The Good Neighbor:  The Life And Work Of Fred Rogers, by Maxwell King

I have to admit that this book made me like Mister Rogers and his show a lot less.  That was probably not the intention of this particular award-winning book, as the author tries very hard to show Fred Rogers at the forefront of progressive views of children’s television and trends in the pop psychology of the mid 20th century.  But seeing Fred Rogers’ work as a trojan horse for cultural decadence as well as being a therapist in the guise of a mild-mannered children’s host put into the context of this book made it appear far more insidious and harmful than the author likely intended.  The fact that Fred Rogers has been used even posthumously to defend the subsidization of public television adds some unpleasant political and cultural angles to this particular work as well.  Even the author’s attempts at mobilizing Fred Rogers as a hero to the LGBTQ+ community come off as unpleasant and gross, and make this book an artifact of the contemporary culture wars in which the author and I are clearly on opposite sides.  The fact that the author likely considers his book to be mild-mannered and moderate may account for some of his tone-deafness here and the way that his framing of Rogers and his work makes it far less likable than the man himself likely was.

This book is over 350 pages and is divided into five parts.  The author begins with a prologue and then spends four chapters looking at the childhood and teenage years and college experience of Rogers as a privileged and coddled rich kid with philanthropic parents in Latrobe, Pennsylvania (I).  After that the author turns to Fred Rogers, after having gotten married, developing his craft first as a production assistant in NYC, as the co-host of a local Pittsburgh children’s show called The Children’s Corner, and on the CBC in Toronto (II) in five chapters.  The third part of the book contains five chapters on how Rogers developed Mister Roger’s Neighborhood and quickly became an important figure in the growth of PBS and its preservation from fiscal austerity (III), as well as the psychological research that underpinned his overly permissive approach to children.  Seven chapters then look at his hiatus and the attempt to appeal to adult audiences, the return to public television, his musical interests on the show, as well as his family and personal life (IV).  Finally, the book ends with four chapters that look at the legacy and continuing importance of Fred Rogers as a figure of peace in an age of cultural conflict, conflict that this book participates in without self-awareness (V), after which there is an epilogue where the author self-inserts into his story, acknowledgements, notes, and an index.

Ultimately, Fred Rogers does not come off as a good neighbor.  He hid his deeply harmful progressive ideas beneath a surface appearance of calm friendliness, and made sure that his show served as a fitting vehicle for socially destructive ideas about children that led to much of the coddling that is so problematic in contemporary young adults.  His betrayal of his faith in the pursuit of progressive cultural ideals led him to become the spokesperson for the sort of bland tolerance that people assume for the mainstream left that helped to lead to the contemporary decadence when it comes to godly morality.  No, he was not a good neighbor, instead serving as the sort of progressive wealthy people whose business practices can be a bit shady even as they use their wealth in pursuit of societal and moral decline as is the case with so many tech billionaires as well.  The author may not realize that this book is actively harmful to the memory of Fred Rogers, but that is likely because he is trying to hard to paint Rogers as a progressive that he does not appear to recognize that being a progressive and being a good neighbor are directly antithetical in nature.