Be Like Fred Rogers

Love thy neighbor. Share. Learn. Understand each other. If you have enough, there is little reason to have to have more. Be skeptical, but not cynical.

I could have titled this “Be Like Mr. Rogers.” That would have been simpler, but I didn’t name it that.

I’ve been talking to my mother a lot about modern times, and my worldview. She said, “You are all doom and gloom. Isn’t there anything or anyone that you like.” I like a lot of people, but I said, “Fred Rogers.”

She said, “That’s it that’s all you’ve got? Mr. Rogers?” Basically, my response was “That’s all I need.”

The Whitney Houston song, “The Greatest Love of All” actually came from the movie about Muhammad Ali’s life “The Greatest.”

It is mocked a lot. It was best mocked by Eddie Murphy in “Coming to America” with his band Sexual Chocolate. Eddie Murphy mocked Fred Rogers too. Eddie Murphy loved Fred Rogers.

The thing they most mock in the Whitney song is the first two lines. “I believe the children are our future/teach them well and let them lead the way.”

It is probably mocked because it is so obvious and everyone already knows it to be true.

Anyone who wants to change the world in any way mostly does so through educating children.

I told my mother. “Do you think it was an accident that Fred Rogers had a children’s show?”

A lot of education is social conditioning. That’s not in dispute. I tried to get a Master’s Degree in Education, and they told me that it was right away.

This sounds easy, but it is actually a huge battleground because everyone does know it to be true. So they try to teach young kids a lot of things as soon as they can: religion, patriotism, musical instruments, languages and whatever else their agenda is.

The cynical will tell you that children are gullible, blank slates who will accept anything they come into contact with first. That may or may not be true.

The first thing in front of me when I was youngest was “Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood.” It was omnipresent for kids my age. I am thankful it was.

His show was very simple. Simpler than “Sesame Street” and seemingly for a younger audience. Most watched it and moved on. I watched it and got it. I moved on, but I didn’t forget what I had learned.

Fred Rogers’ show had no commercials. He didn’t want them to, and he hated commercials especially those shoving sugar covered cereals down my throat.

I did go on to watch all the flashy kids shows he hated and eat and enjoy all of those cereals. I love a lot of those shows for various reasons. I love his and him the most.

Most people would call me a liberal. I’m not a big fan of labels, but I am never really insulted by that.

This leads to many discussion or debates, probably best called ugly arguments with those who are not. My fault.

Most times the other people will call themselves conservatives. My response is almost always “I’m conservative on some things. I think there is an intelligent way to be a conservative. Most conservatives I see on television seem completely out of their mind and crazy. Who is your role model?”

Now I mostly do this to raise the level of discourse. Too much televised debate is either one smart person slamming a stupid one or worst case two stupid people slamming each other. Sometimes it is four stupid people slamming another stupid person. It is not really productive.

Am I productive? Sometimes, but not always. Most times when I challenge people this way they will not even offer me a name at all. They usually have no political role model other than whatever they think themselves on that day.

They could perhaps say, “George Will.”

I could perhaps say, “Mine is Noam Chomsky. Let’s talk about what they believe in.”

I almost never get this far, but if I ever did two things could happen.

We could have that discussion, or I could say, “Here’s what I know about George Will personally and why I think that he is a dick.”

This happens all the time today on social media.

I could post something as basic as “I like Freddie Mercury,” and someone will Google “What is the worst thing Freddie Mercury ever did?” and come back less than two minutes later with the glib response,

“Freddie Mercury did cocaine surrounded by midgets he hired to entertain him while he snorted cocaine. He sucks, I win.”

Wow, wonderful productive discourse. Thank God for the internet and social media.

I do this often. I was once with a religious friend and said, “I won’t knock your religion, but I hate all televangelists I can’t name a single good one.”

She said that she thought Billy Graham was a good one. Honestly, not trying to be a dick at all, I did Google “Billy Graham” and soon found some nasty things said about Jews on tape with Richard Nixon, by them both.

I, of course, reported this back to her, hopefully not glibly. She said, “That was one mistake and he apologized for it.” She said the same thing the day that he died when tons of people brought that up. Her defense may or may not be valid.

People play my “game” defending horrible institutions. Back in the day, they would say, “Yes, college football is ugly and messed up, but there is Joe Paterno. He wins and he does it cleanly.”

That was the lesson of Joe Paterno. He wasn’t that guy, and it was almost impossible to be that guy given who he had to compete against, which is the same reason I knew Lance Armstrong was always a cheater.

There has always been one exception that I have found. Fred Rogers.

I’ve looked everywhere, and I can’t find anyone who knew him with a bad word to say about him. I can’t find anything factual that relates any allegation that he ever consciously did a bad thing.

His main message was don’t compete. Love.

“What changes the world is the idea that love can abound and be shared.”

No one criticizes the man, but they do criticize his mission.

They will say that he told every kid that they are special, and everyone is not special. They will say everyone thinking they are special is what is wrong with the world and that he is the one to blame for telling all those kids that in the first place.

Search my site. I love Bill Hicks. One of his classic routines was called, “You’re Children Are Not Special.” What was Bill Hick’s main message? Love.

Now there is little doubt that we are all very insignificant beings, who will die, and eventually be forgotten. Fred Rogers even told kids that on his show.

Orson Welles, as Harry Lime in the “Third Man,” called all people little dots that would never be missed. He said that there were no repercussions for making money and eliminating a few dots and that gave him the ability to do whatever he wanted.

Michael J Fox’ character in “Casualties of War” said this:

Everybody’s acting like we can do anything and it don’t matter what we do. Maybe we gotta’ be extra careful because maybe it matters more than we even know.

Me I don’t believe there are any real long-term, post-death repercussions, it only matters to me because it does matter to me. I do think the only reward for a life well lived is to know that you tried to do so.

At the height of Ronald Reagan’s verbal attacks at Russia, who he called the “evil empire,” Sting released the song “Russians.”

The main line was “I hope the Russians love their children too.”

Sting was mostly mocked.

1. Of course, the Russians love their children. We all love our children
2. That doesn’t stop the Russians from killing our children

I don’t think Sting’s views were that simplistically wrong, but yes those two attacks are somewhat correct on their face.

Even if you have a large majority of people who choose love, it only takes a small who do not to mess it all up for everyone.

That knowledge compels a lot of people and a lot of people in power to reject love and choose strength or whatever they want to call it.

That still does not beat Fred Rogers’ guiding principle.

“What changes the world is the idea that love can abound and be shared.”

He was a man of strong faith. I don’t believe in God at all, but I believe in that statement, and I believe that the more people who do believe in that statement and act that way the better off we are.

Maybe the world doesn’t work that way. Maybe whatever the current version of “Russians” is will subjugate all the people who believe in that statement forever.

I don’t really care.

I’ve seen plenty of people who preach peace through strength fail time and again. I’ve read people who said that they did not fail. It’s all very confusing and complex.

“What changes the world is the idea that love can abound and be shared.”

That is simple and unassailable if everyone practices it.

It may be impossible, but again I don’t care.

I just watched and purposefully paid for a very good documentary about Fred Rogers called “Won’t You Be My Neighbor”  and watched it with my mother.

There was little new information in it for me. There was for her.

Do I want credit because I knew it first? No, if you want I’ll lie and say, “Wow, that movie opened my eyes.”

Lots of people are saying that movie opened my eyes.

All praise that movie for opening people’s eyes.

Will the next movie most people watch be “Terminator 2: Judgement Day” or something else Fred Rogers would have frowned about kids seeing? Probably, I may next watch that movie or one like it.

What’s important is that I saw Fred Rogers first.

Know something bad about Fred Rogers and want to share it (maybe a picture where he seems to be doing a two-fisted bird salute when he is actually just counting)?

Keep it to yourself. I don’t really care to know it. All I know is that for free, I learned:

“What changes the world is the idea that love can abound and be shared.”