The Jason Arday scandal

[Ilikesundays]

To think that Cambridge University’s reputation has been shot to pieces by the revelations about ex-professor Jason Arday?

SevenYellowHammers · Today 18:14
Never, ever underestimate the vindictiveness of the ruling classes

Can you give some examples of this vindictiveness?

Do you mean 'Never, ever underestimate the distaste of the public when people lie and manipulate to gain advancement that they don't deserve'?

Like using lawfare to silence journalists investigating their actions? Is that the kind of thing you mean?

To be fair though, Ardel might still have been in post if he hadn’t resigned?

Because no rich white men use injunctions or gagging orders to kill bad publicity..

And is that a good thing? I personally think it's always bad when the rich and powerful use bullying tactics to silence criticism. For you does it depend on the personal characteristics of the person weaponising the legal system to shut down scrutiny of their actions?

This is a very ignorant comment.

I wonder why you feel you are an arbiter of what is racist.

I would hope not because that would mean being prejudiced.

Yes, but they do have real and verifiable qualifications, whatever you might personally think of them.

People go to museums to learn about the paintings and artefacts. Why would you want to provided them with a filtered version of their history?

It's a shame you don't engage with the decolonisation process. It provides fascinating insights, new stories and you come away from it feeling that you have a much fuller, and therefore more rewarding, understanding of our past.

Not everyone finds their rewards through going backwards in time.

If you're looking at paintings and artefacts from the past you ARE going backwards in time.

You can't have it both ways.

If that were the case, you would need to question what they were doing in a museum, though, wouldn’t you - given the entire purpose of them is to allow us to perhaps better understand our present by offering a window into the past?

Yes you are, and one can choose how they interpret the past in line with the present.

I just want to look at nice stuff 😂

Great, if you can leave the past behind in the time it was still relevant.

There is much about Trump’s history that is unverifiable actually, or verifiable and actively dodgy. See also Epstein.

No idea what qualified BJ to run the country. He was a law breaking liar who repeatedly misled Parliament.

How interesting that a thread about a cheating academic has come round to the right wing and Trump.

Nope. If I meant that that is what I would have said.

Yep, that is a ruling class trait.

But the point is - it is still relevant today? Clearly, otherwise people would not be discussing links to the slave trade and colonialism and how that shaped the history that these artefacts evidence?

If in doubt, drag Trump into the debate.

There’s quite a clear line from over-promoted fantasists to Trump. A continuum you might say.

I'm gobsmacked Farage hasn't made an appearance.

Can we really leave the past behind? Does it not inform and create the present?