Merged Arday life and death

[lionking]

What?! No matter what you think of communism or socialism, Marx was one of the great C19 thinkers. His work still underpins much political theory today. Sheesh! It's like claiming Beethoven is rubbish because you don't like Germans.

Beethoven was a proud Prussian born 100 years before Germany…..…….

 

[theprestige]

What?! No matter what you think of communism or socialism, Marx was one of the great C19 thinkers. His work still underpins much political theory today. Sheesh! It's like claiming Beethoven is rubbish because you don't like Germans.

What about claiming Marx is rubbish because he is in fact rubbish?

Being the thought leader that inspired the creation of the USSR isn't a laurel most would claim, not even on behalf of another, not even posthumously.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

Beethoven was a proud Prussian born 100 years before Germany…..…….

Rhenish, not Prussian. And he pretty much forgot about Bonn once he set up in Vienna.

 

[Rolfe]

It's an interesting point also in the context of Wagner, as mentioned earlier. One of the criticisms flung at him is German nationalism, but that's usually framed as a criticism by people looking at it from a post-Hitler perspective. But Wagner died in 1883, six years before Hitler was born. Hitler admired (some aspects of) Wagner's work, not the other way around.

Those of us whose country was formed in 832 AD don't find it easy to remember how fluid European statehood was right into the 19th and even the 20th century. Wagner in the mid 19th century was expressing allegiance to a fragile new idea of a country that was still primarily defined by language (Germany is people who speak German) rather than being a political entity. His words in the mouth of Hans Sachs (a 16th century poet who wouldn't have recognised the concept of Germany as a nation) were expressing support for the new, aspiring German nationhood, not proclaiming a thousand year Reich.

How did we even get into this? Jason Arday was a chancer and a fabulist, and the interesting part of it all is how the post-modern, post-truth Cambridge establishment lionised such a man, with his obviously hyper-imaginative life story, rather than holding to the principle of objective truth.

 

[zooterkin]

This thread is not about philosophers, composers or German nationalism. Please confine your posts to the topic of this thread, which is the life and death of Jason Arday.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: zooterkin

 

[Emily's Cat]

Cambridge opened an investigation and was never given the chance to investigate the claims. So some envious guy decided he couldn't believe Arday had had a tumour twice, or had run 30 marathons in 35 days or that he had had epilepsy and injured his leg from falling. Also it is outrageous that Arday should claim to have been in a car crash that left him feeling locked in in a coma. OUTRAGEOUS. That's how envy works. It inspires an impetous to tear down the person you are envious of. But whilst Cofnas and Groves claim plagiarism, they gave Arday no opportunity to have a fair investigation by Cambridge but decided he must be a 'fabulist' because running 30 marathons in 35 days is impossible.

You're shockingly credulous.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Clapham was, or is, home to one of the UK's (London's?) largest railway junctions. I would guess that in common with another famous 'railway' town, Swindon, there exists long rows of terraced houses built to house railwaymen and their families, modest, not at all unpleasant, with back gardens, yet rather back-to-back with very limited parking spaces due to the narrow streets. (My Swindon friends, all though in decently paid middle class jobs had hardly anywhere to park, with everyone needing residents parking permits.) So, I imagine Arday's parents, being from Ghana, and children of African descent doing statistically quite well at school, likely had aspirations for the young Jason albeit the area they were in was likely rather run down and depressed in parts with affluent areas conjoining it, not dissimilar to places like Islington, in North London. Willesden Junction, another railway town, is particularly grim, full of factories and rundown council estates.

That's a lot of imagining and assuming in order to create a backstory for Arday.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Clapham is mainly populated by affluent, middle-class young professionals, finance workers, and growing families.

So tell us again about Arday's ver disadvantaged poor upbringing?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Specifically, Williamson County,

did the usual sightseeing around Nashville, Hard Rock Cafe, Old Oprey, Country Hall of Fame, the 'Acropolis', the old Confederate hang outs, plantation houses/old slave quarters, Johnny Cash hangouts, Vanderbilt Uni, Jehovah's Witness skyscraper building, Jack Daniels brewery tour, restaurants serving huge plates of catfish, Cajun food, endless shopping malls. Beautiful area of great natural scenic beauty: hummingbirds and huge oaks. The Mexican restaurant I wanted to experience was nothing like the trendy ones in London. Thinking back now at how unexpectedly horrible the food was, with a group of about seven to nine Mexican amigos standing watching us, I wonder whether it was actually a front for something else. Picked up at the airport in Charlotte. Some funny things happened at the airport but that would be waaaay off topic.

I wouldn't have suggested either Cajun nor Mexican in Tennessee. Barbecue, spicy fried chicken, pie, sweet tea, sure. But Cajun? Nah, go to Louisiana for that, maybe some reasonable spread into E. Texas, or Mississippi. Otherwise you're pretty much getting some corporatized Pappadeaux type stuff - which isn't necessarily bad, but it's not real Cajun either.

You pretty much went to Portugal and ordered French food.

 

[Emily's Cat]

No. According to the blurb on his book on Amazon uk, he lived in a council house. This is social housing.

He grew up in a council house in south London with his parents and two brothers. Diagnosed with autism and global developmental delay at the age of three, he spent much of his non-verbal childhood navigating a system that struggled to understand him. Doctors and teachers believed there was ‘no one in there’. But Jason’s mother, Giff, refused to accept the limits others placed on her son.

Alrighty, here's where your credulousness comes into play.

In Arday's memoir... they were DIAGNOSED with GDD and Autism at age 3 - not self-diagnosed, not suspected, but DIAGNOSED. Not "handed down" from parents. And they were NON-VERBAL through their childhood, and so severely cognitively disabled that doctors and teachers all thought there was no real personality involved.

That cannot be true if you also accept "selectively mute" and "slow to learn" and people who grew up with Arday saying he spoke regularly.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I don't believe a single word of the marketing copy on his book.

I'm willing to believe that Arday was, in actuality, male.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

Generally speaking, neurodivergent would apply to neuroprocessing conditions where a person's brain handles data in a way different from what is normal for the human brain, but in most cases is not cognitively impaired. So they're no less intelligent or capable of complex thought, but they go about it via a different route. In most cases, it's going to refer to autism, ADHD, and dyslexia, as well as some much less well known processing disorders. In most of the conditions that would fall under the heading of neurodivergent, there's a fair understanding of what specific part of the brain is involved, so it's not a personality or a behavioral disorder - it's not mental health, it's neurological.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Have you ever studied Sociology in whatever various form, or are you going to brush it off, like HansMustermann and Emily's Cat, as wokerati nonsense?

I didn't brush it off as nonsense. I said it's an easier degree to get than some others, and that at present it's being taken over by some nonsense academic onanism.

 

[Emily's Cat]

So you are not even familiar with the genre. Got it.

I'm familiar with fiction as well as navel-gazing.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Just another manifestation of Vixen's difficulty comprehending what people post,

Perhaps Vixen has GDD and Aspergers and doesn't understand 90% of what people around them say everyday, and only understand it about two days later?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Arday ticked a lot of boxes, all right --black, sociologist (hiss!), various conditions like autism, LGBTQ if I recall correctly, and then he went from poster child to having a great fall. Of course the usual suspects will be all over that, even in faraway countries.

Oh, oh, where's my bingo card? I do believe Arday has now been retroactively either transed or queered!

 

[Emily's Cat]

Yes, I brought up that aspect of it, because it interests me; I think academic fraud is underreported, and definitely not discussed as much as I think it should be. This has made me wonder why the whole world seems to be talking about this case, while other cases, where academic fraud has had far worse consequences, go under the radar.

I think I previously said this, but I've been somehow involved in this topic in multiple fora.

I think the world is talking about this, not because of the fraud but because of the sheer volume and dedication of loads of people dead-set on defending the fraudster... and essentially taking the position that Arday shouldn't be allowed to be challenged for reason of race or autism or both.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I can understand why the academic right are in paroxysms of rage. Autoethnography in Sociology, I mean, who wants to read about the cleaning lady's struggle as a masters graduate in Economics in the Philippines to picking up your kid's dirty laundry in Ziggurat's home State, or the Mexican gardener's struggle as the son of an undocumented immigrant in the USA. But I'll tell you what, I bet their theses would be a more fascinating read than research into the molecules that make up the pimples on a badger's bum.

All great... but you know what? Memoirs are not Research.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Are you able to articulate why you disapprove of autoethnography, with close reference to other academic disciplines such as Social Sciences and Humanities, and why it is acceptable in say, the branch of Women's Studies' and/or Post-Colonial Literature but in your opinion, not in Sociology at Cambridge University? I want to understand why you think it is a problem, when all such theses are properly constructed, designed and supervised, just like anyone else's.

Autoethnography shouldn't be acceptable in ANY academic discipline at all. Ever.

"For my thesis, I'm going to interview myself as a research participant, and then I'll draw conclusions from my interview of myself about the culture and system as a whole, based entirely on my own interview of myself"

That shouldn't be accepted as a thesis for any field at all.

 

[smartcooky]

I wouldn't have suggested either Cajun nor Mexican in Tennessee. Barbecue, spicy fried chicken, pie, sweet tea, sure. But Cajun? Nah, go to Louisiana for that, maybe some reasonable spread into E. Texas, or Mississippi. Otherwise you're pretty much getting some corporatized Pappadeaux type stuff - which isn't necessarily bad, but it's not real Cajun either.

You pretty much went to Portugal and ordered French food.

Tennessee Gumbo