The children’s television host, Fred Rogers (“Mr. Rogers”) captivated young children and families as a television-teacher for decades. His famous children’s song, “It’s You I Like” (1971), offers in its simple lyrics a clear and practical approach for educators in developing a ‘cultivated temperament.’ Below, I compare the song with the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber’s philosophy of dialogue as a resolution of human estrangement from the Other (the whole separate person), and in this, realizing spiritual life. Rogers affirms full humanity without denying personality. Both thinkers navigate the practice of ‘cultivating’ within oneself the temperament, compassionate reflection, and bridging what may be resolved in human alienation. 

“It’s You I Like. It’s not the things you wear, It’s not the way you do your hair.” One may ask, what then is “you”? What do we mean by “you” when not attributed to what we ‘are,’ ‘do,’ and ‘have’? The hair I wear makes me feel good and the toys allow me to shape the world. Rogers’s “you” may function like Buber’s “Thou.” Buber understands a propensity to make relations driven by object-language ‘I-It’ over ‘I-Thou,’ objectified and not an Other. Similarly, Rogers’s simplicity of language, like the arts, bridges verbal gaps through vulnerability and emotion. Our language is a mental object, an “It” that takes shape in the world; like a child building with blocks shapes what a ‘house’ means. Rogers seeks the ‘you’ as something within language rather than of it. Rogers asks us to ‘believe’ in recognizing something fundamental like the Thou, a soul.

“The eternal Thou can by its nature not become It; for by its nature it cannot be established in measure and bounds…,” writes Buber. If science and deep reflection reveals ‘you,’ as a composite of senses and stimuli, does this diminish or illuminate the “I” which is the vehicle of experiencing? Breaking down our parts into details may reflect the nature of our mind, which interprets the world as concepts. Rogers’s ‘you’ is the recognition of our fullness without concepts – Thou.

Because dialogue is relational, Rogers’s song portrays not a static condition but an ongoing process: “even when you’re feeling blue …it’s you I like.” Here is a practice of compassionate reflection. The acknowledgement of varied emotions demonstrates the vulnerability necessary to appreciate collective, shared humanity. In relation to Others we also relate to the conflicts in the world, but for Buber, this is precisely the spiritual confrontation we must naturally go through. “[Man’s twofold attitude is] in accordance with the twofold nature of the primary words which he speaks.” It is precisely in our continuous relations, for Buber, that God is found: “Meeting with God does not come to man in order that he may concern himself with God, but in order that he may confirm that there is meaning in the world.” For Buber, God is not a principle or idea, but is ‘found’ as a Person: who “enters into a direct relation with us men in creative, revealing and redeeming acts, and thus makes it possible for us to enter into this direct relation with him.” Rogers’s intentional lyrics, “It’s you I like” makes this act realized. The meaning of classroom relationship is seeing and becoming the self in creativity.

“[It’s] Not the things that hide you, Not your toys, They’re just beside you.” Here, Rogers separates our material and expressive identity in the world. If we say that ‘I am like that,’ we are claiming that ego quality. The ‘toys’ we have form our lifestyles and the communities that affirm us. Sometimes we become bothered with those who have been affirmed differently. How do we come into dialogue with these Others? With young people navigating sexual or racial identity and expression, going through a strong Evangelical phase, the teacher wrestling with their own emotions, or with those whose relationship to ‘toys’ (disciplines, practices, hobbies) shape the meaning of the world differently? Both thinkers affirm the Thou in various ways through the power of dialogue. “[I]t’s you I like… The way you are right now, the way down deep inside you.” Rogers exercises a deep patience with his own mind when approaching the Other. In responding to frustrated students or behavior that creates discord, developing reflection over impulse is that ‘cultivated temperament,’ which is then modeled for youth.  

In the final line, Rogers sings: “It’s you yourself; It’s you. It’s you I like… Your skin, your eyes, your feelings. Whether old or new.” While we necessarily see the I-It, surface level of experience, when practiced, ‘cultivated temperament’ becomes more naturally reflective of I-Thou. “You yourself” is both essence and expression; one is not distinct from the other. Yet, this most challenging of practices is the simplest concept which Rogers conveys through a television camera. This acceptance and recognition in ourselves and the Other of vulnerability, temporal frailty, desire for mastery and expression, independence, intimacy, and loving attachment. The simplicity of Mr. Rogers is a case study in compassion: both our challenge and evolutionary advantage. 

Chenjeri lives in Klamath Falls