We're All Mad Here

Vivienne Haigh-Wood and Tom Eliot met in England when Eliot was studying at Oxford. Just three months after meeting, the two married, and so began one of the most tempestuous marriages in history. Vivienne is described in one of two lights:  the femme fatale who led Tom down a depressive path, and the muse without whom Eliot’ s career would not exist. It may have been a little bit of both.

Way back when, if a relative was annoying you, you could just toss them into an asylum, no diagnosis needed- especially if they were women. Dullness of the mind; overexcitement. Menstruation; menopause. Religious fanaticism; atheism. Suppressed masturbation; too much masturbation… it was almost impossible NOT to be insane. And things didn’t get much better as the years went on. Until the 1990s in many cities, there were laws on the books entitled “Ugly Laws,” which forbade anyone who was deformed, mentally ill, or otherwise unsightly to be in public. Bottom line: keep your head down and don’t annoy your dad!

“It’s so great that President Smith is finally bombing that country!”

“But when President Johnson did the same thing, you thought it was a terrible idea.”

“Well, this is different.”

Why do humans constantly revert to what-aboutism, where, no matter their views on a subject, if someone or something they like is part of it, they say that THAT particular person is okay doing it? Why do we run away when evidence is shown to us regarding a strongly-held belief? Shouldn’t we be happy to have more information? Listen with an open mind this week as Rachel talks about bias and polarization in regards to more recent events.

The Kennedy family is internationally famous for their high-achieving, beautiful, and influential members. But America took a stand to help the intellectually disabled because of the daughter they hid away: Rosemary. While surpassing her siblings in beauty and personality, Rosemary was born intellectually disabled and soon lagged behind her fast-moving family. Her parents believed that if they held Rosemary to the same standards as her siblings, she would overcome her disability- and therefore, she never truly got the help or education she needed.

SOURCES:

ROSEMARY: THE HIDDEN KENNEDY DAUGHTER, Kate Clifford Larson, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2015.

Disability discrimination in the Bible

Eunice Kennedy Shriver

JFK Library website

Humans have been trying to break into their skulls since there were humans and skulls, and we were still at it in the 1930s. After studying under an Italian doctor, Dr Walter Freeman returned to the States to perfect what he had learned overseas: the lobotomy. Armed with an ice pick and a hammer, Freeman traveled across America in his “lobotomobile”, claiming his procedure cured everything from schizophrenia to headaches. But often his patients could no long live independently or lost the ability to speak or walk. Also discussed are the stories of Howard Dully, 12 year-old lobotomy patient, and Henry Molcuson.

CORRECTION: It seems the term “lobotomobile” was never used by Freeman; a biographer coined the phrase in the 1980s.

What is a lobotomy?

History of lobotomies

Howard Dully on NPR

Losing Their Minds (article)

Trepanning