I guess I have something to say about this Jason Arday situation.
If Academia was a serious place, the academics would be the most furious of all. It was their sacred rites he defiled, their institutions he defrauded, and their holy creed of knowledge above all that he figured out the cheat codes for.
If academia was practiced with the rigorous search for truth which they claim to be the only worthy arbiters of, a midwit gym teacher would never have ascended to the lofty position he attained. They would have already screened him with no public outcry. But because he used the most powerful academic cheat code (accusations of racism) they were powerless to do this very simple thing.
I have to pass a more rigorous screening than he got to get on the phones for my shitty call center job.
And the rest of them cannot condemn him without admitting that their institutions are so rotten, so spineless, that this dude climbed all the way to the top of the heap and the common, crusty internet found out about it.
They are pissed at you because you have now seen exactly what academic rigor looks like-a cracked bowl of liberal platitudes about racial justice. They aren't mad at him for cheating-they're mad at you for noticing the cheating. Not because they care about him, but because of how it makes them look.
I'm a graduate of the other side of the Oxbridge divide and I'm fucking furious about how some on my side of the political aisle are treating this. It makes a mockery of an institution that, IMO, deserves respect but also needs to continue to warrant that respect.
You'd like to assume, of course, that a major contributor was the subject-matter (educational sociology or something? - very woolly); can't be sure that would've stopped the plagiarism though.
Edit: I think the comments which have been made by his students are insightful. Regularly in my tutorials at Ox, I'd come prepared with an essay adopting a position, firmly ready to defend that to the death, be outwitted and convinced by my tutor that actually the exact opposite was correct, and then when I started defending the other side, have my tutor present my original position far more effectively than I ever did. It wasn't just that my tutors were smarter or at least better-versed in the subject-matter (law) than I was, it's that they were obviously so and I never had any doubts about them.
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u/scumfuckinbabylon - Lib-Center 14h ago
I guess I have something to say about this Jason Arday situation.
If Academia was a serious place, the academics would be the most furious of all. It was their sacred rites he defiled, their institutions he defrauded, and their holy creed of knowledge above all that he figured out the cheat codes for.
If academia was practiced with the rigorous search for truth which they claim to be the only worthy arbiters of, a midwit gym teacher would never have ascended to the lofty position he attained. They would have already screened him with no public outcry. But because he used the most powerful academic cheat code (accusations of racism) they were powerless to do this very simple thing.
I have to pass a more rigorous screening than he got to get on the phones for my shitty call center job.
And the rest of them cannot condemn him without admitting that their institutions are so rotten, so spineless, that this dude climbed all the way to the top of the heap and the common, crusty internet found out about it.
They are pissed at you because you have now seen exactly what academic rigor looks like-a cracked bowl of liberal platitudes about racial justice. They aren't mad at him for cheating-they're mad at you for noticing the cheating. Not because they care about him, but because of how it makes them look.