Jason Arday has died
“At this time his death is being treated as unexpected, but is not believed to be suspicious. The case is being investigated by officers from the Met’s Central South Command Unit. A file will be prepared for the coroner.”
He cited an “unrelenting level of public scrutiny” as his reason for resigning.
I find it suspicious until proven otherwise. Suspicious of suicide, to be exact. But there are more innocuous possibilities. All of it is extremely sad.
One thing that seems clear and has seemed clear from the start: whether or not Arday’s backstory of mutism till 11 because of autism was true, it seemed fairly certain that he was both a liar and a fragile person who both used and was used by the DEI system. Then, when the unraveling occurred, it was overwhelming to go from the heights of adulation to become basically a joke.
Apparently it was too much for his system to handle, however he met death. This is an extremely sad sequel to the story, and if suicide was involved I suppose that, in retrospect, it should have been predicted as a possibility. Was he getting any sort of psychological help with the fallout of his fall from grace? I haven’t a clue, but it seemed indicated.
His latest book is titled Great and Unfortunate Things. His death is a highly unfortunate thing and I think an extremely sad one.
RIP, Jason Arday.
RIP. It does sound like suicide, but no doubt there will be a report.
Kate:
And the right will be blamed by the left who will make Arday into a martyr. I doubt they will examine their own role.
It’s a truly horrible situation from start to finish.
Yes, Neo, I’ve already seen posts about how the “right” and “white supremacy” are responsible for Arday’s death. This makes no sense, but logical thinking is not strong among leftists.
I thought, when I read about his resignation and the preposterous stories in his forthcoming book, that his career and his ability to make a living at all were over. He may have thought so as well. But this horrible situation was not “done to” him. Unless he was really unable to distinguish truth from fantasy, he did this to himself.
Well. He leaves his family with a million dollar fund, from his almost to be released…memoir.
All people are the masters of their fates and captains of their souls. If true, dying by one’s own hand is unfortunate, but is always upon oneself. He will absolutely be canonized as a martyr by the modern West’s virtue signaling zeitgeist. Like the slaves of old, they needed a token black to use at their cocktail parties.
Sad, but Arday still asked “how high” every time they told him to jump.
A victim of DEIversity. A selfie-abortion to relieve his “burden”. RIP
Re: Arday’s death [copied ffrom Open Thread]
Some will blame the right, no doubt.
But this is one of the less visible results of DEI and current academia. Minority people can be crutched to positions they can’t handle, fail, then have to live with failure.
Or choose not to live with failure, as I suspect in Arday’s case.
It’s a kind of pitiless cruelty committed by those impressed by their own good intentions.
Sure, Arday had his own agency, but his career as a liar should never have been allowed to get this far.
Ugh. Arday leaves a wife and two children. May God and kind people help them.
As they say, the path to hell is paved with “good intentions” Huxley, and virtue fetishists are some of the most evil people in the world.
Because they’re just oh so sure they’re right, “they’ll torture us for eternity for our own good” per T.S. Elliot
The Left will claim the Right drove him to this by unrelenting critiques.
I’m seeing that his committing suicide is kind of a nasty, passive-aggressive gesture. An awful, self-dramatic, self centered thing, saying essentially, “You! (meaning the world in general) will all be sorry – I’ll off myself and it is all your fault!”
After what I’ve been reading, I was afraid he’d kill himself.
What amazes me is how people seemed to believe his claims, many of which were completely outlandish. It’s almost as if he just kept exaggerating and exaggerating, just waiting for someone to call him on it. And no one did until he was in too deep — and he discovered that he really liked where he was. At that point it was a little late to say, “Ha! Ha! You fell for it!!”
This is terrible. This man bears responsibility, of course, for what he chose to do, but clearly he was half-broken and vulnerable and inhabited some deluded place between fantasy and reality. The greater responsibility belongs to those at Cambridge and on the left in general who saw the opening created by his vulnerability and used it to their advantage. They encouraged him to go farther and farther into fantasy and said, “Yes, yes, we’ll reward you, yes, we’ll pretend to believe you, go ahead!” so they could earn points toward their own self images. Then when the wind shifted they abandoned him. Look at any recent picture of the man. You can see the desperation in his eyes, the hope to be believed and loved. I am not excusing him. I am saying the greater responsibility belongs to those who used him for their benefit, knowing that he, and not they, would pay the price.
Used and discarded. A calculating man would have taken the money and run, he was honestly nuts, and likely took himself seriously.
I don’t care. Does that make me a bad person?
“I don’t care. Does that make me a bad person?”
It doesn’t. Unwillin Barkis has spoken.
Mrs. Whatsit has it exactly right. This outcome only deepens the guilt and perfidy of his Cambridge enablers.
IrishOtter: “Does that make me a bad person?”
Well at least no worse than you were before:)
To amplify “honestly nuts”. Plagiarism and fantasy looked like the rules of the academic game, and indeed they were. He played by the rules, no one told him different. He was not alone in this.
@Sgt. Mom: I’m seeing that his committing suicide is kind of a nasty, passive-aggressive gesture. An awful, self-dramatic, self centered thing, saying essentially, “You! (meaning the world in general) will all be sorry – I’ll off myself and it is all your fault!”
I get that too. At the personal and political levels.
There is a pathology to leftism.
What did his wife know? Now, she has to tell her children. But, tell them what?
I wonder if Simon & Schuster will still go ahead and publish his autobiography, which I believe was scheduled to go on sale this week?
If there are any signed copies, I guess they can always try to sell them as collector items.
Or, will they just pulp the whole lot?
I believe I saw that someone claimed that Arday was given a million dollar advance.
I wonder how much of that is true?
Snow on Pine:
It’s already been published in the US and is due in Britain in just a few days.
Gad Saad shares his thoughts on Arday. Also a particular interaction Saad had with a British cardiologist friend, Dr Aseem Malhotra, who has also appeared on Saad’s podcast.
Malhotra argued that Arday was purely a victim of systemic structural racism. Saad, not surprisingly, disagrees. Saad concludes, “I am utterly baffled. I don’t know what to say.”
–Gad Saad, “Did Systemic Structural Racism Result in Jason Arday’s Suicide? (THE SAAD TRUTH_2066)” (10:33)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2aiCUgDVGo
If there was “systemic structural racism,” it was deployed in Arday’s favor, and placed him in positions he was not competent to fill.