Merged Arday life and death

[theprestige]

Just don't go poncing off to Barnsley.

Why not? Would I have to worry about a pack of chavs standing around mean-mugging me while I eat bad Indian takeaway?

Actually, I should probably check first: Do I think vindaloo is Indian cuisine?

 

[Vixen]

It's a two hour drive, one way, between Nashville, TN, and Huntsville, AL.

That's a hell of a long way to drive, just to visit a shopping mall.*

Americans think 300 years is a long time, Europeans think 300 is a long distance. So the saying goes. Sometimes you see a European look at a map of America, and think they're dealing with European distances.

Anyway, it's clear to me now why you're defending Arday so hard. Fabulism calls to fabulism.

---

*Especially in the middle of an itinerary packed with literally every single tourist attraction listed on the Nashville Wikipedia page.

Here you go:

clt by Username Vixen, on Flickr

Please try not to judge others by your own standards.

 

[Mojo]

Here you go:

clt by Username Vixen, on Flickr

Please try not to judge others by your own standards.

And you got that in a shopping mall in Alabama?

 

[theprestige]

Please try not to judge others by your own standards.

Like you're doing with Arday?

 

[Vixen]

Former director of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Nazir Afzal, has announced he is going to undertake an independent review of what steps Cambridge University took to protect Professor Arday during his torture by press.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2095883270210662664

As you know, Cambridge had a duty of care.

 

[Ziggurat]

As you know, Cambridge had a duty of care.

Sure. They also had a duty to properly screen him before hiring. Nobody here objects to Cambridge providing Arday with mental health support, but you seem to object to Cambridge enforcing academic standards.

 

[theprestige]

Once Cambridge's nonsense became known, there was no longer any protection for Arday, short of a comprehensive, totalitarian cover-up of the entire affair. But they'd still have to do something about the key conspirators, notably Arday himself.

A more honest and ethical CPS would be investigating what Cambridge did to set Arday up for spectacular, career-destroying failure in full view of the public.

 

[Matthew Best]

Race was unmentionable but once a year, a school inspector would come around and ask, 'Hands up all those not born in this country?' Everybody knew what it was a euphemism for.

Of all the things that never happened, this never happened the most.

 

[ahhell]

Of all the things that never happened, this never happened the most.

I notice that in the same post Vixen notes that unlike the US, the UK never had a segregated military, Vixen must be talking out pre-1950s UK, who knows, maybe they were asking who was born outside of England, probably trying to root out the Irish and Scots!

 

[Rolfe]

I think the idea that Arday was a post-modern hire more than a DEI/EDI hire has merit. If the intellectual culture of a department doesn't believe in the concept of objective truth, why would anyone even question his tall stories? Hiring someone who had a colourful background might seem more attractive than hiring someone with strong academic credentials, and who cares if it's true or not, what does that even mean? It probably didn't hurt that he was black and claimed to be "neurodivergent", but a back story that actually challenged the idea of objective truth might have been just what the more looney dons wanted.

 

[dirtywick]

what do the quotation marks around neurodivergent mean?

 

[Ziggurat]

what do the quotation marks around neurodivergent mean?

Probably that it's a nebulous, poorly defined term.

 

[Rolfe]

That, and the fact that we've never seen any positive evidence of a diagnosis, and that Arday's own claim about what the diagnosis was was inconsistent and self-contradictory.

 

[ahhell]

Probably that it's a nebulous, poorly defined term.

Nebulous and poorly defined doesn't go far enough. It means whatever the speaker wants it to mean and includes all of the possible ways a human beings can be different from each other, other than the physical.

 

[dirtywick]

That, and the fact that we've never seen any positive evidence of a diagnosis, and that Arday's own claim about what the diagnosis was was inconsistent and self-contradictory.

so you think he used that term because it was poorly defined and just to juice his backstory when there was nothing wrong with him

 

[Steve]

Nebulous and poorly defined doesn't go far enough. It means whatever the speaker wants it to mean and includes all of the possible ways a human beings can be different from each other, other than the physical.

Indeed. Everybody is neurodivergent from everyone else.

 

[dirtywick]

as commonly understood, i think it has a more narrow definition that. i agree it's a bit nebulous and there's a whole interesting social dynamic of people self diagnosing for clout online and things like that but there's definitely mental issues that cause people to have difficulty socializing, that's not a made up thing.

 

[theprestige]

so you think he used that term because it was poorly defined and just to juice his backstory when there was nothing wrong with him

That does seem to be the most likely explanation, given everything else we know.

But also it's just a crap term all around.

Normalizing, legitimizing, and even privileging self-diagnosis is becoming more and more common. Saying you're neurodivergent becomes a hall pass for antisocial or maladaptive behavior. Can't pay attention in class? That's not a personal weak spot you can work on strengthening. That's just a non-mainstream way of succeeding in the world. Etc.

It's an attempt to traduce character flaws and real mental handicaps into the same category as personal tastes and preferences. Can't argue with taste. Can't argue with a self-diagnosed touch of the 'tism, either.

I hew to the old-fashioned view that if you're apologizing for it or excusing it, then you either need to do the work to fix it, or you need to get help to manage it. "I diagnosed myself with CPTSD because I grew up poor, so now you can't say boo about my lack of emotional self-regulation" is right out.

 

[theprestige]

Here you go:

clt by Username Vixen, on Flickr

Also, this is just sad. Photos of stuff, posted on the internet without an ironclad chain of custody, aren't evidence of anything. You're just beclowning yourself now.

 

[Steve]

Also, this is just sad. Photos of stuff, posted on the internet without an ironclad chain of custody, aren't evidence of anything. You're just beclowning yourself now.

Now?