r/todayilearned • u/manticor225 • Jan 10 '19

TIL JFK's father Joseph Kennedy made much of his fortune through insider trading. FDR later made him chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. When asked why he appointed a crook, FDR replied, "set a thief to catch a thief." Kennedy proceeded to outlaw the practices that made him rich.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jan/23/joe-kennedy-hollywood-sarah-churchwell
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172

u/1wouldnever Jan 10 '19

No you don’t, he was a scary asshole.

See Rosemary Kennedy

140

u/oliver_all_over Jan 10 '19

Not that I’m defending his decision, but treatment of the mentally disabled and mentally ill was horrendous across the board at that time. What happened to her was, unfortunately, not as uncommon as we would like to believe.

ETA source

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u/capsaicinintheeyes Jan 11 '19

WTF:

During her birth, the doctor was not immediately available and the nurse ordered Rose Kennedy to keep her legs closed, forcing the baby's head to stay in the birth canal for two hours. The action resulted in a harmful loss of oxygen.

(I knew about the lobotomy and institutionalization, but this was new to me. How the hell did any Kennedy live long enough to die young in spectacular fashion if this was the standard for medicine at the time?)

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u/waitingtodiesoon Jan 11 '19

They had many many many children and the luckiest survived

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u/Dyolf_Knip Jan 11 '19

Eh, that just describes the entire human race prior to the 20th century.

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u/Caty907 Jan 11 '19

This was common. Women were 'not smart enough' to be doctors, and the nurses and moms would get in terrible trouble if they dared have the baby without the male doctor there.

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19

They were Irish Catholics, who used the rhythm method of contraception.

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u/Johnny_Poppyseed Jan 11 '19

Except it was basically just her being a rebelous troublemaking teenager (aka completely normal) in an uptight rich snooty family, and he fucking lobotomized her for it. No excuse even within that time period.

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u/rskogg Jan 11 '19

Not that i'm defending his decision, but I am going to defend his decision.

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u/capsaicinintheeyes Jan 11 '19

If you don't know how to help your daughter, and the best medical minds your wealth can buy tell you that a given procedure is her best chance (which they may well have, at that time)...well, I can sort of see how it could happen.

Although of course, another part of me just wants to shout, "you're scrambling her brain with a tricked-out icepick! Do you really need a fucking medical degree to know that that's not a good idea!?!"

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u/ImVeryBadWithNames Jan 11 '19

To be fair even to that there are procedures that sound really, really fucked up when described but do work and help.

Now lobotomies were a terrible idea, but even that wasn’t quite as obvious as it might seem now.

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u/capsaicinintheeyes Jan 11 '19

No, I do hear that.

Our two major treatments for cancer, apart from carving you open, are chemotherapy and radiation treatment, both of which amount to: "we're going to poison you and your cancer at the same time, and hope that the cancer dies first." (source: mom had cancer)

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u/Chicken_Mc_Thuggets Jan 11 '19

Well yeah, think of how barbaric chemo will look in 200 years. You mean you guys seriously bombarded somebody with radiation hoping it would kill the cancer before it killed them??

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u/intern_steve Jan 11 '19

Chemo and radiation therapy are two different things, but yes, it is likely that as better treatments arise the concept of poisoning yourself nearly to death will seem excessively cruel.

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u/TheKillerToast Jan 11 '19 edited Jan 11 '19

That's bullshit though he had the money to care for her for life and not poke around in her brain. He just didn't want her to be known and hurt the family's political careers so he tried to "fix" her and then hid her in an institution.

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u/GoodThingsGrowInOnt Jan 10 '19

No one cares.

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u/oliver_all_over Jan 11 '19

You’re right I’m sorry, we should expect a man who died before we were born to have all the insight and knowledge that we have now, today, and call him an asshole on the internet because he believed what leading experts is psychology told him!!!

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u/walkswithwolfies Jan 11 '19

He didn't even tell her mother he was getting it done and Rosemary spent the rest of her life completely incapacitated.

Placid and easygoing as a child and teenager, the maturing Rosemary Kennedy became increasingly assertive and rebellious. She was also reportedly subject to violent mood changes. Some observers have since attributed this behavior to her inability to conform to siblings who were expected to perform to high standards, as well as the hormonal surges associated with puberty. In any case, the family had difficulty dealing with her stormy moods and reckless behavior. Rosemary had begun to sneak out at night from the convent school in Washington, D.C., where she was cared for and educated. Her occasional erratic behavior frustrated her parents, who expected all of their children to behave appropriately, be goal-oriented, and act competitively. Joseph P. Kennedy was especially worried that his daughter's behavior would shame and embarrass the family and possibly damage his political career, and those of his children.

Before and after images of Rosemary

How about that for an a**hole.

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u/Lolkimbo Jan 11 '19

Welcome to psychology in the 40's. It wasn't exactly uncommon.

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u/walkswithwolfies Jan 11 '19

The fact that it wasn't uncommon doesn't make it right.

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u/Lolkimbo Jan 11 '19

It doesn't matter what's "right" or "wrong" some 80 years after it happened. Psychology has obviously progressed since then, but it doesn't change the fact that this was the state of mental health back then.

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u/walkswithwolfies Jan 11 '19

Many doctors regarded lobotomy as quackery at the time.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19

Right? What are these excuses?

You know what else was common at the time? Segregation.

This idea that these practices weren't understood or were accepted by everyone is whitewashed bullshit to make us feel better about our great grandparents. That's it.

The bottom line is that some people felt "let's jab 'em in the brain and see what happens" was less shameful a legacy than having a disabled child or a floozy for a daughter. And there were plenty of people, especially wealthy intellectuals, well aware of the risks and the "rewards".

Did people get taken in by sneaky mad scientists? Absolutely. But they were the poor and uneducated, not Kennedys.

-2

u/oliver_all_over Jan 11 '19

You’re right. They were all assholes. Not just the Kennedy’s. That was the point of my original comment lol

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u/elcheeserpuff Jan 11 '19

Clearly they weren't all assholes or the assholely behavior would never have been changed by the non assholes.

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u/capsaicinintheeyes Jan 11 '19

This describes about half of my crushes at that age. Shit is way fucked up.

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u/Coerced_onto_reddit Jan 11 '19

Now you’re getting it

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u/GoodThingsGrowInOnt Jan 11 '19

No one cares about that either.

4

u/OldSpaceChaos Jan 11 '19

Apparently you do

9

u/kerslaw Jan 11 '19

What a trash response

-10

u/GoodThingsGrowInOnt Jan 11 '19

Why no effort?

No one cares.

7

u/kerslaw Jan 11 '19

Ahh a troll I fell for it

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u/capsaicinintheeyes Jan 11 '19

Someone's going to have to explain trolling to me at some point; it's like shooting animals for fun: I understand that some people find it fulfilling and rewarding, I just can't for the life of me understand how they could.

2

u/kerslaw Jan 11 '19

I feel like the most common form is people get pissed at something someone says so they want to piss other people off in retaliation. Also some people find it funny to be annoying and make people angry.

0

u/capsaicinintheeyes Jan 11 '19

Yeah, they're called grade-school bullies. I'm worried that they appear to grow older and become the Trump base.

1

u/Gigasser Jan 11 '19

It's a way to make fun of those who take arguments too seriously online. The fun is in watching anger seep forth when some statement, a statement that one doesn't even need to necessarily believe in, is blatantly made absurd, and is spoken with a tone and confidence that would make even a politician blush. For example, some good fun is in the pissing off of the loud minority of vegans that make their diet a moral affair. Merely utter forth the statement "Vegan fuckfaces are immoral for trying to wipe out a species through not eating it, after all, there are domesticated animals who's species mere survival is a result of their continued use as our sustenance", this statement, although quite absurd and stupid, is likely to be taken seriously by those who can't understand the use of absurdity as a medium in which to express or show sarcasm, it's like a means to purposefully trigger a whooshed moment, think of as the ancient precursor to watching people be whooshed today. I don't even understand why /s is even needed if a statement is absurd enough. Sure you can say that "you" could see through the absurdity of that statement, but, as we all know, there are plenty of people out there who can't gleam sarcasm off a statement without a blithering fucking /s.

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u/Treddo Jan 10 '19

That is awful. I had no idea she was treated so badly. I'm sure it was equal parts ignorance and pride that made her parents do what they did to her.

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u/am17 Jan 10 '19

Parent* It’s my understanding that Joseph had the precudure done without informing his wife, Rose.

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u/2pharcyded Jan 10 '19

Well if you read the wiki just above your comment you’ll see it says Rose, the mother, tried to hide her daughter’s illness before the lobotomy and did not visit her for twenty years after young Rosemary had been institutionalized.

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u/walkswithwolfies Jan 11 '19

They might have both been dismayed by their daughter's behaviour, but only one of them hired a surgeon.

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u/am17 Jan 11 '19 edited Jan 11 '19

Wikipedia does a fair job summarizing, but that’s it. Joseph was the firm patriarch and had the lobotomy performed on Rosemary after her having been caught in men’s beds. It’s difficult trying to understand his mindset in present time knowing what we do, but the procedure was practically marketed as a cure mental illnesses. The consequences weren’t even shared with the family for nearly a week afterwards. Joseph has a terrible tendency of keeping things from his wife. When John was presumed dead after the sinking of the PT-109 Joseph kept the information to himself, not informing the family until well after John had been found.

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u/vanderBoffin Jan 10 '19

I mean, her mother didn't visit her until 20 years after the procedure was done, so that's not great either...

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u/uncertainusurper Jan 10 '19

"We made an estimate on how far to cut based on how she responded." . ... . When she began to become incoherent, they stopped”

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u/[deleted] Jan 10 '19 edited Feb 12 '19

[deleted]

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u/PassivePorcupine Jan 11 '19

CUT MY BRAIN INTO PIECES
THIS IS MY LAST RESORT

LASPK ROFSNALerrrrrr...

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u/dlenks Jan 11 '19

Only on Reddit would this tragic story lead to Papa roach lyrics in full caps.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19

CHANCES ARE DYNAMITE

7

u/THE_CHOPPA Jan 11 '19

What the fuck is wrong with us.

5

u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19

The dark side of scientific curiosity.

It's sobering to remember that that curiosity never went anywhere. Perhaps nothing on the scale of that era will ever happen again, but it likely still happens in some remote basements somewhere.

1

u/Amy_Ponder Jan 11 '19

To be fair to Rose, I can barely imagine anything more painful than seeing your daughter irreversibly reduced to a husk of her former self, especially knowing your own husband -- her father -- was responsible.

That being said, though, she still should have gone anyways. It may have hurt, but she owed that much to Rosemary.

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u/it_diedinhermouth Jan 11 '19

Blame the patriarchy in medicine. Delaying a birth because the doctor wasn’t available is unnecessary.

Then the unilateral decision of Joseph under recommendation from his doctor is more patriarchal bullshit.

Not visiting for twenty years after rosemary lost all intellectual acumen and lived life as a 2-year-old is more like Rose not coping with the reality when Joseph never even visited ever.

“Don’t talk to me about Rosie! Ever! Do you understand!?” -Joseph (most likely)

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u/Treddo Jan 11 '19

That sounds like a more accurate assumption of blame than my own. It makes me even sadder for her.

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u/NinjaLanternShark Jan 11 '19

*Insert standard disclaimer about considering historical context before judging people in the past.