One of the extraordinary things about “Freddish”* is that it manages to be respectful and compassionate and empathetic toward the person being addressed while not for a moment abdicating the responsibilities of leadership and expertise. Fred Rogers listened to children as much as he spoke to them, an amazing feat considering he was a TV personality.
Contrast with the current norm of leaders (and not just politicians), where a position of authority is signified by a performative lack of listening – sometimes under the cover of pretending to listen.
[* beyond it being a great guideline for writing in general]
It’s a good question for native speakers as well. Rogers was probably using “value judgment” here as a synonymous term for “moral judgment”. For a child, “important” is a less vague and more substantive term than “good”. This isn’t to say that Rogers rejected morality (he was an ordained minister), just that he understood that wrestling with it directly is not something that young children are good at.
I think the idea was to get away from the implication that it is “bad” if you didn’t listen or you are bad for not listening. I’m no expert on children but I think the idea is to keep from encouraging a situation where something happens that isn’t ideal but the kid doesn’t ask for help because they’re preoccupied with the fear of “being bad” or “getting in trouble” even if they’re already in more trouble then they’d be in with the guardian.
“President Trump, I wonder if your voting population could inform you of other useful ways of doing the things you do - I’m sure that you’ll feel o.k. even if they say difficult things to you. You’re strong too. Stepping down before impeachment is a safe place to stay for a while.”
But sometimes I think that people like Roger Ailes grokked Noam Chomsky, Marshall McLuhan, and even Mr. Rogers on a “how too” level instead of a “watch out for this” level. Now the rest of us are just playing catch up.
This thought resonated with me. I considered it a while and decided to return and post. No, I don’t think it would work for Ailes, Gingrich, et al. They certainty understood the power of the medium, but the coding of the messages were intended to create shock and invoke a primal or visceral response. The encoded message was pure FUD. The messaging violates (2) (Rephrase in a positive manner) as their messages were always negatively encoded - “Obama is ruining American values!” Their messaging violates (4) in the messages are purely prescriptive, directive, or instructive - fear AOC, only vote GOP, etc. And perhaps most importantly the never made a call for (9) by demonstrating developmental stages as they require blind loyalists who entrust thinking to the “leader” rather than attempting to build a thinking populace – "smart people believe ".
Right, like the kid whose dad thought it was a kick to call the cops on an innocent black man. It is important that he listen to what his dad is saying, but he’s not bad for rejecting it.
Abusers play on that guilt about good and bad. “Be a good girl and tell grandma you fell on the sidewalk.” “Good little boys don’t tattle.”
You note he’s saying it’s important to listen versus it’s good to do what you are told.
I think that’s kina the idea of “giraffe language”. I don’t know much about it though. It’s supposed to be about learning to avoid language patterns that implicitly control, threaten, marginalise and so on (like “you never take out the trash” instead of “sometimes I wish you had taken out the trash”).
I imagine this kind of mindfulness about language could be helpful for people who want to work together better, but it can’t help with those who intend to control and threaten and marginalise. I mean, the Sermon on the Mount is supposed to be the foundation of Christianity, but not one of its admirable sentiments is much help to the person being disemboweled by a crusader.
If your mother happened to leave when you were little, you really notice the lack of this awareness in the more cynical type of children’s fare. “Having a mom who loves you is what makes you special!!” Hmm thanks for that, I’m three, so I guess it is time I learned I’m garbage.
If I had seen Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood regulary back then, it might well have made me less of a twisted Caliban figure. If your IRL parenting hookup is less than perfect –and there will always be one or two kids in that situation – it can mean a lot that you can still get this kind of emotional message from somewhere even if it’s just a TV show.
Anyone interested in putting this kind of care into their everyday speech, would do well to check out Nonviolent communication by Marshal Rosenberg. It is definitely " part of this important breakfast" for a lot of people trying to make the world a less miserable place.
Just came back from a city council meeting tonight in which “listening” (by the mayor and councilmembers) did not appear to be getting our community members and speakers much real traction.
My best attempt at Freddish for my two minutes of allowed speaking time was to thank the one city staffer–a code enforcement and construction inspector responsible for the city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction of >50,000 people (the city itself has a population of <4000)–for doing his job, above and beyond. A real standout compared with the rest of the city Powers That Be.
I am half-certain that, by publicly praising this guy, I pretty much destroyed his chances of getting any promotion or additional pay, and I feel slightly bad about that. He stands out.
It’s going to take a lot of training to Freddish my approach in these meetings. Vast sections of my brain will need recoding.
I get it that part of the success of Freddish relies on tone and delivery. There’s a phrase going around Austin: “authentic vulnerability” and I’ve heard “courage and vulnerability.”
It is just as you say.
Geez I have so much to work on, personally.
Q: Well, what do you normally have at home?
A: Hot cranberry juice. I don’t drink coffee or tea. I just warm up the juice in the microwave. And granola with banana on top and skim milk. That’s breakfast. Lunch is yogurt and cheese or wheat crackers.
Damn.
No coffee or tea?
No one told me that Fred Rogers was like superhuman or something!
I bet he didn’t eat chipotles straight from the can either…
Not necessarily. I’ve spoken about this at length with one of his personal friends, who is very similar in temperament to his mentor (Fred). I couldn’t understand why my friends liked the show when I was growing up, because I couldn’t believe his way of interacting in the world was real. It felt fake to me, and even though it was a treat to be able to watch TV when I was at someone else’s home, I just didn’t trust that an adult could be like that so I wouldn’t watch. It actually made me uncomfortable. I wish I could have met him and told him that, because I’ll bet he would have responded by figuring out how to reach the most abused and unsupported children too.
I always try to think of Fred Rogers and my friend Leta when I am tempted to equate “Christian” and “Bigoted Blowhard.” Perhaps that is why the bigoted blowhards that cloak themselves in Christianity are often not big fans of his.
This. My toddler can listen well and retain information, but without a fully developed frontal lobe he hacks the executive function to think before he acts I’d say… 66% of the time. That might be too generous. =)
After he makes a mistake, though, he WILL recall whatever instruction or request he’s violated. If I tell him it’s important to do something it’s less of a mind fuck when he fails, compared to thinking he is a Bad Person based on the instructions provided.
Yeah, that probably has more deep baggage to unpack than most of us native speakers are capable of. The connotation of “good” is basically a sort of empty positive assessment. It doesn’t tell you anything about why it just assigns positive value. “Important” implies that there will be some kind of negative consequence for not doing it. Or maybe “good” is more about moral while “important” is more focused on the practical.
When I say, “It’s good to brush your teeth” the implication is that you are good if you do it, and you are bad if you don’t do it. If I say, “It’s important to brush your teeth” then the implication is that if you don’t do it something bad will happen.
I think the thing about the word “good” (“great”, “excellent”, and many others work the same) is that we use it for everything. It simultaneously means something is moral and valuable and useful and any other positive thing you can think of. You can use it without providing any context at all. I could say someone is a good basketball player. I can’t say they are an important basketball player without providing some kind of context (e.g. Kawaii Rice was important to Toronto’s championship win).
That was a sad read, and it made me realize how sad my own relationship with Mr. Rogers was (is). TV was just escapism. I liked to watch He Man because I liked the fantasy of a world with monsters and heroes and panther riding. I liked to watch Mr. Rogers because I liked the fantasy of a world where people were kind and caring and thoughtful. I never mistook it for reality or thought it was meant to reach me in a deep way.
