that sense of community. We can have much more of an impact upon the people around us than distant politicians.
Following Fred Rogers' example is about the best advice I have seen from Mr. Brooks in a long time.
85
"That morality got reversed long before Trump came on the scene, by an achievement-oriented success culture..."
How many times in columns has David Brooks pointed to culture in raising up examples of achievement in schools and by doing so, blaming cultures for their lack of same?
Mister Rogers' values are not Republican values or Democratic values, they are values of a person who values children, wherever they come from, whatever culture. Too bad more can't do the same.
53
I can't even imagine what Mr. Rogers would think of detention camps where parents are separated from children; children are placed with strangers, some of them too young to understand and think their parents abandoned them. I know what I think; it is cruel, heartless and mean. It will leave these children permanently damaged.
3
My son loved Mr. Rogers, and when my teaching schedule permitted, I watched the show with him. He would imitate Mr. Rogers by taking off his sweater and copying other gestures. I didn't really appreciate the show at that time, thinking it was a little too "sweet."
But my son was much wiser than I was, and I now appreciate the deep humanity that informed everything Fred Rogers did. I read somewhere that many elderly people enjoyed watching the show, because Rogers accepted people as they were.
Several readers have commented that he lived in a better time than today. Perhaps so, but while now, as then, millions of thoroughly decent people inhabit this land, no country has ever produced an abundance of individuals like Fred Rogers. We celebrate them because they are special, and they would be so in any period of this country's history.
St. Paul could have been referring to Mr. Rogers when he wrote two thousand years ago: "Well done thou good and faithful servant..."
74
St Paul would have been embarrassed to hear those words from one of his master’s parables attributed to himself.
Mr. Rogers built bridges between kids and adults. He was a mature role model who could really communicate with and understand children.
The world needs, and will always need, more like him.
86
I loved Mr. Rogers. I loved his sweater and his sneakers and his kindness. He believed in kindness. He lived kindness. It was his anecdote for a frightening world. How I miss that.
100
Lincoln was a Republican too. Of course, I'm not sure how much Lincoln represents today's Republican Party. This is the problem with trying to resurrect the dead to fight todays culture wars. They can't speak for themselves. They can neither agree, nor disagree with the robes either Mr Brooks or I clothe them in, and I strongly doubt that either fit the measure of the man.
I guess it is, to me more respectful to rewatch Mr Rogers. To appreciate the man as he was, and then try to apply it in our own lives today. To try and reinterpret him, or any person, I don't think truly respects the person who lived.
We can use and discuss their ideas, reinterpret those for our times.
Otherwise, we are not truly respectful of what made him jus the way he was.
21
David has really lost his way hasn't he? I am sad for him, but much more sad for all the rest of us he is letting down by not taking responsibility for his position of influence.
Now he's just writing reviews of movies he goes out tot see, trifling and instantly-forgotten essays about old college books he notices on the shelf of his office, random musings about random items he happens across during his day. Into each of which he stuffs the same simple shallow morality nonsense about how America used to be great and maybe it can be great again, but he doesn't - ever - present any specific ideas except that we - all of us in San Francisco and New York and Los Angeles and Boston and everywhere else - we all should join our little local neighborhood men's Societal Improvement Club, (and the church), and somehow that will fix all the problems in our society - many of which have been caused by the increasing corruption of the Republican Party, which Brooks has actively endorsed and aided for many years.
Well there you go, that about sums up my feelings about this column and every Brooks column for the past year and a half.
242
Mr. Brooks' answers never ever have anything to do with our economic system or the sorts of distributions it produces. This area is off limits to his understanding, and why it is off limits is off limits to his self-understanding.
23
I have to disagree. I think Brooks column on Mr. Rogers is a fine piece. And I would further comment that attacking Brooks feeds into our current public discourse narrative. We cannot talk even talk about goodness, let alone issues, without going to the dark side of attacking a person's character.
2
Would that we each had such an Ivory Tower to retreat to when our political spawn waxed a bit too red in tooth and claw…
I went with my wife to see the "Mr. Rogers" movie. I did not expect to be moved to tears but I was. After, we called our grown sons to ask for their memories. He was so special in giving children that wonderful feeling of being wanted and respected. As a practicing pediatrician, I see the innocence of children and it is a constant reminder of why I go to "work". When I am with them, it is not work.
64
Thanks for this David. We all need little miracles that will make big changes. Love for the sake of love, not to get something, is the love that will endure, and Rogers is one of its proof.
22
So why don't you go beyond your pleasant generalizations, your use of examples that aren't at risk (yet) in the wider society?
By whom would love of children best be exhibited today? By the protesters with signs saying "Don't separate families" or by the so-called mainstream Republicans in Congress who could fix this in a minute if only they had the courage?
121
How about reducing the long days of school for the children. These long days suit the parents long working day but not the children. How many parents look their children in the eye and talk with them everyday? How many hours a day do parents spend with their children?
I coach and babysit these children that dont have much time with their parents. The life children lead today is too busy and they dont have enough time with the people they love. EVERYONE IS TOO BUSY FOR THE CHILDREN.
10
Howard, your post reminds me of the Cowardly Lion in "The Wizard of Oz:"
Yeh, it's sad, believe me, Missy
When you're born to be a sissy
Without the vim and verve
But I could change my habits
Never more be scared of rabbits
If I only had the nerve
I'm afraid there's no denying
I'm just an awful dandy-lion
A fate I don't deserve
But I could show my prowess
Be a lion, not a mouse
If I only had the nerve
Let's honor his most fervent mission then: respect children.
The gentle care of children, & being a safe adult in the lives of our children, is a sacred act. The way to humanity 2.0 is via nurture. It's the variable we can change.
62
Mr Brooks:My sons grew up with Mister Rogers,and I know that his innate kindness and generosity of spirit helped mold them into the caring and liberal men they are today.
I am struggling to mesh your political and economic views with your paean to Mr Rogers.
I see his message as one of reaching out to those in need and sharing our gifts, economic and spiritual with those around us. I have not seen similar thoughts in your writings.
Seeing the best in all of us has not been a mainstay in conservative policy; rather more one of every man for himself and those in need should just work harder. Perhaps watching a few of his original TV shows will give you more of a view of his ongoing message.
"It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood"
46
Mr. Rogers may have been a Republican, but he wouldn’t recognize the Republican Party today. Everything they do would have made him blanch. He wouldn’t have words to describe the meanness, the attacks on medical care, the embrace of vulgarity and ignorance, the abuse of the weak and the casual lying that characterizes them today.
He may have been a minister, but I am sure that God could have learned a thing or two about mercy and compassion from him. I’m certain that Republicans would have dismissed this decent man, unable to recognize someone who actually lives by the ideals that they and the Bible sorely lack.
What might he have made of the president? Our commander in chief might have mocked him, or fired off an angry Tweet condemning him as a phony, or bad, or some other monosyllabic childish taunt if Mr. Rogers had pointed out that being a leader means having compassion, wisdom and empathy.
We’re not in Mr. Rogers Neighborhood any more. Those neighborhoods have been economically abandoned, and the people in them have been shot by the police or thrown in crammed privatized prisons. Public schools are dilapidated, or they’ve been closed.
Morality died when Reagan declared Ketchup to be a vegetable in school lunches. It’s been downhill from there, except for a brief glimmer of hope just before everything went dark. There’s no place for Mr. Rogers and the kids anymore, except maybe caged in a detention camp.
632
The Republican Party took a fast downhill slide when it courted and won Southern politicians. The good Democrats in the South stuck with the Democratic Party. The ones who opposed desegregation and equality became Republicans. In North Carolina we had Dean Smith, UNC basketball coach and leader in standing up for equality. We had progressive governors who stood up for civil rights — Terry Sanford, Jim Hunt. We had good Republicans during that time too but they have been replaced by Republicans so hungry for power that they have gerrymandered a state that is really a purple state into an almost completely red state while legislating regressive policies against the less fortunate. I hope we can reverse that trend but it will be a long uphill slog.
3
Clinton, a Democrat, gave us privatized prisons for- money.
1
What does Mr. Rogers political affiliation have to do with it? He never brought partisan politics into his programming or his ministry and would certainly not approve of a president who brags about assaulting women and encourages his supporters to punch people in the face.
3
Fred Rogers was a national treasure hidden in plain sight whom so many adults (including myself) never realized was there. I saw this film last night, and it isn't just a tribute but a stirring commentary on our times. David only hits the tip of the iceberg on the many issues Fred tackled head on back then that are still with us today. I'm taking my 22 year old daughter this weekend--though she was raised on PBS, she never watched Mr. Rogers, the timing wasn't right. Now it is and she will appreciate it.
28
Mr. Rogers, beloved by so many and rightly so.
I've spent several decades not knowing that Mr. Rogers was a republican or a minister of any Faith. I and my kids and grand kids just knew he was a good man....like many of the democratic atheists our Family has been blessed with.
79
Demonstrated in the movie and described in Brooks column and in the linked profile from Esquire is this: Fred Rogers was courageous. Every day, he acted with moral courage. He NEVER shirked from doing what was right. He was a good example to and for all of us.
281
I haven't seen the movie (yet) and actually wasn't aware until now of the vulgarity at his funeral, but it's obvious that only after Mr. Rogers was dead could such people - "fine people on both sides," Mr. Trump would say - even imagine that they had gotten the upper hand against such a man. And as for that ruler of the looking-glass Neighborhood of Make-Believe, it's jarring even to consider him in the context of Fred Rogers. They seem not even opposite ends of the same spectrum, but from different worlds entirely.
16
This editorial reminded me of Matthew 19:14-
But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.
I have a fond memories of the good feelings I felt watching Mr. Rogers as a child and I will be sure to watch this documentary.
16
More appropriate for the Trump administration is the verse: "Serve you right to suffer, baby; serve you right to be alone"
2
Indeed, the moral tradition that Rogers embodied had been on the decline well before Trump. But when I think of the era of Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Morgan, as well as the lot of the people who worked for them, I have a hard time thinking that it started in the 1960s. Perhaps, though, it wasn't a strait line downwards, but a wavy line that trended down, despite recovering at times. It has been going down for very long time now.
5
The public endowments left behind by those of great wealth endure today: the Morgan library of fine arts; the Carnegie-Mellon library; the Diego Rivera murals in Rockefeller Center are a story in themselves; the old man commissioned them, saw the cartoonish plutocrat figures and had them painted over; his son, Nelson, had them painstakingly restored. They are from the '30's, as are the murals in SF's Coit Tower, and other public spaces. The Depression brought people together and FDR sponsored public works of art; my grandmother fed "hoboes" on the back porch while I and my cousins on the ranch sat and listened to their stories. One of them had a wooden leg which he said held a pint of whiskey; my grandmother thought it was hilarious.
8
Yes, if I remember correctly it was Carnegie who first announced his intention to give away his fortune to philanthropy (an endowment with his name on it), and the other two felt compelled to do the same but weren't happy about having to do so. None of that improved the lot of the people who had worked for them all those years. But about the depression era and the many small acts of kindness of that era, that's why I say that the decline was not steady. It reversed and recovered for some periods, and that was one of them.
Fred Rogers' program reinforced the values of respect and kindness to others that my husband and I tried to instill in our young children in the 1980s. In his low key approach he showed children that they and everyone else should be treated with dignity. He was a good listener too. Children felt he understood them. I like to think that he contributed to my children learning that it's important to treat others as you would have them treat you. Basic human decency and sensitivity--an important contribution by a modest man who quietly influenced a generation of parents and children. We need more Fred Rogers today.
50
Talk about timing, here is David Brooks to respond to a postcard from Cape Cod received from a nearly young friend, whose family achieved The American Dream.
My first encounter with staunch Republicans, the patriarch was born the youngest of twelve, and used to look in barefoot poverty, at the big white house in the village overlooking the ocean.
His eldest daughter was the first to go to college; the same one as Hillary Clinton, and gave her heart to a rebel with a cause, who marched with Stokeley Carmichael, helping with the writing of some his speeches.
She is gone now, and we were to meet in the humanitarian community for children forty years ago. The jewel in the crown among friends, her niece and I continue to grow together. She will enjoy this essay by Brooks, and has written the following on Mr. Rogers:
"Lucy, our Lab pup, loves to look out the windows at the rabbits…she wonders why we will not let her out to chase them! Rickie, now ten, has already made it out to the golf course with his dad and is taking his first lesson this morning. While they were golfing, Lily (just had a birthday with twelve candles on the cake) and I went with my parents to see the Mr. Rogers movie. The world would be a better place with more people like Mr. Rogers. A truly special man, I would highly recommend the movie".
When Lily was diagnosed at four with selective mutism, her parents and family united with strength.
An ode to The Rogers among us.
11
Oh, thank you so much for this lovely piece about a special man. What a pick me up to know that people like Fred Rogers can still journey through this troubled world of ours. They are there in different colors, ethnicities, genders, religions, and politics. All we have to do is open our eyes and hearts to find them.
Every Monday through Friday like clockwork my daughters sat themselves in front of our TV and watched Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. It was right before dinner time, so they would often see "Mom" walk into the family room taking a break in order to relax and, yes, be reminded of the need for goodness. My daughters are adult professionals now. Yet we still ran out to buy his commemorative stamps recently released. (But we don't want to use them!)
This has made my day, David Brooks. Now I am going to fix myself some tea and drink it from my Mr. Roger's mug to help prepare me for the next NY Times' recent news release...
38
I am struck how many of these comments are from men. And agree with all these writers. I didn't really appreciate Mr. Rogers until I had a son.
He was fearless, voicing his own worries but not letting his awkwardness ever become the reason for not trying or enjoying an experience "even if I'm not so good at it."Just enjoy learning.
No judging, no comparison; just simple acceptance. I learned a lot as a parent about the value of small and simple. Thanks, David.
42
Thank you for this moving article. I loved Mr. Rogers, whose words and actions were so genuine and Christlike. I loved the intentional slow pace of his show-there was time to take in and think about what he said, and with no commercials to interrupt, as it was on public television. I would love to see the show return with a new Mr. Rogers type host, for children today.
21
Mr. Rogers lived in an age when there weren't such big differences between Democrats and Republicans, Christians and the rest of us.
I fear that by making such giant issues out of for example, abortion and transgender bathroom issues we divide people.
These people should be united by our common human rights to things like decent housing and health care.
And then we could face the global crises of climate change, wars and unparalleled migration together, without fear.
But we can't do anything without compassion, and kids come first.
What would Mr. Rogers think of the children being kidnapped at our borders? I am glad he doesn't have to see what our country has become.We could use him, though.
21
Yes, dr. c.c., if people didn't try to impose their religious/cult beliefs onto others, interfere in others' personal life decisions, or bother people just trying to use the bathroom we certainly would be a lot better off. I can't imagine Fred Rogers demanding that a girl or woman continue a pregnancy she doesn't want, or cannot carry. I think he would have understood people who are intersex and transgendered and would have protested their persecution, as he surely would be protesting the cruel kidnapping of children occurring today.
8
Thank you, David Brooks, for this appreciative column on Fred Rogers and his doing great things with the Little Good, actually with the little ones that loved him so much for his Love for them. He kept beautifully in touch with his inner little self, the child of innocence and wonder, search and feeling, closeness and goodness.
The film offers so much that warms the heart and strengthens the hope for humanity.
Two things you did not mention were extraordinary in the film:
One was Fred Rogers' enormous courage, conviction, and skill as a communicator in saving PBS (and his show) in turning a hostile senator, a most powerful committee chair, into a momentarily disarmed politician who surrendered to the voice of human love.
The other aspect was the vile, hateful, vindictive demonstration against Rogers at his funeral. That was the face of the soon to grow movement of inhumanity that put the present president into office years later.
The film is an antidote to the mockery of American goodness, little and big, in the age of Trump, Pruitt, and cohorts.
32
Again, Mr. Brooks provides us a glimpse of what it means to be a compassionate conservative, a really compassionate one! Mr. Rogers should be a National Hero and an Icon that Americans across the nation look upon daily. His model of civility and humanity can and should be a guide through these complex times.
I was not exposed regularly to Mr. Rogers until I became an adult and friends had children. Then, I recorded his show routinely and his manner has influenced how I interact with the students I work with in public education. I am a better person and teacher because of how he modeled the behavior he hoped all of us would demonstrate 24/7 365...Peace Love and Harmony America!
27
So grateful to have seen this movie. I was deeply impressed with how careful and deliberate Mr. Rogers was in crafting what seemed such an amateurish and insubstantial show, and how caring and healing a show it was. I kept thinking how badly we need Mr. Rogers and his colleagues now.
35
Fred Rogers is my hero. The documentary is great and you have to wonder what Mr. Rogers would be saying and thinking about Donald Trump.
14
All during the (still) unfolding MeToo movement, as one after another prominent "public figure" was exposed as an abuser of power and position, my wife would ask: is there no one who will not be "outed"? Is there anyone in public life who is truly good? I always answered that if 100 biographies of Fred Rogers were written I would bet my life he would come out clean. Goodness and humility radiated out from him in a perpetual, endless glow. I also said, and I believe, that there are many deeply good people around. Just probably very few in the media. (Especially the Celebrity in Chief.) PBS in the 70s was a very different medium from reality (?) TV, Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube, for the most part. Fred Rogers could sincerely offer his simple TV show as an act of service. He was not fishing for "likes"; he was doling out love. The hours I spent watching that show while taking care of my youngest brother count as one of the deepest and most rewarding spiritual practices of my life. Maybe it helps explain why I later became an elder in a Presbyterian church. I am very happy Rev. Rogers is getting his due with this documentary and the Tom Hanks film. And I am not at all surprised that all this is coming at this very dark moment in our public life. To paraphrase, "where have you gone Mr. Rogers, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you."
219
That movie, along with the truly excellent interview from Esquire by Tom Junod, was just what I needed. Fred Rogers was the most extraordinary man, and yes, radical in his focus on a small and simple message.
The film crystallizes a moral clarity that we've been sorely lacking... I didn't know I was so hungry for it until I was shown what was missing.
56
As a new child care provider for grandchildren, I have seen some of the PBS kids programming, heavily influenced by Fred Rogers, Sesame Street and the National Science Foundation.
I wonder how kids are shaped by exposure to non-addictive PBS Kids vs addictive first person shooter video games.
13
He wouldn't be a Republican now. At the least, he would be mocked and derided by the Trump fans. Yes, I'm bringing politics into my comment, since you found it necessary to mention it. Otherwise, an informative, calming and hopeful tribute. Well Done.
59
As the movie shows, Mr. Rogers was mocked and derided by a crowd outside his funeral 15 years ago, by religious zealots who condemned him for accepting gays and lesbians as human beings. I suspect that they would be Trump fans now.
I was originally surprised that this incident wasn't noted by Mr. Brooks. Then I realized that would have undercut his argument that an "achievement culture" was to blame for our current social and political predicament.
There may be much that can be blamed on an "achievement culture," but the takeover of the Republican Party and the Presidency by Donald Trump is not high on that list. I would argue that the types of bigotry seen at the funeral, encouraged with winks and nods by Republicans for years and now egged on by a Republican President at mass rallies, has much more to do with our present difficulties.
202
Achievement culture indeed! Trump was born on third base and claimed to have hit a triple.
1
I saw the movie yesterday and am still thinking about it. And, yes, every word of David Brooks is correct. A former Trump underling described Donald as the meanest person he had ever met: our president! Well, this movie is the antidote. It gives joy, and hope to see a very good person, an American through and through, filled with love and humility. Please everyone see it. Everyone's life will be better for knowing Mr Rogers and his neighborhood.
148
He was both a sensitive soul and a class act. That’s very rare on either side of the political aisle these days.
76
A beautiful tribute. Thank you.
28
There is no question that Fred Rogers was the master at kids to pay attention to little but important things in life. And he did this in a quiet low-key manner. There was nothing frenetic in his style. I had the good fortune of running into him once in a while at a local bank or grocery store in Pittsburgh. His demeanor in real life was exactly the same as in his show; it was not put on.
But, in an otherwise nice column recognizing Mr. Rogers style and contributions, what was the need to bring in religion or political affiliation? Mr. Rogers may have been a Republican and an ordained minister, but they don't matter. Unless Brooks' real purpose was to subtly link politics and religion with the values espoused by Mr. Rogers.
11
I actually hit "recommend" by mistake. I meant "rely" but what I want to point out is that the documentary does point out his lifelong political affiliation and his life as a minister was central to his professional life.
9
I agree about political affiliation. Rogers may have been a Republican but his political beliefs differed from the Republican leadership in fundamental ways. He was a strong feminist, a pacifist, and a proponent of civil rights.
I can't agree with your comment about religion. Rogers's entire makeup was an outgrowth of his Christianity. It was fundamental to who he was. Frankly, i don't think one can discuss Fred Rogers without emphasizing this point.
22
They did matter to Mr. Rogers just not to you.
His authentic love of children and their innocence remains particularly appealing when contrasted with the murder and mayhem that passes for most children's television programming. Contemporary children's t.v. is, for the most part, "educative," but rarely educational, and never as sensitive, loving and nurturing as Fred Roger's "Neighborhood."
41
As a secular progressive, I would have no problem working with conservative evangelicals in trying to make the last be the first in American society. The problem is that right now I and my fellow progressives have no partner. Polls show that right now the strongest Trump supporters, who are supporting a man who trades in simple cruelty, are evangelical christians. Saint Augustine once said that the correct way to understand the Bible and Jesus Christ was to read the Bible in the spirit of love. That is a far cry from how evangelical christians are apparently reading it now.
In a humble spirit, I would ask my fellow American evangelical christians to ponder Romans 13-not just the first section that says all men must follow and be accountable to the law but also Romans 13:9-10:
9 For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
10 Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
248
I second that.
What I tell my evangelical friends is that if you guys couldn’t have found ONE HONEST MAN/WOMAN among yourself to represent you, it reflects pretty bad on you and
is one major reason to genuinely doubt your christianity.
3
I heartily agree; and I'll add 1 John 4:18-21: "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And it is commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother."
"I am giving you a new commandment, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love among yourselves." (John 13:34,34).
"But I say to you who are listening, continue to love your enemies, to do good to those hating you, to bless those cursing you, to pray for those who are insulting you... To the contrary, continue to love your enemies and to do good and to lend without interest, not hoping for anything back; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind toward the unthankful and wicked. Continue becoming merciful, just as your Father is merciful." (Luke 6:27-36).
2
I would never have guessed that Rogers was a republican. How very far the party has fallen - These days I can't imagine any conservative figure acting with the level of kindness, respect and simplicity he demonstrated. Thanks for writing about him, David.
439
I tend to think of Mr. Brooks, as a caring, thoughtful, compassionate man. He is a Republican.
I am old enough to remember when there were good Republicans who cared about this country and worked in a truly collaborative fashion to enact laws that didn't harm the little people.
9
There are no more Republicans only Trumpists and Democrats.
6
A beautiful tribute to a beautiful man. As you point out, he was a Republican, I'm sure, as a man who valued children, fairness and Christian values, he would no longer be one today.
467
David's categorization of people into republicans and democrats stems from his acute desire to label people, as though one is born as a republican or democrat and the birthing nursery has signs, this wing is for republican newborn babies, that wing is for democrat newborn babies. Thus begins the sorting and labeling of human souls completely fresh and free of any division at all. But David is very compulsive, he wants to label each and everyone and then he wants to prove one up manship that so and so is so stellar because he votes republican.
Head scratch David. Sometimes I think you have matured and the very next, I realize you fooled me. You are still stuck. Perhaps those who pay you have asked you to be narrowly focused on party.
4
“Moral elevation gains strength when it is scarce.”
Bravo, Mr. Brooks. Do you remember Barack Obama? Do you recall the tears of gladness on the night of November 4, 2008? There were probably tears of sadness on that night, too, but do you think they were occasioned by “moral elevation?”
America needn’t retreat to an earlier place in time to reference a goodness that unexpectedly erupts from the body politic—the “will of the people” manifesting itself with the thirst of, say, “hope and change.” It was all there for us—or, most of us—before the (minority) Republicans threw sand into the works to frustrate any forward progress.
What replaced “hope and change” was an abomination to the national narrative, one that emphasized the negative and the bygone and the divisions that once opened an artery that still, nearly 160 later, spurts the bright red blood from America’s heart, a blood spatter that will require decades—if not centuries—to clean.
Only the aging recall Mr. Rogers, a gentle soul whose goodness opened tear ducts, gushes of emotion that, as soon as the program ended, dried. For all the good it did, it may as well have not aired at all.
We now, our knees skinned raw from many national stumbles and falls, wearily try to rise to our feet. But we are weighed down by something heavy, evil and enduring in its cold, warning promises, of a greater past that will carry us to a tomorrow bereft of decency and virtue.
Perhaps, Mr. Brooks, we can cry for what we threw away.
513
@soxared.
Thank you for this thought-provoking comment. I, too, often shed tears at the thought of the current state of affairs and what we lost. But I don't agree that Mr. Rogers' efforts were all for naught.
Your comment made me think about my small children watching his program while I hovered in the background. I wasn't a very good parent, vacillating, never knowing if I was doing the right thing or not. My children grew into responsible, compassionate adults in spite of me, not because of me.
I suddenly realize that maybe it was Mr. Rogers' influence that helped make them who they are. If many families have had similar experiences, then it wasn't all for nothing.
We must try not to despair.
4
He was so wonderful. How did we lose our way?
301
Conservatism. See America under Reagan.
1
One stupid vote, one pandering to greed at a time.
1
The “long moral tradition, that the last shall be first” is more socialist in spirit than conservatism’s rugged individualist. “Caritas” is Latin for charity, but it is not best demonstrated by Christianity as I suspect Brooks is subtly suggesting.
If there is such a thing, Mr. Rogers was a saint. But I don’t remember him ever praying on his show. He certainly did outside of the show, but he never tried to impose his beliefs on anyone. Brooks emphasizes a Christian interpretation of Mr. Rogers’ show by framing the “radicalism” of the show as being about who is closer to the Christian god. But Fred Rogers never put it that way on his show; he just demonstrated superbly how a good human being should act. He didn’t pontificate, preach, intellectualize, or philosophize - he taught through action.
Rogers ended each show with: “There is no person in the whole world like you, and I like you just the way you are.” He meant everyone. Just like Jesus, Rogers was a compassionate socialist, concerned with making all children feel safe, not just some. Mr. Rogers was more concerned about who you were – no matter who you were – than what religion you were, or weren’t, or what political party you belonged to, Republican or not.
801
Michael, I recommend rereading the article. Mr. Brooks does not use or imply the expression "Christian God" that you use in your post. As Mr. Brooks is not Christian I suspect his use of the expression God is more in the sense of a universal Divine. He simply stated that Mr. Rogers grew up a particular Christian tradition, a tradition that influenced the tenor and tone of the broader culture in earlier times (regardless of whether that culture fell short of these ideals). His noting that Rogers was a Republican seemed to me more to point out how the Republican culture of today no longer has a grasp of the essential values that Rogers epitomized.
Editors, I do not understand how a comment that misquotes and misinterprets an article becomes a "Times Pick"?
6
On the nose, thank you!!
1
I doubt that David Brooks, who is Jewish, is subtly holding up Christianity as the best example of caritas. I think he has a broader perspective.
As for socialism, it only really embodies caritas when it is voluntary. A socialist state, on the other hand, runs the risk of intensifying class divisions unless the society at large buys in with enthusiasm.
Oh my ... goodness, you cannot talk to me at all about Mr. Rogers that I do not completely dissolve in tears. I don't care, it's true, the two times I've seen the preview left me sobbing, I do not care who knows it.
I had just aged out of the target demographic Mr. Rogers was aimed toward when his show debuted, but I cannot be alone in admitting I was captivated by his purity of spirit. The sort of thing I was taught in Sunday School but saw no one around me portraying.
I know he was a Protestant minister -- and I wonder what he would have said to a ten year old gay boy in rural Pennsylvania who was slowly beginning to realize that he was a hated thing, being constantly reminded that he was a sissy, an outcast, etc. etc.
"Just the way you are" -- did Mr. Rogers know how much that meant to some of us lonely boys way out in the country?
We all need Mr. Rogers now more than ever. Each and every one of us. Special, just the way we are.
986
Brian, there is a good article about Roger's ?co-star on the TV show, Francois Clemmons. He was gay and was open about it to Rogers.
1
Dear Brian...
Not only did I weep when I watched the special on Mr. Rogers on PBS, but I wept when I read your comment. How far we have come from the world that Fred Rogers envisioned, but for all of us who believed in him and raised our children watching him every day, there is still hope. We are all special, just the way we are..and all of us need to vote in November to regain our sanity and our country. Then Mr. Rogers' message can be retaught to a new generation of Americans.
5
Just remember how he treated Officer Clemmons, a black police officer portrayed by a gay black man, on the show. He liked Officer Clemmons (and his portrayer) “just the way he was,” and that’s what he would have said to 10-year-old you.
4
I grew up in a very dysfunctional neglectful family but Mr Rogers was my safe space. From him I learned all of the things that my mom was too impatient to teach her children and I learned that there were adults who I could trust. He was an angel among us and we didn't realize how much we needed him until he was gone.
Mr Rogers was an old school Republican when the party was still the party of Lincoln. Many people forget that it was a small group of liberal Democrats and the Republican party who passed the civil rights act. The Republican party today is not the Republican party that Mr Rogers was a lifelong member of.
I find it offensive that Mr Brooks would even try to subtly associate today's GOP with Mr Rogers. The GOP's current figurehead is the most racist, sexist, cruelest president that our country has ever seen and the exact opposite of everything that Mr Rogers stood for. His base cheers him and his party is too afraid of losing power to stand up to him.
Mr Rogers is a reminder of what we are capable of being when we take care of each other instead of only looking out for number one. We have people in our country who have been left behind and need some help from those who have more. Hopefully going forward both parties will work together for the greater good and find out how to compromise.
I'm glad that Mr Rogers story is being told. There will never be another person like him who truly appreciated the innocence of children and their potential.
721
Wonderful comment. Thank you.
1
"I find it offensive that Mr Brooks would even try to subtly associate today's GOP with Mr Rogers. "
Agree! That was uncalled for, Brooks. As if any of the spineless, mean, arrogant, two-faced Republicans are anything like Mr. Rogers.
1
Asking all to be a neighbor, what a freedom that is. It's the myopic closing gates and locking out our neighbors that also locks us in.
316
Trump and his followers could never grasp the greatness of Fred Rodgers. Fred said that he thought the worst kind of entrainment was the kind that tore people down. I'm afraid that is the only play in the playbook these days. So sad.
I am atheist and usually repulsed by theist's faux piety. Fred Rodgers was a man of deep, thoughtful, meaningful actions, and modeled his convictions, not crowed then.
It would do the world well for all of us to visit/revisit his model.
A truly great courages America.
455
What would Fred Rogers say about the current administration and the state of our country?? About school shootings and national protests? What would he say about a jacket that says ...I Don't Care..?? What have we done to ..Our Neighbors ? What has happened to our neighborhoods ? We are better than this..at least the majority of us....right ?? Where are the voices of reason calling for civility ...unity..and peace ?? Are we better off than we were 2 years ago?? Where will we be in 2 more years ?? Where are we going as a nation ? Where are the Fred Rogers of 2018 ??
223
Mr. Rogers said that, in times of trouble, we should look for the helpers because there will always be helpers. So--you are one of the Fred Rogers of 2018, and so am I, when you and I and all the rest of us choose intentionally to be helpers.
These things are because there are no more Mr Rogers'.....
Experts who study human emotion assert (correctly, in my opinion) that there really are only two human emotions: The first is love. The other is fear. Mr. Rogers epitomized, led with and demonstrated his love. The current title holder of U.S. president bullies, bellows, postures, bludgeons and lies using fear. Is it any wonder adults are unabashedly shedding tears at a sweet movie about a supremely kind, wise and gentle man?
637
Thanks for some good thoughts, Turando....Mr. Rogers would likely agree with all of them, save the angry put-downs of a man who is what he is. Fred would find a way to engage this leader in a dialogue of betterment. We don't need more calling-out, we need more calling-in. Bullies are largely bullied by other bullies. We need to find ways to embrace and encourage and care for them, too. Change starts with love, not hate.
4
Fred Rogers' message of kindness and inclusion is timeless.
Any reminders of this great man and his incredible impact on literally a generation of young people is worthy and appreciated, be it the new movie or even this column.
However, like almost everything in our time, the monster lurks. Although those now 45-60 do not appear to be most fervent for Trump, how is it that millions of these folks, raised on the wholesome goodness of Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street have now devoted their lives to such a mean and cruel individual? More alarming is the realization that millions of children are being raised in households right now, being taught to cheer and admire the boorish Trump, the complete antithesis of Mr. Rogers. How many millions are being taught that meanness works, ridiculing your fellow man works, hatred for the other works, study and knowledge is irrelevant, money is more important than character, and incessant lying doesn't matter?
We need to redouble our efforts to teach our children and grandchildren the lessons of the great Fred Rogers - we need him now more than ever.
424
Like most contemporary social problems, the reasons behind this issue are very complex, and have been developing over the course of some years now.
In my view, the current level of civility has to do with an ongoing general social preference for independence over the collective, years of appalling comments on Internet discussion boards and social media (which normalized nastiness without accountability), and reality television that privileges obnoxious behavior, to name a few influences. And now, of course, our walking-talking-Internet-troll-of-a-president and his gang of thugs have taken the whole thing to a new national level of disgraceful behavior (winning!).
Finally, it's so much easier not to care, to demonize, to scapegoat, to make fun of, to dismiss. It's harder work to shift an individual's consciousness to kindness (in the current climate especially) or even acknowledgement nowadays, so many folks opt to focus only on themselves and their own circumstances as they try to keep their head above the fray.
Actually, Frank, many of the supporters of the Donny were not raised on Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street. Those are shows on PBS and, especially in the 1960's and 1970's, PBS didn't reach every place in America. New Jersey, - yes. The middle of many Midwest & Southern states - no.
1
Excellent point - that the children raised by Mr. Rogers are now fans of Donald Trump and his policies. What happened to them? Once they "got theirs" they happily turned their backs on those who haven't got. Maybe the Trump fans are the ones who never watched Mr. Rogers.
Individuals can make a difference on any given day. Radical Kindness is a great concept. I try to be kind and respectful to everyone I meet. If someone cuts me off on the highway, I refuse to retaliate. I allow people to be rude without dropping to their level. I try to stand by my friends when they are sick or in need.
It's easy to fall into despair in this time of racism, cruelty and mean spiritedness. Radical kindness on the individual, day-to-day level is one way to fight back. Thank you for giving it a name, Mr. Brooks.
256
In his speech accepting his induction into the TV Hall of Fame circa 1999, Mr Rogers said that television must do all it can to show and tell what the good in life is all about and that people in television do this “by doing whatever we can to bring courage to those whose lives move near our own. By treating our neighbor at least as well as we treat ourselves.” Mr Rogers was speaking to people in television; his message was for all of us.
It is hopeful that Mr Rogers articulated courage as the emotion we must nurture to see the good in life -- in an authentic, humble way. At the end of his speech, you could see TV people -- Mary Tyler Moore, Dick Van Dyke, Ed Asner, and Judy Woodruff clapping, holding back tears and knowing they had been privileged to hear a universal truth. Mr Rogers meanwhile was guiding his friend Fred Erlanger, who was in a wheel chair, off stage -- giving his attention to one neighbor at a time. Godspeed Mr. Rogers.
221
Thank you Glenn for adding to our appreciation and need of the Mr. Roger's of this world.
2
Perfectly sums up Mister Rogers' message. Thank you! When my son was little (46 years ago) I loved the calm that Mr Rogers brought to the end of a busy day, Not only calm before the dinner hour but calm at bedtime when we would often talk about the events of the day at school or play. I'm sad we have forgotten how to be neighborly in this noisy, frantic, self absorbed time. Maybe this movie will help us all to remember how to be good neighbors and figure out "what to do with the mad that we feel"
176
I don't rreally think we've forgotten how to be neighbors. I think we mostly don't have time, with both adults in a household working all the hours there are. We need a new Right to Life movement for all of us workers.
There are "Mr. Rogers" in schools and social agencies all over America, trying to sooth the wounds of American injustice and racism. Your GOP, long before Trump, suppresses funding, undermines their right to collective bargaining, dismisses the importance of their work, denies them the child care and parental leave so that they can care for their own children . . . I could go on.
This Republican tactic of emoting over small anecdotes is tiresome and destructive. It's like George H.W.'s thousand points of light. Useless sentimentality.
We don't need a splash of sentiment in a movie theater. We need a tidal wave of justice.
369
It is true that the GOP has undermined teachers and social workers and mocked community organisers for decades. I’m not sure it’s fair to lay blame for that on Mr Brooks, however, as this comment implies. Conservatism is a vital force in politics just as liberalism is, and neither can be a force for good without the other acting as a counterweight. Mr Brooks Is well aware of this fundamental truth.
1
And now we have a bully in chief who empowers all those qualities that are the exact opposite of what would Mr. Rogers do?, and makes them seem downright American. We must resist that and empower the little good while waiting for the much needed tidal wave indeed.
Thanks for pointing out the hypocrisy here. I would recommend this post a thousand times if I could.
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After watching this wonderful film, I was left dismayed, saddened. What has happened to us? What has happened to goodness, civility, decency? Such attributes seem not to exist, replaced by rudeness and meanness, vanity and selfishness; these are the behaviors modeled by the president and witnessed every day on television. We can behave better no matter the politics. Why does this seem too much to ask?
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"Greed is good" is what happened. The idea that the individual striving and achieving, untethered from any mission other than "all blessings flow from taking care of No. 1," is responsible.
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Yes, this is the new gilded age, where wealth is righteousness and a mendacious president extols the virtues of a golden toilet upon which he sets and from where he admires his self portraits while he tweets bursts of sagacity.
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Mr. Rogers may have been conservative and Republican in his day but one thing is for sure, he would not be a Republican today, a party that is now 100% the image of Trump and all that that means. No ethics, no moral compass, no compassion, no anything but promoting The World According To Trump, the world's most dangerous narcissist since WWII.
We are seeing a slew of good people with strong ethical and moral compasses who have been Republicans all of their lives finally bite the bullet and leave a Party that is no longer a conservative party fiscally, ethically and morrally. I suspect Mr. Rogers would have quietly left, not making a public deal of it, but long before the GOP morphed into something that does everything for the promotion of Trump's ego and a raw ugly misuse of power/wealth to consolidate that power and wealth and nothing to promote Dignity, Respect, Empathy, Equality and Fair Play, things that our Declaration of Independence and Constitution are intended to defend and promote.
So when Mr. Brooks, are you going to bite the bullet and leave a Republican Party that is no longer a reflection of your conservative ideology? Your OP EDS and comments on NPR reflect the reality that you already have but have just not admitted it.
Go ahead, I did, slowly and painfully as Nixon's Southern Strategy over decades slowly led to a GOP ripe for hijacking by a fraud like Trump.
Just do it. The water's great where Dignity, Respect and the American Dream count for everything
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David omits describing the shocking scenes at the movie's end showing the funeral of Mr. Rogers. Across the street were protesters with signs saying, "Mr. Rogers, burn in Hell." One of his staff, his producer? goes and asks them why they objected to Mr. Rogers. Guess why. They said he supported homosexuals. The producer said he was heartbroken to see children drawn into their parents' hateful views.
David also doesn't mention the person from Fox News bloviating about how Fred Rogers "ruined a whole generation of children by saying they were special for no reason at all. A bunch of entitled brats..." blah, blah, blah. What a perversion of the Gospel that we are all perfect in God's eyes!
Then last week a woman at the mall approached me and asked if she could pray for me. "God loves you." she said. I thanked her and asked if she had grandchildren. She smiled and said she has five. I suggested we pause and pray for thousands of children separated from their parents at the border. She glared at me and said, "No! Their parents did that to them."
I was stunned as she walked away. Seeing that shocking scene in the Mr. Rogers movie and encountering this kind of bigotry disguised as religious righteousness was a turning point for this pacifist. I will be prepared to speak my truth the next time I am in the presence of such ignorance and hatred. No more silent civility for me. No way, no how.
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God Bless you and your love.. I know you won't actually do the last sentence on your comment. You cannot become hateful as the Trumpers cannot become loving.
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Grandmother, Your post is very descriptive of the current world we live in, but it is sad that you can't absorb the point David is making and ponder it. Obviously, we all are
living surrounded by so much negativity - and it isn't all because of Donald Trump. To say "No more civility for me"
reveals a posture behind all the negativity that misses the point of this column. Your "compassion" for children separated from their parents at the border strikes me as sham compassion, because it is more political than genuinely human. Mr. Rogers was the real thing.
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Good Going grandma....what you experienced was "Wolves dressed in Sheep's clothing!"
Remember how much Jesus loved the little children?
God bless you and thanks for giving me hope today knowing that there is someone like you out there :-)
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I grew up in Pittsburgh. I went to a Presbyterian church and a youth camp in Latrobe. My family was Republican. My children watched Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. However..... my father was nothing like Mr. Rogers. If I slept in he would come into my bedroom and say “what good are you if you can’t get up in the morning?”
Everything Mr. Brooks wrote was true....except his choice of mentioning that Fred Rogers was a life long Republican. Why does he think he can link that party with wholesome values? Would Fred Rogers be a Republican today in the midst of separating children from their parents? Would Mr. Rogers say that the parents who sought to remove their children from violent environments were guilty for asking for asylum in this country?
My basic impression of the concerns of the Republican Party is that they want to keep their money to themselves and expect everyone else to be self sufficient.
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Goodness has nothing to with politics, and politics certainly has no relationship with goodness.
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Brooks is not out of line in mentioning that Mr. Rogers was a Republican. That fact was mentioned in the movie itself. I can't recall if Mr. Rogers said it himself or it was mentioned by someone else.
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after I saw the documentary, I became a better educator and teacher of younger children. Fred Rogers reminded me to value our children even the ones that are very difficult and don't believe in discipline.
It's made me a better person and I trust everyone that crosses my path will be better because of it.
Great opinion article David Brooks! Great on PBS NewsHour and I had no idea that you are here at the New York Times!
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