As was inevitable, the Arday Affair is moving on from the examination of one fabulist and plagiarist to the rot that has consumed much of the higher-education sector. These clowns oversee the step from childhood to adulthood for approaching half of all young people - and pretty much all the teachers, social workers, health professionals, and those working in charities, think-tanks, the civil service, publishing and HR - and of course the next generation of academics. No wonder so many young people believe stupid and dangerous things: they have been taught those things. We must be mad to entrust young people to these clowns - and to pay them.
If your life’s great passion is the study of bouncy castles, pole dancing or writing essays on autoethnography, there ought to be nothing to stop you from working at Toys R Us, a gentleman’s club or the Guardian.
But these people have all chosen to pursue academia. They are attracted to the status it confers. This was the world in which Jason Arday thrived.
His colleagues at Cambridge were carrying out research on how fairy tales can break the gender binary in playgrounds or writing ‘a self-portrait of an artist who teaches’. Is it really surprising that his error-ridden thesis didn’t stand out against this backdrop?
✍️ Lara Brown
Article |
spectator.com/article/class-…