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Notes -
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1j1ye6n30no
(Non pay wall link)
Tragic end.
I feel bad for the dude - honestly a hearty laugh is all I want when people violate social norms like this and show us how frankly evil our institutions can be.
Sure I can blame the dude for every lie told but it only permeates my life several levels deep … the association of someone like Arday and my life only really touches when the walks start crumbling down.
What gets me mad is the institutions.
It’s their fault! Every step of the way someone, anyone, could have stepped in and stopped folly.
But things snowball and here we are.
I don’t even know what I’m supposed to learn from this, and I don’t know how I can help make the world a better place than I left it. People used to change the world I feel like, and I’m only changing the people around me … which is something!
I’m 100% reading the biography about this.
At the end of the day the only person who can kill themselves is obviously, themselves. We can talk about how hard it is to weather harassment and controversies and whatever, and how much anyone in particular "deserves" to have mean stuff said to them, but I have always been against the idea of blaming others for someone else's choice, regardless of how grim it is. Just turn off the computer/leave the room/whatever if people are being mean and you don't like it, they have free speech to say awful stuff and tough shit deal with it. Tons of other people live with seeing awful stuff about them all day, just check the comments of any controversial minority group content creator like outspoken jews or trans people to see evidence of that. There is no shortage of meanness on the internet and if that existing means no one else can speak then why even have the internet to begin with?
The only place I can think of at the top of my head where there is a meaningful exception is with school bullies, and that's only because the government mandates attendence for anyone who isn't being home schooled (which isn't possible for many families) thus making "just leave" not an option.
It sucks that Arday died, but no one is at fault for a suicide except for himself. We can't give up our freedoms to criticize and mock just because someone else might do something bad (whether that be suicide or murder or whatever).
It speaks to the inordinate amount of social and political capital that black people have today. There wouldn't be a shred of sympathy from either aisle if Arday was Israeli or Indian. I don't have a strong opinion on whether the dogpiling was deserved or not (okay, maybe I'm leaning towards not).
Academic misconduct is a serious issue, and this was a grown man who knew what he was doing, mental illness or not. His fate was sealed by his own choices, his widow and children will bear the brunt of his actions now.
Is it their social and political capital? Or is it that people subconsciously see them as lacking agency? With Arday, it's hard not to see him as a child who was in way over his head, being used as a pawn in someone's status game.
Maybe those two things are related. The Women are Wonderful Effect seems to relate to regarding women as less agentic too.
Well here are a few scenarios I thought of:
Alan Dershowitz, a well respected attorney and law professor who (1) was caught up with Jeffrey Epstein to some extent and accused of having relations with Virginia Giuffre (probably a false accusation, but still potentially damaging); and (2) was accused of plagiarizing parts of a book (as I recall, he blamed his research assistant);
Bernie Sanders, well respected among progressives, socialists, etc. despite having a substantial personal fortune;
Richard Posner, a well respected judge whose writings arguably contain a lot of political incorrectness.
My sense is that the social and political capital possessed by these men helped protect them. But what's interesting to me is that for the most part, people didn't take the position that the problems these men got into were the result of them being victims of circumstance, being innocent pawns who were manipulated by larger forces, etc. It seems they were all treated as having agency.
By contrast, it seems that this Jason Arday is thought of as lacking agency by both his supporters and his detractors.
I note there's another thing your 3 examples have in common. I don't think that's what protected them, but it's curious that a commonality like that exists among the 3 scenarios that came to your mind.
I would ask that you speak plainly and not cryptically. I suspect you are trying to imply that there is some dark Jewish Conspiracy which, for reasons best known to the conspirators, goes out of its way to cover for Bernie Sanders (who has led the effort in the Senate to end US military aid to Israel) but persecutes Zionists such as Harvey Weinstein.
But I am not inclined to try to guess what your point is. So . . . what exactly are you trying to say here?
Edit: Oops, I misread your post. You said that the commonality did NOT protect them. So now I have absolutely no idea what your point is. I thought of 3 outspoken Americans, two of whom are attorneys, and they all happen to be of Jewish descent? Or maybe it's not the Jewish angle? Seriously, what are you trying to say here?
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This is not speaking plainly.
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It also helps that at least two of them are incredibly competent.
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