Culture has a way of quenching the thirst for human goodness at the moment it seems the well has gone dry. This week’s respite comes by way of an ordained Presbyterian minister who made a living — and shaped a generation — talking to kids through puppets.
The timing is impeccable. A climactic week in Washington presented the country with nine scheduled witnesses in the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump, in addition to a Democratic presidential debate that landed on the eve of the day the federal government would have run out of funding. A scramble to fund operations for the next month occupied both chambers before they headed out the door for a Thanksgiving recess.
Meanwhile, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” was released to general audiences. The biopic depicts the true story of Fred Rogers — known to most as Mister Rogers — befriending a cynical journalist assigned to profile the children’s show host.
Whatever the merits of the film’s theatrical elements, its reflection of society’s cravings shouldn’t go overlooked. A steady drumbeat of politics, division and scandal finds captive audiences the country over, but human nature says people tire of histrionics and disparagement. They yearn for kindness and connection, the things Fred Rogers gave America in 912 episodes spanning 33 years of public broadcasting.
And it’s obviously missed today. It’s not for a lack of gentle programming — there are plenty of modern shows, aided by the luxury of on-demand streaming platforms, that teach values to young audiences.
The true appetite is for a role model who can demonstrate how to put in practice fundamental aspects of human dignity. “What would Mister Rogers do?” is a growing refrain in today’s milieu, as if society can’t navigate the stormy shores of incivility without a leader saying it’s OK to be nice.
That same question was hurled at Pam Bondi, then a Florida attorney general, on her way to see last summer’s documentary of Rogers, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” Protesters harangued the official for her legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act. A video captured the hecklers shouting, “What would Mister Rogers think about you and your legacy in Florida, taking away health insurance from people with preexisting conditions? Pam Bondi, shame on you!”
The true appetite is for a role model who can demonstrate how to put in practice fundamental aspects of human dignity.
The irony of the diatribe was apparently lost on the protesters. But Tom Junod, the journalist whom Rogers accepted as a dear friend, thinks he has an answer to their query: “What he would have thought of Pam Bondi’s politics is one thing; what he would have thought of Pam Bondi is quite another,” Junod writes in The Atlantic. “She is special; there has never been anyone exactly like her, and there never will be anyone exactly like her ever again; God loves her exactly as she is.”
Junod continues, “It isn’t that (Rogers) is revered but not followed so much as he is revered because he is not followed — because remembering him as a nice man is easier than thinking of him as a demanding one.”
A quest for civility demands something of all of us. This Thanksgiving week, if a week is all you can muster, reflect on the authentic goodness of a man in a cardigan and consider how you can view neighbors in a better light. Contemplate your obligation to speak in meekness and forgive another. It won’t make the headlines, but deep down, it’s what we’re craving.