Since it’s my policy here to be 100% honest, I should say now that although I stand by yesterday’s post, I feel bad about it.
My criticism of Nathan Cofnas was very mild: “He could have handled it better.”
But the mob has come after Nathan, so I do feel reservations….
Even so, I’m leaving it up. As Sophie Cunningham wrote, “I said what I said.”
I’ll also say that Nathan did the right thing by publishing the initial revelation of the plagiarism. This is an academic issue and it deserved to be exposed.
But when you go on Megyn Kelly, something’s wrong.
I wrote this in response to his note about appearing on Megyn Kelly.
Although my tone was disapproving I did “give it a pass.”
I shouldn’t have done that. I became sucked into the mob mentality. I’m in a glass house here. I take my lumps. I was wrong.
And now the story has mushroomed and taken on every woke pathology. They’re coming to get him.
It’s also become antisemitic, because Nathan Cofnas is Jewish.
The left has formed its own howling mob1 blaming the situation on everyone but Cambridge.
I blame Cambridge solely and completely. Why do I blame Cambridge and not Arday?
Because I don’t think Arday was an adult. Therefore he wasn’t competent. When I saw the pictures of him in that bonnet, I winced. The pictures, which I will not put up here, show a sweet person of very limited intellect. They show a kid in an adult body.
He wasn’t a sophisticated manipulator. His lies fairly shouted: “I am an ignoramus.” Those smart, evil Cambridge bastards manipulated themselves.
Being an effective fabulist requires more than simply being willing to lie. You have to understand what other people will find plausible, anticipate questions, maintain consistency, and add the right amount of corroborating detail.
The really accomplished fabulist doesn’t merely say, “I did X.” He constructs an entire world in which X naturally happened and in no real world did Arday’s fantasies happen.
Arday’s claims were conspicuously implausible in ways that a reasonably sophisticated person should have detected.
An intelligent fraudster understands that reality is the best camouflage. Take something that really happened, enlarge it, rearrange it, give yourself a more impressive role, and make the story difficult to falsify.
The unsophisticated fabulist does the opposite: he replaces reality.
His lies were just like his plagiarism: crude copying.
I suspect he didn’t even understand he was plagiarizing (or lying). He just read something and thought, “I’ll use that” or “that’s mine.” He heard about great athletic feats and he said to himself, “I’ll say that.” No filter, no reason. Just: “It sounds good.”
I used to know guys like that back in Queens where I grew up. They would make up lies - about meeting a baseball player and going out for a drink with them - something like that. We humored them - they harmed no one.
Meanwhile, Cambridge has people like this on their faculty.
Who is worse? Arday or Farah Ahmed?
PS It’s my usual policy not to link to the NY Times but this article is surprisingly good.
But I repeat myself - the left IS a howling mob.