Writes Michelle Goldberg, in "After a Scholar’s Awful Death, Mistaken Calls for Censorship" (NYT gift link).
"Many of the people who didn’t bother questioning Arday’s back story should have known better; today their oversight looks less like respect than condescension, as if no one took him seriously enough to think hard about what he was saying. 'Arday was treated not as a scholar but as a mascot,' Jason Okundaye wrote in the left-leaning Guardian.... For people on the left, it’s sure easier to talk about the feral excesses of the right-wing press than the willful gullibility of certain elite progressives."
What she's politely calling "condescension" and "the willful gullibility of certain elite progressives" is racism. The way they treated him reflected a belief in his inferiority.
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79 comments:
Race hustlers gonna hustle.
Mirrors are so revealing.
The not-so-soft bigotry of progressive condescension.
I think many were expecting this distraction from Arday's fraud, by using the time-tested 'invert the story' technique. Anything to avoid confronting the monstrous story of how a hallowed institution destroyed its own credibility, reputation, and heritage by perpetuating this fraud long after they knew about it, out of sheer self-preservation.
It's a 'Wet streets cause rain' story, or an attempt at one. Nope: Get Woke, Go Broke.
“ For people on the left, it’s sure easier to talk about the feral excesses of the right-wing press than the willful gullibility of certain elite progressives."
See: Anthony Fauci preaching to the gullible left, willfully gullible at that. I’ve heard history doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes.
My favorite example: Arday running 30 marathons in 35 days.
What she's politely calling "condescension" and "the willful gullibility of certain elite progressives" is racism.
I agree 100%. Identity politics is a hellhole where you are pigeon-holed at birth. And if anybody complains or speaks out, they are punished. Vile and racist and Marxist.
My favorite example: Arday running 30 marathons in 35 days.
9 on a broken leg!
Diversity (i.e. class-disordered ideologies).
"'the willful gullibility of certain elite progressives' is racism."
"Personally, I suspect it was his eyes. In every picture of Arday that I’ve seen he wears an open, beatific expression. His gentle gaze seems to say 'I forgive you for your racism ... I know you can’t help it ... I know you regret it ... Here, take my hand ... it will all be okay.' He doesn’t actually have to say anything. He just has to look like that, radiating sincerity and acceptance, and that gaze hits that particular species of sexually frustrated middle-aged white woman who dominates every departmental hiring committee like a 2x4 right between their SSRIeyes. It stuns them into a sort of a jellied bliss. Arday possessed a kind of basilisk stare of friendliness. Contrast that with the usual run of professional black people, who affect a haughty, aggressive, Black Panthers sort of countenance, and you can see why AWFLs would flock to him like thirsty goats chasing the mirage of an oasis in the unsheltered noonday sunshine of the Sahara. Arday hypnotized his way into the faculty lounge the same way Rasputin stared his way into the Czar’s court."
The left cannot treat people the same. They see everything thu the lens of "racism" and think they are champions when they do it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNSNDhs4eik
Again - he built a world of lies - and the white left ladies built him a tall altar.
But it's all your fault for noticing.
Ixnay on the Arday. Too late. Damage control. Stat.
If you blame the people who expose wrongdoing instead of the people who commit wrongdoing, you need to carefully examine your values.
There are countless examples of Jason Arday syndrome on the left. Joe Biden as President is one prominent example. Kamala is another.
"Ixnay on the Arday. Too late. Damage control. Stat."
Oh believe it...*"they" are*.
He was human, like all the other incompetent people. The competent people are a product of - fill in the blank - privilege.
We all know this is the tip of the iceberg in the world run on credentials, and it's a shame for those who actually earned their credentials, but I think that may all be ruined now. How do you prove your credentials mean anything, and we all really depends on them being at least mostly true. Another problem A.I. may solve. One proven source that everybody knows is smarter than the average Joe.
People may not be interested in Gramscian Institutional Capture, but it was certainly interested in them. "Was". Past tense.
Arday running 30 marathons in 35 days ....
Unless some of the marathon were spanning midnight he could have done 30 in 30 days. Which don't have to be consecutive!!!
The Jason Arday story is what you get when you combine the soft bigotry of low expectations with the sartorial splendor of the Emperor's new clothes.
I suspect that we are going to see a similar story play out writ large as reality regarding the Trans issue reasserts itself.
@Vault Dweller, +1
"Joe Biden as President is one prominent example. Kamala is another."
Every time I think about this, I'm still surprised and disappointed. Joe had dementia, but before that he could spin a line of reasonable bullshit, even if it didn't hold up to scrutiny. Harris was a babbling idiot every single time. How do they let someone like that get that far- almost President, as far as you can go? It still amazes me that people could watch her and then say she was wonderful after just watching her make no sense at all. She was obviously less competent than even an average person. She still might be President someday, and millions would vote for her now - most of them AWFLs.
“ Important British progressives.”. In their mind.
Karma-la took a knee for progress.
"How do they let someone like that get that far- almost President, as far as you can go?"
By having a vagina. I'm deadly fucking serious.
Obama was skin color. AOC is the best of both worlds lol, she couldn't be more perfect unless she was trans.
Trans? Homo in drag, perhaps. A gender stereotype simulation with an empathetic disposition.
Jason Arday killed Jason Arday, perhaps with an assist from Winston Groom.
"What she's politely calling "condescension" and "the willful gullibility of certain elite progressives" is racism. The way they treated him reflected a belief in his inferiority."
It boggles my mind that this is not blindingly obvious to them.
Yes, Arday was a victim and a "burden". A selfie-abortion was his Choice.
Arday said all kinds of absurd things. Obvious lies and tall tales. And the Leftwing professors and College Admins - which is 90 percent of them - said zero.
Now that he's killed himself, they've done what they always do, they double down. They weren't to blame it was the Rightwing - again.
Some of Ardays lies are actually funny. Like running 600 miles in 30 days. Or 5 Marthons in 6 days. Or being a professional level snooker player without any practice. Or..
The professor - a white guy - who blew the whistle on his cheating and plagarism was ignorned and later stipped of his academic titles because he made "rude comments" about CRT.
Its only when a former Oxbridge type ran a computer computer program on his work and published the result that anything was done.
Oh I forgot he also said he finished one Marathon on a broken leg. And thats in addition to having cancer, and having to teach himself to read - twice.
Its really sad he killed himself, because he couldve had a career as a fiction writer.
I read a few people saying something like "Oh, it definitely was racist because there are all kinds of people like Arday in academia". Which I kind of agree with (at least the latter part); he was just nuttier than the average under-qualified DEI hire.
Bloc ideologies incorporated under Critical Diversity Theory umbrella. Wicked.
"What she's politely calling "condescension" and "the willful gullibility of certain elite progressives" is racism. The way they treated him reflected a belief in his inferiority."
And they were right. That’s the thing about reality: sometimes it bites.
"Important British progressives, including Zack Polanski, leader of the Green Party, and several Labour M.P.s, signed an open letter demanding some sort of official oversight of journalistic decision making. “Self-regulation of the press has comprehensively failed,” it said.
What is it about the brits? You got a guy called polanski heading up the Greens. And a Black Nigerian heading up the Conservatives. And those are the alternatives to Labour which hates the indigenous Brits. And all of them except Farage are OK with putting people in jail for "mean tweets".
The man had 2 children. Cowardly life. Cowardly death.
King Chuck will probably knight him.
Sam Brinton
Jason Arday did exactly what he was hired to do. He gave them exactly what they told him they wanted from him.
Did he believe his own bullshit? I doubt it, but he would have been crazy not to take the job.
It's a shame he killed himself. He could have just said, "Hey, they offered me a great job playing a role and I did my best. As to why they created that role, you'd have to ask my employer. They all certainly knew what they were doing. As for my future, I hope to make it Hollywood. I'm moving there."
And he probably would have been welcomed in Hollywood and made a star.
I have to admit that I got my start in academia doing the stats for a group of poorly qualified, grant-getting, (black) "social scientists". it tended to be a crap-shoot , random walk in search of r squared. much spinning of tapes. None of those guys got tenure though.
I know one can't get into the mind of another, but I do wonder at the suicide. Why? He had conned his way into a plum position. He knew his bullshit was bound to be flung back into his own shiny face. He did not have a plan B? Or why not quickly come up with a plan C or D? He has defenders still today. Ghost written another book? 'How I did it' could be a title. Talk shows, articles, non-profit boards that pay a handsome profit for consultants. I'm going to guess drugs, that he dead-end-ed his own brain and took his life in cloudy confusion.
The narrative shift is immediate and convenient: we can now talk about the racism of Dr. Arday's critics instead of the collapse of institutional responsibility that brought us to this point. Cambridge, at any time up to and including today, could state why Jason Arday was hired: the strength of his dissertation, his publication record, the uniqueness of his research. Why has Cambridge not done so?
Bloc Lives Matter
I remember reading Goodbye to All That. In that book, Robert Graves detailed how he dissuaded his friend Siegfried Sassoon from heading up the anti-war effort. You just couldn't have a guy named Siegfried telling Britons they should make peace with Germany......In like way, I wonder whether Ibram X. Kendi is the ideal person to head up the Fair Play to Race Frauds Committee.
@Boyd, it's performative. Everything's performative. All the way down. Now almost at every level. A world of smiley-glad-handing actors and actresses that sound great wearing skinsuits, likely sourced from Harvard.
A Necronomicontinent of ne'er-do-wells.
I don't think Goldberg or her editors know what "scholar' means.
A couple of years before I retired there was a reorganization of the upper university admin and a black female was named to a very high position despite the fact that her Ed School dissertation was nowhere to be found.
I think they quietly shunted her aside after about a year.
Hers was an unusual case; the more common thing was for mediocre but competent black scholars to be paid more than
mediocre but competent white scholars.
RSM,
Nice to see another fan of "postcards from barsoom"!
“My favorite example: Arday running 30 marathons in 35 days.”
My fave is 600 miles in 6 days, almost 4 marathons a day.
He likely stepped over more than one qualified conservative on his way up.
The racism is not in the belief in his inferiority, as that was justified. The racism was in the belief that he was the best to be found in his demographic.
Jason Arday won the Tour de France
With two flat tires and a missing chain…
"...the more common thing was for mediocre but competent black scholars to be paid more than mediocre but competent white scholars."
It's a supply & demand situation.
"What she's politely calling "condescension" and "the willful gullibility of certain elite progressives" is racism. The way they treated him reflected a belief in his inferiority."
And guess what, Althouse? That belief was well-founded. He was inferior, vastly so. Their racism led them to a correct conclusion. That is very frequently the case, which is why everyone is racist, whether they admit it or not.
Steve Sailer posted on his Substack about this and quoted the top twenty comments on Goldberg's op-ed which he characterized as 'anti-Arday'. I agree with him. It's pretty apparent the wagons are being circled in both Woke Media and Woke Academia. The fault lies with chiefly with Arday who was able to prey on the well-intentioned desire of academics to advance Scholars of Color, and then refused to follow the normal script of pensive anguish over right-wing racism when confronted by the news media and doubled-down on his fantastical fabulations.
The 20th most popular comment on Goldberg's column at the time Sailer posted is typical.
"Al from PA
The buck stops with Arday. He was the guy who cooked up the plagiarized dissertation. He was the guy who called in the big guns when a journalist first threatened to investigate him. Sure a lot of others in positions of authority were self serving and fundamentally dishonest, but Arday was the guy manipulating them first and foremost. He set out to game the system, and he did--at least for a while."
Of course the real villain in all of this is Nick Confas who has been suspended by Ghent University and suspects he will be fired.
"The racism is not in the belief in his inferiority, as that was justified. The racism was in the belief that he was the best to be found in his demographic."
You raise an interesting point. Of course, "sociology" is complete and utter rubbish, of a particularly noxious political variety. Anyone who is "good" at sociology is bad. But even so, it is nearly certain that some blackish person could have been found who was more plausible than the nitwit fabulist in question. It rather seems that they felt he had all the qualifications they were looking for. In abundance! The intended to hire a newsworthy black, and that's what they got. No one was deceived. No one was dissatisfied. It's not like they were wasting their own money.
For clarity, Steve Sailer didn't extract the twenty highest rated comments that were anti-Arday but reviewed (and posted behind his paywall) the top twenty comments, none of which support Arday
Sure, it's the bank robber himself who is responsible for the robbery, but if the bank president voluntarily gives him the combination to the vault and then makes him head bill counter working nights, there should be enough blame to go around. So far, only Arday accepted responsibility.
It's all strategic. The condescending "racism," the attack on the Arday critics, the calls for censorship, you name it: progs doing their prog thing. Just as PTB enabled Arday's ascent, they now eagerly join in not letting the crisis go to waste. Cambridge chancellor leads with call for kindness, Ghent U fires Cofnas, UK journalist org tells colleagues to shut up, etc. Of course, they may miscalculate in their power play: normies now observe the lies and cynicism, and the corruption of academic standards. Will that stop progs and their post-Arday power move?
Scarecrow: Do you think if I went with you this Wizard would give me some brains?
Dorothy: I couldn't say. But even if he didn't you'd be no worse off than you are now.
Scarecrow: Yes, that's true.
Ultimately, the Wizard of Oz gave the Scarecrow a piece of paper.
It's wasn't Arday's job to protect the reputation and credential system of the institution, nor was it his job to fact check his own bullshit to the media. There are people in those jobs, and they failed miserably on purpose for their own virtue signaling. It's not innocent and it's not just a mistake.
Who most benefited from Arday's "suicide" and elevation to martyr status, as opposed to his continuing to embarrass the most powerful institutions? I'm surprised more people aren't arriving at what seems very obvious to me.
Jason Arday didn't kill himself.
I note the distinct lack of the usual leftists here to defend their racism and problems with Arday.....
One we find the Quantum Racist particle, all out prayers will be answered. Just hang tight. The collider upgrade is just a few years away.
Hawkeyedjb said "It's a supply and demand situation."
That's what I know.
Arday was promoted and protected and in with a swell crowd of Progs who all believed it was their moral duty to lie to everybody as needed if the lies could even remotely be construed to be for the greater good. These people were all at the top of their respective fields, at the top of British society, they were all successful and they all seemed to agree his masquerade was for the greater good...to the point of shunning any of their colleagues who questioned that premise. Why would he not have decided to believe himself that he was acting for the greater good, especially since it came with all kinds of wonderful rewards? They taught him that this is how the game is played. It would be him or somebody else. Then they changed the rules and pulled the rug. He shouldn't have killed himself. He should have used AI to write a book about it. He probably could have taught a course about it all at Cambridge.
‘“… and "the willful gullibility of certain elite progressives" is racism. The way they treated him reflected a belief in his inferiority.’ More than that. His story was so bizarre and his rise so meteoric it reflects the left’s disassociation from reality.
My boss from 2001 until I retired was a black woman. After her arrival there was some discussion of how she should be addressed--it seems that using her first name (which she invited us to do) could be racist, but then again it could also be racist to use her rank or title.
I went with rank or title, which I always did with non-black, non-female bosses too.
I'm a 'sir-er' or 'mam-er' too, with everyone I encounter until they prove unworthy. That's just the way I was raised.
So it's racist to take a conman at his word, if the conman is black. It's also racist to investigate the conman and expose him as a conman. The critics are correct about the motivations of the people who passed Arday along, but Ibrahim X. Kendi is hardly in a position to criticize, since he wrote the playbook for both the conman and the conned.
So he was just in the wrong department--should have been in Creative Writing, or World Mythology.
I have read that legendary 'Bama football coach Bear Bryant played a whole quarter (half?) on a broken leg when he was a student athlete.
He was no Jason Arday though.
Goldberg finally being right about something is causing me to have a strange new respect for the woman.
two of the most useless disciplines in academia are sociology and education. They seem to sexist for people who are too smart for J-School but to dumb for anything else.
I don't think I had seen what Arday's scholarly specialty was though I did seen the dean of the school of education touting his praises.
I never in a million years would have guessed.
"Sociology of Education"
It sounds like something Bill Murray and Gilda Radner might have used in a bit on SNL back in the 70s. It could not POSSIBLY be a real academic speciality, could it?
Sadly, it not only could be but is.
https://news.educ.cam.ac.uk/230223-jason-arday
John Henry
Some of us are willing to compromise. Keep sociology and education. Burn women and minority studies with fire, then fumigate. Who says we're unreasonable?
@Kirk Parker, Quite possibly his best all time post, and highly highly relevant.
Owen Johnson is Right!--My guess is that Arday killed himself because he really liked the people he lied to, who supported him and covered for him. Even though he continued to lie to them. Somewhere inside himself he convinced himself that it was all OK, that the lies didn't really matter. And then when the ugly reality presented itself he couldn't face it--or the people he lied to.
Just shake your head, dbp@3:09PM. Your eyes are stuck.
Final closure will be achieved when the international association of university associations awards the Cambridge Dept. of the Sociology of Education leadership a prize for their thoughtful but courageous resolution of the unjustified concerns of the public in this matter.
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