It's a rousing defense--in response to an earlier posting here--for which paraphrase would not be adequate; some highlights:
I have never understood what “Neo” is supposed to mean in the context of “NeoNazi”, other than an evocation of Hollywood depictions of “skin head” militiamen. A National Socialist is a National Socialist. Martin Heidegger, the greatest philosopher of the 20th century, was a National Socialist. I am not one, even if I have argued, rightly (in my October Stockholm speech), that National Socialist Germany was the only political regime to seriously consider the implications of mainstream scientific recognition and widespread cultivation of those latent human capacities hitherto marginalized as “paranormal.” To put my relationship to National Socialism in the language of the Left, since most of my accusers fancy themselves of that political persuasion, to call me a National Socialist is like calling someone a Stalinist simply because he is a Marxist. A Trotskyite would certainly be defamed by such an epithet, and would be rightly outraged to be subjected to that kind of slander. I am not any kind of nationalist.
Some important distinctions here: Jorjani stands to Nazism as Trotsky stands to Stalinism. The latter two both self-identify as Marxists, of course, but disagree about implementation of the revolution. So, too, the former two are both pan-Aryan racists and authoritaraians, but disagree about...well, apparently "nationalism." Onward:
It makes no more sense to equate my views with those of Richard Spencer (let alone Adolf Hitler) simply because he patted me on the back on stage for a minute than it does to claim that Barack Obama is a Wahhabi responsible for all of Saudi Arabia’s routinely inhuman barbarity because he knelt and kissed the Saudi King’s hand or sheepishly accepted a medal from him.
In fact, the latter is far more evidence of Obama being an Islamic fundamentalist traitor than my interaction with Spencer is evidence supporting any description of me as an “Aryan White Supremacist” or “NeoNazi.” Even Richard Spencer cannot be fairly described in these terms, let alone myself. You make it seem as if we are supporters of that terribly confused and grotesquely misnamed ‘Aryan Nations’ terrorist group. That is more absurd than if one were to conflate any supporter of the state of Israel with a militant Zionist.
I don't recall anyone mentioning the pat-on-the-back from the NeoNazi Richard Spencer as the key piece of evidence, as opposed to Jorjani's voluntary decision to speak at a meeting of pathetic white people acting out NeoNazi fantasies--a speech, by the way, in which Jorjani declared "Aryan culture" uniquely worthy of affirmation, and denounced democracy, liberalism, and human rights.
But now for some good news: some of Jorjani's best friends (and influences) are Jews!
I am certainly not an “anti-semite”. Thinkers of Jewish descent have been among the deepest influences on my worldview and among my closest confidants: Henri Bergson, Franz Kafka (I have written an entire unpublished manuscript on Kafka), Leo Strauss, and Jeffrey Mishlove. And before anyone adds insult to injury by hurling the epithet “NeoCon” at me, I am not a Neoconservative in any way, shape, or form. I loathe them and consider their geopolitics a disgrace to the subtlety of Professor Strauss – especially his interpretations of classical thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle and his esoteric understanding of the dialectical relationship between Athens and Jerusalem.
The hundreds of hyper-intellectual millennials that I encountered at the 2016 National Policy Institute conference this November, where I was representing Arktos Media as a book distributor, included a number of Jews that I had the pleasure of spending more time with than anyone else over the weekend. In fact, three of them were among the seven (yes it was only seven!) people out of the three hundred attendees who were caught on film or in photographs giving the “Hail Victory!” Roman salute. The Atlantic’s smuggled footage was shot from two camera angles and spliced in order to make it appear otherwise, which, frankly, is more evidence in favor of Richard Spencer’s legitimate use of the term lügenpresse. The young folks that I spent time with are Jewish adherents of Fascism, like some of Benito Mussolini’s staunchest and closest supporters during his early years (in the 1920s) when his vision most extensively overlapped with that of Italian Futurism.
Whoops, there's that Nazi trope, lügenpresse. Never mind, let's get to the intellectual substance to show how far Jorjani is from Nazism:
One of the key points of my very brief speech at NPI 2016 was that as Editor-in-Chief of Arktos I intend to increase the dialectical tension between the already exceptionally wide range of thinkers published by our press. We publish people who have nothing less than diametrically opposed viewpoints. For example, I am currently editing Alexander Dugin. Although we have common points of departure in the ontology of Martin Heidegger and the political theory of Carl Schmitt, our interpretations and developments of these thinkers could not be more sharply opposed. If Dugin were to read Prometheus and Atlas, he would probably consider me the incarnation of the coming Anti-Christ that he evokes in his books. Still, I find his writing interesting and constructively outside the box of the entrenched and dead-ended establishment ideology that you are so intent to safeguard. You are the totalitarian thought police and soma dispensers. I am a futurist, and a revolutionary.
This is definitely a big tent, stretching from the Nazis Heidegger and Schmitt to the authoritarian racist Dugin.
And the first posted comment on Jorjani's rebuttal to being called a NeoNazi? I quote it in full and verbatim: "Your accusers are likely to be jews."
So one thing that's instructive about this delusional display is that the narcissism of small differences really matters to these folks, and they really hate to be called Nazis, even if that's what they are to those outside the narcissistic circle.
By the way, while Stony Brook faculty and students certainly can criticize this alum, I see no grounds on which they could revoke his PhD, as Jorjani's post alleges they are talking about (the evidence is a bit scarce on this point). Alas, Stony Brook owns this clown; perhaps it might prompt some self-scrutiny about the criteria on the basis of which they award degrees. (Recall Jorjani's dissertation abstract.)
Finally, I want to emphasize, as I did originally, that academic freedom protects Jorjani's right to be a monstrous fool; as long as he is discharging his pedagogical duties in a competent manner, his institution should not penalize him. At the same time, everyone else in academic philosophy should know that Jason Reza Jorjani is, indeed, a monstrous fool.
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