Human Decency - Mr. Rogers - Senate Subcommittee (1969)

Still relevant today...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKy7ljRr0AA
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fredrogerssenatetestimonypbs.htm


Senator Pastore: Alright Rogers, you've got the floor.
Mr. Rogers: Senator Pastore, this is a philosophical statement and would take about ten minutes to read, so I'll not do that. One of the first things that a child learns in a healthy family is trust, and I trust what you have said that you will read this. It's very important to me. I care deeply about children.
Senator Pastore: Will it make you happy if you read it?
Mr. Rogers: I'd just like to talk about it, if it's alright. My first children's program was on WQED fifteen years ago, and its budget was $30. Now, with the help of the Sears-Roebuck Foundation and National Educational Television, as well as all of the affiliated stations -- each station pays to show our program. It's a unique kind of funding in educational television. With this help, now our program has a budget of $6000. It may sound like quite a difference, but $6000 pays for less than two minutes of cartoons. Two minutes of animated, what I sometimes say, bombardment. I'm very much concerned, as I know you are, about what's being delivered to our children in this country. And I've worked in the field of child development for six years now, trying to understand the inner needs of children. We deal with such things as -- as the inner drama of childhood. We don't have to bop somebody over the head to...make drama on the screen. We deal with such things as getting a haircut, or the feelings about brothers and sisters, and the kind of anger that arises in simple family situations. And we speak to it constructively.
Senator Pastore: How long of a program is it?
Mr. Rogers: It's a half hour every day. Most channels schedule it in the noontime as well as in the evening. WETA here has scheduled it in the late afternoon.
Senator Pastore: Could we get a copy of this so that we can see it? Maybe not today, but I'd like to see the program.
Mr. Rogers: I'd like very much for you to see it.
Senator Pastore: I'd like to see the program itself, or any one of them.
Mr. Rogers: We made a hundred programs for EEN, the Eastern Educational Network, and then when the money ran out, people in Boston and Pittsburgh and Chicago all came to the fore and said we've got to have more of this neighborhood expression of care. And this is what -- This is what I give. I give an expression of care every day to each child, to help him realize that he is unique. I end the program by saying, "You've made this day a special day, by just your being you. There's no person in the whole world like you, and I like you, just the way you are." And I feel that if we in public television can only make it clear that feelings are mentionable and manageable, we will have done a great service for mental health. I think that it's much more dramatic that two men could be working out their feelings of anger -- much more dramatic than showing something of gunfire. I'm constantly concerned about what our children are seeing, and for 15 years I have tried in this country and Canada, to present what I feel is a meaningful expression of care.
Senator Pastore: Do you narrate it?
Mr. Rogers: I'm the host, yes. And I do all the puppets and I write all the music, and I write all the scripts --
Senator Pastore: Well, I'm supposed to be a pretty tough guy, and this is the first time I've had goose bumps for the last two days.
Mr. Rogers: Well, I'm grateful, not only for your goose bumps, but for your interest in -- in our kind of communication. Could I tell you the words of one of the songs, which I feel is very important?
Senator Pastore: Yes.
Mr. Rogers: This has to do with that good feeling of control which I feel that children need to know is there. And it starts out, "What do you do with the mad that you feel?" And that first line came straight from a child. I work with children doing puppets in -- in very personal communication with small groups:

What do you do with the mad that you feel? When you feel so mad you could bite. When the whole wide world seems oh so wrong, and nothing you do seems very right. What do you do? Do you punch a bag? Do you pound some clay or some dough? Do you round up friends for a game of tag or see how fast you go? It's great to be able to stop when you've planned the thing that's wrong. And be able to do something else instead -- and think this song --

'I can stop when I want to. Can stop when I wish. Can stop, stop, stop anytime....And what a good feeling to feel like this! And know that the feeling is really mine. Know that there's something deep inside that helps us become what we can. For a girl can be someday a lady, and a boy can be someday a man.'

Senator Pastore: I think it's wonderful. I think it's wonderful. Looks like you just earned the 20 million dollars.

Can "I" be someone else? (thought experiment)

A thought experiment... is it possible that the perception of "I" in a person can be warped to be someone else in such a way that I believe that I am the other person. And, if I were to suddenly be aware of my actual senses, it was seem unbelievable or even as if it was someone else. I imagine it would almost seem like an out-of-body experience.

Part of this thought experiment is to determine if our belief in what is true primarily due to the weight of certain information. We have our perception of "I" because of all the senses that we have with us all the time. It clearly overrides any other information as true by this hypothesis.

Thus this is how we deem what is true and false, even though we do not really know what is true or what is false. Our brain is like a natural scientific experiment. We believe in the patterns that we can perceive and understand.

This is why it is harder to gain trust than to lose it. It takes information and (in our current mode of information input) time to confirm that the pattern of information from a certain source is trust worthy. The trust of that information is compounded by the source. Thus as the source becomes more trusted, the more trusted the information is (whether that information is true or not). Thus it is possible that a false information can be trusted merely by the trust coefficient of the source. On the other hand, once the trust of the source is broken, all information will lose all the trust bonus. This does not mean the information is false but rather it requires other values like repetition of information from multiple sources or repetition of experiments (science).

Meta-hack

So my experiment is to wonder if I am able to block all sensory information from a person. The person would be "bound" or perhaps in weight-less environment like space. Then have a monitor or even a VR headset that displays another life like a TV show from a single point of view. Would all that new sensory change the person's idea of self?

Interestingly after this thought, I was watching the TV show Person Of Interest (POI) where Samaritan was attempting to brainwash her. Although fictional, it is kind of in-line to the experiment except from the very beginning.

Possible Repercussions

I wonder if this could potentially explain brainwashing. By overriding the sensory input with overwhelming information, a threshold could be met to essentially override existing beliefs. Another trust coefficient is probably introduced for survival purposes. Basically, the weight of trust level is increased by the urgency for surviving. This could also explain Stockholm syndrome.

On a lesser level, this could also explain religion. On the same level, a similar argument could also made about science.

Then on the white-lie level, repeating a lie could even convince ourselves of something not only of little basis but something even knowingly false.

Perhaps this is why I always have some sort of self-doubt.

Background

Just to reiterate, this is just a though-experiment as it is impossible (at least morally/ethically) to actually do. Second, I have little knowledge about brainwashing, illnesses, etc., except what is known through pop-culture.