The Jason Arday scandal began six weeks ago in mid July, but it must have been below my radar because I didn’t hear about it until the 1st of August, when it suddenly seemed to be everywhere.
Here's a quick 'fly on the wall' view from inside a university this morning:
A conversation about this topic starts in my shared office. 4 women and 1 man take part. I am pretending to not listen. The conversation goes exactly as this essay outlines (Arday's suicide is seized upon):
- People who were ignoring the story before are suddenly very interested,
- The cynical narrative-pivot to Arday as a victim on full display,
- Suddenly Cofnas' work is very relevant (whereas last week it was irrelevant when it was inconvenient). Cofnas' proof of Arday's plagiarism is ignored, but now his work on race realism is proof of a racist agenda.
I stop pretending to not listen and sprinkle in 'his doctoral thesis had a punctuation typo in the title'. It was my attempt to steer focus back to those who facilitated Arday and repeatedly gave him a pass. Baby steps. My effort is rewarded with 'oh, so you think the hounding was justified?'
So, nothing you weren't aware of. Just giving you a little 'vignette from my desk' this morning.
While being aware the DEI rot had got into universities overall, I might have naively assumed the most prestigious ones would be above it. But no. First there was Claudine Gay, the first black female president of Harvard University, who had to resign a couple of years ago due to plagiarism. Now there's Jason Arday, who has made Cambridge University a laughing stock. Good!
Arday, with his amazing fantasies about not being able to speak until age eleven, appearing in the 1960s documentary 'Seven Up,' etc etc has become a hugely cartoonish poster boy for the whole concept of DEI. He has brought well deserved humiliation to Cambridge.
On a practical note, I wonder how Arday managed the actual work of an academic - giving lectures and tutorials, setting assignments, marking essays, and so on. It is not an easy workload. Did he have helpers to handle the drudgery of all that, or did he somehow BS his way through?
It feels like they’ve somehow managed to turn this into another win. But I wonder if that could change in the long run. If there are more people like this hiding in academia, could turning them into heroes eventually uncover something much bigger and much harder to defend?
Speaking of silly women have you seen that younger woman that defended her thesis while totally naked? She’s pulled this stunt a couple times. I think the ancients were right to keep women out of formal education.
The recent floating of the term "Woke One" or "Woke 1.0" proves they have no intention of "putting woke away" as some hoped. The goal now is to take the embarrassing past moments of wokeness, the times when they pushed too hard too fast, put them in a box called "Woke 1.0," insist that no one ever speak of them again, and introduce "Woke 2.0," the same product with slicker packaging.
Brilliant again. After he died my first thought was that now he could only be useful to the left in death. If he hadn't killed himself (I don't think he was murdered), he would have been a lingering laughing stock, the most memeable man ever perhaps. I push back slightly when it comes to the longterm outcome of this episode. In a week's time, more will remember that Arday was a fraud of historical proportions, that he targeted those who challenged him, and that the media coverage of him was not over the top when set against what he did (I make this latter point without having seen every headline since he resigned. One could argue that after the resignation, the headlines might have been less specifically about him, but I'm not sure about this). Moreover, the left will lose in their attempts to beatify him ala George Floyd. In the latter case, there was really bad footage and genuine questions for the authorities to answer as per methods of restraining people. Here, we have no footage of a downed blackman being killed. Instead, we are left with a huge fraud who had many accomplices, only they can be to blame.
Millennial Woes writes: "We must think of the damage done to academia by having people like Arday there, especially in commanding positions. But we must also think of the damage done by having people like Hilary Cremin there, or indeed anywhere. If she had any sense or any shame, she would have resigned by now."
I just had a post-teaching observation meeting with a female administrator wearing a walking boot with a WATERMELON STICKER on it.
This is inappropriate. There was leftist coding all over the bulletin board behind her as we discussed methodology.
It made me "uncomfortable." I didn't feel...."safe."
Anyway, I have had plenty of opportunity to watch academia sink to tragic lows over the past twenty-odd years. For this I credit the influx of black "academics" and immigrants for whose benefit the blathering female administrators insist we teach literature about immigrants feeling like they don't belong even though they chose to immigrate. Woe is them. They feel "marginalized," but heaven forbid they should assimilate! The mere suggestion is akin to terrorism!
Standards have declined across the board in fealty to the AWFL's proxy children: blacks and immigrants.
Some years ago, a middle eastern professor RIDICULED ME for teaching students how to paraphrase properly. "Not even native speakers do that," he opined.
Never mind that we teach ESL, and that paraphrasing is an excellent exercise in rewriting text and ensuring that the content is understood and accurately replicated. O no, I was making them do something that is too hard and utterly unnecessary. Just let them copy and paste!
I also witnessed "research papers" without a shred of analysis. Because I insisted upon analysis and no other professors did, I was the "bad" teacher.
So here we are. And don't get me started on the word salad that some grad students brought in, a co-authored paper (by black "academics") titled "Cotton, Whiteness, and Other Poisons." The students told me that the authors were friends of a professor, who brought them into class to speak about this paper. They said that their advisors had told them that there were too many dissertations on how horrible white people are that year, so they had to pivot to writing about how horrible white people are for developing pesticides.
We tried a close reading of some paragraphs that the students could not understand. I finally just had to tell them that the paper made no sense. It truly made no sense.
Regardless, all these people know to write about is racism. They have nothing else going on in their heads. And the powers that be keep bringing these people in, so that the faculty is comprised of one anti-white racist after another. And so now this is what passes for an "education."
But more to the point... it is impossible to correct these people, to direct them towards loftier thinking and production. We are being held hostage by idiots. The ship is sinking.
Seeing the "hate rally" for the man who revealed Arday's narcissistic grift is disheartening indeed. But if I've learned anything in my many years in academia, these are not bright people. They just aren't. They are craven fools.
Miri from Miri's Massive Missives substack floats the idea he didn't die. IHis supposed death is convenient for them, as you imply . It shifts the spotlight from the ingrained PC corruption of all walks of life, including the Met Police ()who harrassed a journalist for four months who raised a red flag on Arday.) all academia ( he had five honorary doctorates from British universities ) all cultural heights including the top Royal Society of Arts. appointment, publishing - a million plus advance. Weren't they meant to be more careful after the Salt Path fiasco?
It is possible he is in witness protection. He certainly has a large amount of money and could be given more, to start a new life elsewhere.
The cuckservative Telegraph article was shameful. Fortunately the most liked comments were't swallowing the trivialising 'we all lie ' line. His actions had malign consequences for others.
Postcards from Barsoom substack elaborates on this - all the people sacked , and never hired , with lifelong social and economic consequences, because the institutions and corporations of the West have been weaponised against them.
Another belter of an essay. And you didn’t even plagiarise the funniest line about his Star Trek brain canopy hair formation and Vaseline’d forehead. If only Arday were alive to read this essay and learn, maybe he would have reformed his character, but alas.
I've not seen any reports of the circumstances of his death so this is purely speculation, but given the utility of his death to certain groups is it possible he was suicided?
I'm not convinced he's dead. Maybe plod has wafted him away to a new life with a new identity, plus lots of money too.
Here's a quick 'fly on the wall' view from inside a university this morning:
A conversation about this topic starts in my shared office. 4 women and 1 man take part. I am pretending to not listen. The conversation goes exactly as this essay outlines (Arday's suicide is seized upon):
- People who were ignoring the story before are suddenly very interested,
- The cynical narrative-pivot to Arday as a victim on full display,
- Suddenly Cofnas' work is very relevant (whereas last week it was irrelevant when it was inconvenient). Cofnas' proof of Arday's plagiarism is ignored, but now his work on race realism is proof of a racist agenda.
I stop pretending to not listen and sprinkle in 'his doctoral thesis had a punctuation typo in the title'. It was my attempt to steer focus back to those who facilitated Arday and repeatedly gave him a pass. Baby steps. My effort is rewarded with 'oh, so you think the hounding was justified?'
So, nothing you weren't aware of. Just giving you a little 'vignette from my desk' this morning.
While being aware the DEI rot had got into universities overall, I might have naively assumed the most prestigious ones would be above it. But no. First there was Claudine Gay, the first black female president of Harvard University, who had to resign a couple of years ago due to plagiarism. Now there's Jason Arday, who has made Cambridge University a laughing stock. Good!
Arday, with his amazing fantasies about not being able to speak until age eleven, appearing in the 1960s documentary 'Seven Up,' etc etc has become a hugely cartoonish poster boy for the whole concept of DEI. He has brought well deserved humiliation to Cambridge.
On a practical note, I wonder how Arday managed the actual work of an academic - giving lectures and tutorials, setting assignments, marking essays, and so on. It is not an easy workload. Did he have helpers to handle the drudgery of all that, or did he somehow BS his way through?
It feels like they’ve somehow managed to turn this into another win. But I wonder if that could change in the long run. If there are more people like this hiding in academia, could turning them into heroes eventually uncover something much bigger and much harder to defend?
Speaking of silly women have you seen that younger woman that defended her thesis while totally naked? She’s pulled this stunt a couple times. I think the ancients were right to keep women out of formal education.
The recent floating of the term "Woke One" or "Woke 1.0" proves they have no intention of "putting woke away" as some hoped. The goal now is to take the embarrassing past moments of wokeness, the times when they pushed too hard too fast, put them in a box called "Woke 1.0," insist that no one ever speak of them again, and introduce "Woke 2.0," the same product with slicker packaging.
What is Woke 1.0? I am out of the Twitter loop so I miss a lot of these kinds of things.
It seems to be a way to say, "Gosh, wasn't some of that early woke stuff wacky? Good thing we've moved past that and we're all sensible now." Chris Bray talks about it here. https://chrisbray.substack.com/p/woke-one-is-an-attempt-to-simulate
Brilliant again. After he died my first thought was that now he could only be useful to the left in death. If he hadn't killed himself (I don't think he was murdered), he would have been a lingering laughing stock, the most memeable man ever perhaps. I push back slightly when it comes to the longterm outcome of this episode. In a week's time, more will remember that Arday was a fraud of historical proportions, that he targeted those who challenged him, and that the media coverage of him was not over the top when set against what he did (I make this latter point without having seen every headline since he resigned. One could argue that after the resignation, the headlines might have been less specifically about him, but I'm not sure about this). Moreover, the left will lose in their attempts to beatify him ala George Floyd. In the latter case, there was really bad footage and genuine questions for the authorities to answer as per methods of restraining people. Here, we have no footage of a downed blackman being killed. Instead, we are left with a huge fraud who had many accomplices, only they can be to blame.
Excellent piece of writing.
Excellent reportage, Woes. It’s the summary and explanation I need.
Millennial Woes writes: "We must think of the damage done to academia by having people like Arday there, especially in commanding positions. But we must also think of the damage done by having people like Hilary Cremin there, or indeed anywhere. If she had any sense or any shame, she would have resigned by now."
I just had a post-teaching observation meeting with a female administrator wearing a walking boot with a WATERMELON STICKER on it.
This is inappropriate. There was leftist coding all over the bulletin board behind her as we discussed methodology.
It made me "uncomfortable." I didn't feel...."safe."
Anyway, I have had plenty of opportunity to watch academia sink to tragic lows over the past twenty-odd years. For this I credit the influx of black "academics" and immigrants for whose benefit the blathering female administrators insist we teach literature about immigrants feeling like they don't belong even though they chose to immigrate. Woe is them. They feel "marginalized," but heaven forbid they should assimilate! The mere suggestion is akin to terrorism!
Standards have declined across the board in fealty to the AWFL's proxy children: blacks and immigrants.
Some years ago, a middle eastern professor RIDICULED ME for teaching students how to paraphrase properly. "Not even native speakers do that," he opined.
Never mind that we teach ESL, and that paraphrasing is an excellent exercise in rewriting text and ensuring that the content is understood and accurately replicated. O no, I was making them do something that is too hard and utterly unnecessary. Just let them copy and paste!
I also witnessed "research papers" without a shred of analysis. Because I insisted upon analysis and no other professors did, I was the "bad" teacher.
So here we are. And don't get me started on the word salad that some grad students brought in, a co-authored paper (by black "academics") titled "Cotton, Whiteness, and Other Poisons." The students told me that the authors were friends of a professor, who brought them into class to speak about this paper. They said that their advisors had told them that there were too many dissertations on how horrible white people are that year, so they had to pivot to writing about how horrible white people are for developing pesticides.
We tried a close reading of some paragraphs that the students could not understand. I finally just had to tell them that the paper made no sense. It truly made no sense.
Regardless, all these people know to write about is racism. They have nothing else going on in their heads. And the powers that be keep bringing these people in, so that the faculty is comprised of one anti-white racist after another. And so now this is what passes for an "education."
But more to the point... it is impossible to correct these people, to direct them towards loftier thinking and production. We are being held hostage by idiots. The ship is sinking.
Seeing the "hate rally" for the man who revealed Arday's narcissistic grift is disheartening indeed. But if I've learned anything in my many years in academia, these are not bright people. They just aren't. They are craven fools.
People like that don’t usually top themselves,
His death was the ultimate 'get out' for the left. Maybe it is another lie. Excellent essay Woes.
Miri from Miri's Massive Missives substack floats the idea he didn't die. IHis supposed death is convenient for them, as you imply . It shifts the spotlight from the ingrained PC corruption of all walks of life, including the Met Police ()who harrassed a journalist for four months who raised a red flag on Arday.) all academia ( he had five honorary doctorates from British universities ) all cultural heights including the top Royal Society of Arts. appointment, publishing - a million plus advance. Weren't they meant to be more careful after the Salt Path fiasco?
It is possible he is in witness protection. He certainly has a large amount of money and could be given more, to start a new life elsewhere.
The cuckservative Telegraph article was shameful. Fortunately the most liked comments were't swallowing the trivialising 'we all lie ' line. His actions had malign consequences for others.
Postcards from Barsoom substack elaborates on this - all the people sacked , and never hired , with lifelong social and economic consequences, because the institutions and corporations of the West have been weaponised against them.
Another belter of an essay. And you didn’t even plagiarise the funniest line about his Star Trek brain canopy hair formation and Vaseline’d forehead. If only Arday were alive to read this essay and learn, maybe he would have reformed his character, but alas.
I've not seen any reports of the circumstances of his death so this is purely speculation, but given the utility of his death to certain groups is it possible he was suicided?
Could be another of the 'wet jobs' as Morgoth mentioned in a recent substack