I recently watched the biography, "Won't You Be My Neighbor?"
I can remember watching Mister Rogers on TV a bit when I was younger, but only through reruns (I'm a child of the '90s), and not very regularly. Until recently, he was a faint memory in the back of my mind. He comes up now and again when there are terrible events (as the article mentions), but I wouldn't say he was a defining figure in my early development.
After seeing the movie, I can only wish that I had had more of him and his show in my life. He was truly dedicated to producing emotionally educational television for children. I think we could do with more of that these days. Children's shows just aren't what they used to be.
I think I'd give the biography a 9 out of 10. Not because it's some incredible feat of cinematic achievement, but because the message is so crucially important. Do yourself a favor and go see it.
for what its worth, I think they do a good job with Daniel Tiger to continue his legacy. My kids love it (maybe because its the only thing i'll let them watch), and it has taught me a few things on how my kids are going to react to certain situations.
Agreed. Daniel Tiger is as much for me as it is for my son. It seems like they have handy little songs for many toddler challenges. We still sing the "flush and wash and be on your way" song, as well as "take a deep breath".
It's a very different format from Mr Roger's, but maybe it has to be in order to be relevant to the ages.
"Do you need to go potty? Maybe yes, maybe no; why don't you sit and try to go?" has been immensely helpful. There's a Daniel Tiger song for every situation!
Haha this was my very first thought when Daniel Tiger was mentioned. "If you have to go potty, stop and go right away..."
(I was working on an RTSP streaming video client and all I had handy as a video source for VLC to stream was Daniel Tiger's Neighbourhood. It only took a few days because ffmpeg is awesome but this song is now burned into my brain...)
I've heard of that one! A friend watches that when she babysits her (much) younger sisters and she said she really likes it for them.
Incidentally she didn't know that Daniel Tiger was from Mr Rogers until we saw the biography together. (She never watched Mr Rogers's Neighborhood when she was younger, and had only heard of him through pop culture.)
Thanks for the heads up on the movie. I didn't know it was out in theaters yet.
I grew up in the 90s watching PBS all the time. PBS was pure magic at that time with Ghostwriter, Carmen San Deigo, Sesame Street. Mr. Rogers was my favorite program overall. I always stopped to watch him. He just made you feel calm and collected.
I just recently watched an episode on YouTube and I ended up getting teary-eyed watching it. His simple little show was so impactful. So many great memories and morals I have learned from this show. So good.
I'm afraid to go to the movie. I feel I will be sobbing uncontrollably at the end.
As a kid the most valuable part we're the musical guests. Growing up in the night city undermined the abity of his message to impact me but he cultivated my life long love of jazz.
The movie did a pretty good job of framing it: TV for children was not caring, and was not educational. It was predominately clowns and violence.
Fred Rogers saw the power in doing something different, and eloquently expressed that to the committee... although it's a little scary how much power that one man on the committee seemed to have over this incredibly powerful resource for children and adults.
First off, that was in the 60s, so the number today would be something more like $150 million. Secondly - Pretty much every bit of the government budget is fought for. And should be. It is incredibly important that we have robust debate on government spending. At the time, children's programming, public television - These were unproven topics, and Fred was making some of the earliest debates for them.
And third: "Think of the children" is a classic fallacy all in itself, that bears no further explanation
This is nothing new. We used to send kids to mine coal, sweep chimneys, and plant dynamite. A lot of them didn't live to see adulthood. Kids these days have it pretty good.
Lately it almost seems like there's a competition to see who cares the least about children. As though giving any thought to their well being is some kind of unwarranted "won't anyone think of the chidren?!" hysteria.
Toddlers are being arbitrarily kidnapped and kept in cages, and 40% of this country just shrugs it off. Your comment is being downvoted without rebuttal. Etc. Etc.
“Welzer further describes that Nazism even managed to incorporate an individual’s struggle with deeds into their frame of reference. They knew that what they were doing was immoral on some level but it was framed in a way where an individual who struggled with what they had to do and did it anyway was perceived as a “real man” because he would put the good of the people’s community over his own feelings.”
Putting the good of the community before your personal comfort is not a trait unique to Nazis. Anybody who doesn't commit tax evasion is doing it. What made the Nazis unique was their particular notion of what constituted "good for the community".
Seriously. None of those articles described “arbitrary kidnapping”. First, it appears systematic and coordinated. Second, the parents are detained for allegedly breaking laws. Are there certain types of incarceration in the US where children are allowed to stay with their parents? Finally, (not that it makes it any better), but as of this morning BBC was reporting that 100 of the 3,000 kids currently in government custody are 5 and under - the vast majority are not toddlers.
So yes, I would be interested in citations of cases where toddlers are being arbitrarily taken from non-incarcerated parents which are otherwise fit to raise their children.
It does no one, including these kids caught in a horrific experience, any favors to talk about the issues with such hyperbole. At the same time, there are significantly more constructive things that can be done for these kids and the tens of thousands in the foster care system.
We've asked you a lot to post substantively and it isn't happening, so we've banned the account. If you'd like to email hn@ycombinator.com and commit to posting according to the guidelines, we can unban you.
I'm a child of the 60s/early 70s who grew up watching Fred Rogers. My environment was hell as a child. His show was a small counterbalance. Every little bit helps.
I'd guess that his model of thoughtful kindness and calmness helped many kids (without any such neighbors) sense that alternatives to their emotional environment existed. And that they could hold onto their inner authorities.
Watching Mr. Rogers growing up really helped me handle tough situations growing up. It may sound weird but I remain calm, under pressure, under crisis, etc. I try to remind people of the positives the have and to work through the negatives without spreading negative energy.
Edit: I didn't realize the documentary was still in theaters! That is my plan for tonight then...
Mister Rogers' interactions with other people are the purest and most kind I've ever witnessed, so I pondered for a long time how it is that he could be so humane and kind. Finally I realized the whole thing comes from his ability to take others for exactly who they are in those moments.
He took his Christian faith very seriously and that heavily influenced his worldview and treatment of others.
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
That's very well articulated. He had no pretense and never came across as patronizing, at least in my (admittedly limited) sampling of old episodes via YouTube.
The "take others for exactly who they are" mentality captures his earnestness and utter lack of guile in his interactions. I'm sure you've seen him testify before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications to maintain funding for PBS [0], but I'll leave this link here anyway, for others who might not have seen this.
It was also clear to me that he was truly willing to devote as much of his attention as possible to another person for a solid minute or two. Not long at all, but it feels like an eternity when you see his non-judgmental, undistracted gaze locked in.
Big Fred Rogers fan here. I saw "Won't You Be My Neighbor" in a theatre last week and it cemented my belief that his love and dedication to childhood development is just as necessary today as it was in the 60s and 70s when I watched it. Balance for the "animated barrages" of amusement, as Rogers called them.
So does anyone know how to view/buy/rent a large (complete?) collection of all those wonderful old episodes? I would like to re-watch these with young family members. I'd happily buy a big Blu-ray or DVD set but I didn't see such a thing available on PBS' site.
There is no legally available full collection. Twitch did a full run with NBC (I think it was that channel) as a stream last year and a bunch of people screen-capped it and uploaded it to a few places. I got my copy from a btsync link.
Amazon has almost all of them, all the way back to the first episode. We subscribe to PBS kids (through Amazon) for our daughter, but I'm not sure if that's required for the Mr. Rogers series.
Having just watched "Won't You Be My Neighbor?", it's really interesting to read this piece. It overlaps the content of that documentary, but also explores other parts of Rogers' story that weren't covered in the film.
It's a really touching movie. I came away struck by the quiet radicalism of Rogers' mission to simply validate other human beings, especially children. He seemed to have honed the ability to climb the wall we put up to protect ourselves once we learn that we're on our own in this world, as that world invariably let's us down by ignoring us and invaliditating our dignity.
I can watch the clip of him singing with Mr Rogers all day, there’s such pure, unadulterated joy in his eyes, his smile, and his voice. The backstory of the scene as explained in the current documentary makes it even more touching.
My daughter loves Mr. Rogers. We don't watch him very often, though. There are only about 15 episodes available through Google Play. (Nothing on Netflix or Amazon.)
I really wish there were more episodes available. She finds him captivating.
Not sure what a "big-lipped alligator moment" is, but I thought the writer tied it all together pretty lucidly in the discussion about competing models of masculinity. Also this:
> Visiting the archives of Canada’s public broadcaster this past May was more complex than usual due to increased security in the building. Five days after Alek Minassian had killed ten people and injured multiple others by driving a white van through a crowd, Canadaland reported that a post had appeared on the Incels.me message board with the subject, “[Serious] our next task: shooting up CBC headquarters.”
Rogers (I learned from this article) got his start on the CBC.
"A very bizarre scene in an otherwise normal story that veers off into the surreal or strange. Upon exiting that scene, the plot continues on like it never happened."
I don't really know how the GP thinks it applies, but a big lipped alligator moment is a term that originated from a review of the movie All Dogs Go To Heaven about a scene that is basically irrelevant to the plot or emotional development of the characters and is literally just a musical number starring a big lipped alligator.
...and brought Ernie Coombs with him. If you're Canadian, you might remember Mr. Coombs as Mr. Dressup. Bob Homme (The Friendly Giant) came up for much the same reason at much the same time.
The Toronto attack, targeting women and fueled by an "incel" mindset, is pointed to several times in the article as an example of how Fred Rogers' message to boys and his approach to mental health could be helpful.
Honestly this was clearly the intention just from reading the paragraph in question.
Perhaps you missed the subtitle: With his unconventional take on children’s television, Mr. Rogers helped redefine the male role model.
The point of the piece: Mr. Rogers provides a model of maleness and masculinity that works especially well for boys and men who feel scared, alienated, or attacked by society. This model, rooted in love, contrasts with other models for that subpopulation that ground out in anger or hate.
In other words, the very thesis of the piece is that there is a salient relationship between incels/mysogyny and Mr. Rogers: the latter provides an alternative to the former.
"Low-trust" "multicultural" "society" is race-war code language, isn't it? People that don't read a lot of reactionary stuff might try to engage directly with the words "low-trust" and spark a whole unproductive discussion about what it is we "trust" or "don't trust" about people, but that's not the purpose the words actually serve in that sentence, right? "Low-trust" is a way of saying "things were better when we were mostly white Europeans, with other cultures marginalized".
If that wasn't your intention, you'd probably want to know that putting the words "low-trust" and "multicultural" into assertions about American life constitutes a reactionary/neo-supremacist trope.
>"Low-trust" "multicultural" "society" is race-war code language, isn't it?
Says you, they're just words. If you don't agree you can go ahead and disagree. I won't comment about your rhetoric other than to say it's functionally ad-hominem. Calling something a trope is a also a pretty easy way to hand-wave away anything you don't want to think about.
>and spark a whole unproductive discussion about what it is we "trust" or "don't trust" about people
I would say that trust has not improved, I would say that race relations have not improved (probably deteriorated). Even you can probably agree with that?
Mr. Rodgers prescriptions for life are lovely but impractical, and they haven't helped society at all I would say.
I won't comment about your rhetoric other than to say it's functionally ad-hominem.
Wait, how? It's specifically about your language, not you. If, hypothetically, he'd taken a little scroll through your older comments and happened to, purely hypothetically, run across some stuff about how slaves had room and board and the persistent racist oppression of white males and then jumped to a conclusion and called you a racist, that would be ad hominem.
> I would say that race relations have not improved (probably deteriorated).
Since Mr. Rogers Neighborhood first aired in 1968? No, race relations are much better now. It's true that they've deteriorated in some respects in the last handful of years, but mostly that's a result of a desperate rearguard action by White supremacists as institutionalized racism and it's automatic acceptance by the masses has been further eroded, and even if the federal government role today is in some respects worse than in 1968, the overall state of race relations is not.
> Mr. Rodgers prescriptions for life are lovely but impractical
In what concrete respect? You've been waving around a lot of generalizations (false ones, at that) about societal differences between now and the past to explain why they might have become impractical having been valid in the past, but you haven't actually explaining what the actual impracticality in any of them is (or even what specific prescriptions you are criticizing); while the inaccuracy of your generalizations is a problem, a bigger problem is your failure to establish, or even concretely define, the problem that supposedly has developed with Rogers’ approach that you are using them to explain.
> I would say that race relations have not improved
The proportion of interracial marriages as a proportion of all marriages has been increasing since, such that 15.1% of all new marriages in the United States were interracial marriages by 2010 compared to a low single-digit percentage in the mid 20th century. Public approval of interracial marriage rose from around 5% in the 1950s to around 80% in the 2000s. The previous sentences are copy-pasted from Wikipedia.
I know what his name is and how to spell it I just reflexively spell it that way. Why don't you just write that you think I'm stupid rather than hide behind this trivial spelling error comment?
The only point I am making is that this person has attempted to take a thread about Mr. Rogers on a race-war tangent, and if they're going to do that, they should at least know how to spell his name. I have no idea whether they're intelligent or not; I just know that they're unserious about the topic of the thread.
> Mr Rogers came about in a homogeneous high-trust society.
No, he didn't. The United States was neither homogeneous nor high-trust in 1968. In fact, it was about as far from that as it ever has been in the post-WWII period, present situation not excluded.
Oh so Mr. Rodgers winked into existence in 1968? I suspect that instead that he was born much earlier than that, and he lived and grew up in a very different USA than the one you live in now, and even a different USA from the one in which he began broadcasting in 1968.
I addressed what you said. If you had a point beyond that, it wasn't apparent.
> but I'll address yours:
No, you won't, even though my point was exactly what I said.
> Could those social, political and racial divisions be addressed by living in different polities?
That's not really germane to what I said, either on its own or in its context as a response to your claim about change since some time relevant to Mr. Rogers origins. It seems to be more a passive aggressive way of making a separatist point that your use of white nationalist code throughout the year has been trying to dance around rather than actually responding to any point of mine. But, I will respond to it:
(1) No, the divisions are to multidimensional and evolving for separar polities to be a viable solution; and, in any case, separate polities just shift internal conflict to external conflict, they don't resolve conflict except when the conflict is primarily about a desire for separate polities.
(2) While there have been occasional bits of retrograde, the broad course over time does that they can be, and largely are being, addressed without separate polities.
I disagree that internal conflict would become external as you say. I think that the reverse would happen, we could coexist more peacefully as no groups feel controlled or exploited by the other.
Also I'm not sure what the reason you insist that people you clearly hate must continue to live with you. There is the obvious fact that you can continue to control them and demographically dominate them at the polls (thanks to immigration). If they separate from you then you cannot do that, also you would become a very tiny minority in the multicultural society that remained, I think that doesn't sit well with you. My assumption is that you are white.
I suspect the opposite, the trend is getting worse and relations are becoming a powderkeg. I suppose time will tell who is correct.
> Also I'm not sure what the reason you insist that people you clearly hate must continue to live with you
I don't hate anyone, and I don't insist anyone “live with me”. The U.S. does not have exit controls nor do I favor imposing them. OTOH, the primary cleavage lines in the country aren't geographic (whike there is a geographic correlation, it's weaker than at any point in history), so any separation of poltiies means (even ignoring the multidimensional nature of the divided that make this impractical even before considering geography) either forcing large numbers of people into polities less friendly to themselves than the current common polity or mass dislocation.
> There is the obvious fact that you can continue to control them and demographically dominate them at the polls (thanks to immigration).
The idea that currently dominant faction is advantaged by immigration is...interesting. But not particularly well connected to reality for many of the major divides at issue.
> If they separate from you then you cannot do that, also you would become a very tiny minority in the multicultural society that remained
In a separation along any of the key cleavages, everyone would be part of a larger (proportional) group within the resulting poltiies than the source polity, so that doesn't even make sense.
> My assumption is that you are white.
Well, maybe you shouldn't make stupid assumptions.
> I suspect the opposite, the trend is getting worse and relations are becoming a powderkeg.
I think there's a fairly good chance of a near term crisis and it's clear that the short-term trend is bad, as it has often been within the longer-term improvement. OTOH, The major progress has always come in the context of crisis periods.
Mr. Rogers started broadcasting in 1968, the same year MLK was assassinated.
Mister Rogers Neighborhood was airing during the LA riots, during the Attica riots, during the height of Vietnam, during 9/11, during Watergate, etc.
Issues of racial resentment and hatred were dealt with, head on, by Mr. Rogers in Mister Rogers Neighborhood.
The television series continued until 2001, a year when the cultural and racial makeup of the USA was very similar to what it is today. The core message remained the same.
I don't know about trust being the root. But the argument can be made that society is very different. And the Fred Rogers model won't have much of an impact given the environment of hyper stimulation/24x7 distraction that consumption culture creates.
Fred Rogers was critical of it even back then. Since then, consumption culture has exploded, objectification of women, violence, escapism whether it is in games, drugs or your social media, news streams is at an all time high. For a Fred Rogers type message to get through the volume dial on all this other stuff has to be dialed down. Otherwise the very valuable message gets lost in the noise.
I'd be curious to read any studies on child psychology with respect to how children would respond to something like Fred Rogers today. As in, would a child today be disinterested in the slow pace of that format and want to consume other media?
I feel like this apparently general inability to string together cogent thoughts, or identify incredibly-clear connections even when laid out pretty clearly, goes a long way toward explaining the context for the very issues discussed in the article.
Mr. Rogers is a hero who directly addressed exactly the issues facing us today, and people are figuratively sticking their fingers in their ears and refusing to listen.
I can remember watching Mister Rogers on TV a bit when I was younger, but only through reruns (I'm a child of the '90s), and not very regularly. Until recently, he was a faint memory in the back of my mind. He comes up now and again when there are terrible events (as the article mentions), but I wouldn't say he was a defining figure in my early development.
After seeing the movie, I can only wish that I had had more of him and his show in my life. He was truly dedicated to producing emotionally educational television for children. I think we could do with more of that these days. Children's shows just aren't what they used to be.
I think I'd give the biography a 9 out of 10. Not because it's some incredible feat of cinematic achievement, but because the message is so crucially important. Do yourself a favor and go see it.