Much of the left take a very moralistic view of the world and its struggles, made up of good people who are oppressed and bad people who are the oppressors.  This means the oppressed – identified by their class and race etc. – must always be right, and the oppressors – including their allies on the right of the political spectrum – must always be wrong.  There are absolute moral values that can determine who is supported and is right and who is damned and wrong.  What is wrong with this has been illustrated by the case of Jason Arday, the young black Cambridge professor who was accused first of plagiarism and then of fabrication of his life story that got him into Cambridge in the first place.

If you see the world through the lens of moral absolutes it requires that a world of moral absolutes looks back at you.  Otherwise, what is revealed is a world that confounds these neat binaries, one that exposes the contradictions of the world and in views and opinions that have no room for them.

The first response I read to the Arday story, and repeated elsewhere, was the claim that in academia lots of people plagiarise other work – why pick on him?  The answer from the left was – because he was black!  He received a vastly disproportionate pile-on by the right wing media that was largely fuelled by racism and that would not have been carried out had he been white.

Various other arguments stated that he wasn’t guilty of plagiarism at all, that he hadn’t vastly exaggerated his life story, or if he had it wasn’t to the extent claimed, sometimes with the additional claim that in any case it was in some way excusable because of his declared autism. 

Arday was a victim of racism – what side are you on?  His interrogators were the right wing press feeding off a ‘race-realist’ that posited the general inferiority of black people.  His death, presumably by suicide, was a form of murder.  It was necessary to name the criminals who, as one site put it, metaphorically tied him up and flogged him so that, it must reasonably be assumed, they were a significant contributory factor to his death.

As so stated, this is a fairly clear-cut situation, even if one might recoil from the proposal that the state should step in to censor such media treatment: giving the state more powers of repression is never a good idea, we should know in whose interests it does this for and who it does it to.

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What’s wrong with this narrative?

The assertion – Why pick on Arday? is first of all not a defence.  It’s like being caught robbing a bank and excusing yourself by saying you didn’t do it by yourself.  It invites responses such as Why not? Are we to cover it up, ignore it, claim it doesn’t matter, or even claim it didn’t happen?  But what if there are powerful forces prepared to do none of this?  Do we persist in making these moves and therefore making ourselves complicit, opening ourselves up to ridicule and similar charges of dishonesty?  Is the cause worth the price?  What would we be defending?

When the right wing press piled onto Arday’s case, was it disproportionate to other cases of plagiarism that were not so copiously treated?

Arday’s case was different, different because it combined his extraordinary and unbelievable claims about his life, which it is unnecessary to repeat here; his elevation to such a prestigious position when he was so woefully underqualified and patently inadequate to it; the acclaim as “the best in the world in terms of the research that you do” by his boss at Cambridge, Hilary Cremin; by his notoriety outside academia, including though prominent media appearances, a lucrative book deal, honorary doctorates and other awards, and places on various committees for the great and the good.  He propelled himself into these as much as he was pulled.

Above all he became a totem; representing more than himself, which he voluntarily promoted and which the right wing press wanted to destroy. He presented himself as someone who through his own will could overcome a poor background, disability, and racial discrimination to reach the lofty position that he did.  He set an example to everyone who were the same.  Except, by lying so outrageously he betrayed those he presented as inspiring.

Socialists don’t believe that poverty, disability and discrimination can be overcome individually as an act of will, and ironically Arday proved it.  He was not someone to emulate even if he had not fabricated his life. Watching the story unfold I was reminded of the famous quote by John Maclean, the Scottish revolutionary socialist –”Rise with your class, not out of it.” 

The aim of socialism is not to have the same proportion of black people in poverty, or in high position, as white people.  It is not to have equality of exploitation and oppression or of privilege, wealth and power.  It does not support identity politics that replaces class emancipation with equity in class oppression, but that is the meaning of the totem that Arday became, and that he celebrated.

So, should we defend him by covering up or excusing him? -No! Is his cause worth the price that would be paid? – No!  Does that mean we ignore or endorse the right wing media that piled on? – No!  Do we fail to recognise racism when we see it? No!

What we do is what so much of the left seems inherently incapable of doing – taking an independent position of opposition to identity politics separate and opposed to the opposition to it from the right. We oppose it for very different reasons, and we fight it in very different ways: not to further the division of the working class but to further unite it.

We do so by recognising the real world, without ignoring the bits that don’t fit a preconceived moral narrative.  We don’t elevate the subjective feelings and views of the oppressed as something to subordinate our own politics to (with its basis in objective reality), which means we can’t mute ourselves in case the feelings of some in oppressed groups are hurt or engage in self-harm, even less to threats to do so.  Being ‘kind’ is not a political prescription or one of the moral absolutes we started this article with.

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Inevitably, every new narrative will now be read backwards from Jason Arday’s death, but this does not mean it can be narrated forward such as it had above all to be avoided.  We can take no responsibility for the actions of the right wing press or think there is now some simple step that can stop it in future.  His death was tragic, but the tragedy had many antecedent sources. 

When it was reported I recalled attending a funeral of a young woman.  Her family suffered not only limitless grief but a yawning void where an explanation for her action might be, one that perhaps might have provided some point of reference that would allow their loss to be slightly more bearable.  The question why? remained unresolved.  It seemed to me that she had taken an ultimate act of control in circumstances in which she had no control.  There were no answers.

One discussion of Arday’s presumed last act stated my own view more precisely.  It arose when ‘the relationship between the self and society is off kilter, preventing a healthy sense of meaning, purpose and connection’. Connection to the world that Jason Arday helped construct for himself, validated by those he thought were for him, and which defined who he was, was gone.  He now had no control over the relations that he had within society, that gave his life the meaning he had so assiduously sought, and the purpose to which he had put his life.  It would seem he could find no other.