From “We Become What We Normalize: What We Owe Each Other in Worlds That Demand Our Silence” by David Dark
I borrow this phrase – neighborhood expression of care – from video footage of what I take to be an exemplary instance of soft exorcism, a model for the kind of exchange that, though hardly ever publicized, probably overcomes estrangement, de-escalating tensions, thousands of times a day. It’s the testimony of that beautiful adult Fred Rogers, given before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications chaired by Senator John Pastore. In the video, Rogers offers a philosophical argument for the funding of public television and his own labor of love, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, which Pastore – this is 1969 – knows nothing about.
Slowly and steadily and while maintaining constant eye contact, Rogers asks permission to go off script. He speaks of trust, his own deep confidence that the senator, like others in the room, shares his concerns for the emotional lives of American children, and the inner drama of the child. He then wonders if the senator might agree with him as he almost reluctantly characterizes much of the popular children’s television programming as a form of “bombardment.” He wonders: Why not do it differently? Is a slower and more imaginative engagement that prioritizes a child’s needs worthy of public funding? Will it promote the general welfare?
From there, he describes his own lifelong effort to speak to human anxiety constructively. For Rogers, it involves puppets, music, and listening closely to children, his neighborhood expression of care. His bottom line? To “make it clear that feelings are mentionable and manageable,” and to cultivate, with and for the neighbors that are his viewers, the good feeling of self-control available to each of us whenever we’re confronted with perceived conflict, whenever we’re rattle, whenever we’re afraid we might lose it. Needless to say, Rogers practices his bottom line right then and there with every grown child present.
And just as the goose-bumps level, by Senator Pastore’s own testimony, looks to have maxed out, Rogers asks if he might recite a song whose title is the question of the hour (maybe every hour): “What Do You Do with the Mad That You Feel?” It’s as if he’s treated everyone present to a psychic blast of blessedness. Rogers pauses to note that the question was purloined from a child struggling with this very issue aloud.