American philosopher
Jason Reza Jorjani (born February 21, 1981)[3] is an American philosopher, writer, former New Jersey Institute of Technology lecturer, former editor-in-chief of the European New Right publishing company Arktos Media,[4][5][6] and co-founder of the AltRight Corporation with Richard Spencer.[7]
Early life
Jason Reza Jorjani was born and raised in Manhattan, New York,[7] the only child of an Iranian immigrant father of Qajar descent[7] and a mother who comes from a working-class family of "northern European heritage", more specifically Irish and Scandinavian.[5][7][8]
He is a dual citizen of the United States and Iran.[7]
He attended the Dalton School, on the Upper East Side. After high school, he attended Fordham University for a year before transferring to New York University, where he earned undergraduate and graduate degrees.[7] In 2013, he received a PhD in philosophy from Stony Brook University on Long Island.[9]
Career
While serving as a full-time faculty member at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Jorjani taught courses on science, technology, and society (STS), the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, and the history of Iran.[10] In 2016, Jorjani became editor of alt-right publisher Arktos Media.[11]
Academic suspension and lawsuit
In September 2017, Jorjani was suspended from his teaching position at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in response to a covert video recorded by Patrik Hermansson, a Swedish antifascist activist,[12] who presented himself to Jorjani under the false identity "Erik Hellberg".[13] in which Jorjani predicted a future where concentration camps would return to Europe[14] and Adolf Hitler would appear on European currency by 2050:[12][15] Hermansson met with Jorjani at an Irish bar in midtown Manhattan in June, where the two talked about a future in which Europe embraces fascism. "It's going to end with the expulsion of the majority of migrants including citizens, who are of Muslim descent, generally" Jorjani said. "That's how it's going to end. It's going to end with concentration camps and expulsion and war. At the cost of a few hundred million people."[12]
Jorjani claimed that his remarks were spliced into pieces from a two-hour conversation and rearranged out of context, and that the prediction was a warning of a dystopian future, not an endorsement.[14][16][17]
In February 2017, NJIT officials told Jorjani they would not renew his annual teaching contract. In July 2018, Jorjani filed for a $25M lawsuit against NJIT, alleging that campus officials violated Jornani's constitutional right to freedom of speech and association and that campus leaders and colleagues subsequently defamed Jorjani in campus-wide emails and in the student newspaper. Denise Anderson, a spokeswoman for the school, denied the allegations and said, "Dr. Jorjani's claims of wrongdoing by the university or its representatives are untrue, and we intend to vigorously defend against any such claims."[18]
In March 2019, U.S. District Judge William Martini ruled that Jorjani does not have a case for defamation, stating: "The general allegation is implausible because the facts alleged do not support an inference that defendants knew the recording was edited to misconstrue plaintiff's actual views."[19]
Association with Richard Spencer
Jorjani had met Richard Spencer at a National Policy Institute conference, at which both of them spoke. At the conference attendees gave Nazi salutes as Spencer led the crowd in shouting "Hail Trump!"[20] Jorjani subsequently claimed that he did not intend to speak at the conference and that he rejected the white nationalist ideology Spencer began integrating into their organization.[17]
Founding of the AltRight Corporation
In January 2017,[11] Jorjani co-founded[7] AltRight Corporation and AltRight.com with Richard Spencer before resigning less than a year later in August 2017, for the stated reasons that he wanted to commit to the Iranian Renaissance,[21] a 501(c)(3) cultural organization.[17][22] Jorjani ultimately took a negative view of the AltRight Corporation, referring to it as a "miscarriage" and "total failure".[15]
Involvement in politics
Jellyfish
Among the things that Jorjani would tell Benjamin Teitelbaum, one thing that he placed a lot of emphasis on was his contact with a man in London (who Jorjani refused to name), who was involved variously in Neo-Nazism, Satanism, and Occultism, had a network connected to wealthy muslims and possibly members of the British government, who was emailing Jorjani over the particular interest he had in his book Prometheus and Atlas. Shortly, thereafter this same man began giving Jorjani advice in the direction of ultimately overthrowing the Iranian government alongside those in Turkey, Venezuela, and China by using the services of a private intelligence firm by the name of Jellyfish, founded by veterans of the private security firm Blackwater. Among the other goals of Jellyfish discusses with Jorjani included the plan of creating what they called "micro-cities" which would function as very large and sophisticated refugee camps that would have been built in North Africa to deal with the refugee crisis.[23]
Within this set up the person of contact for Jorjani specifically was a man by the name of Michael Bagley, who was a former aide for the Democratic senator Patty Murray, and based on the advice of the unnamed Londoner Jorjani and Richard Spnecer would go out to meet with Bagley for the first time in September 2016. During their meeting Bagley claimed to Jorjani that Jellyfish maintained a secret radio station in Croatia which was within range of Iran and could be used to broadcast anti-government messages. Furthermore, in order for the plan to work, Donald Trump had to win the election in order for the anti-Iranian activities to get financial sponsorship, after which Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner were integral to this. Particularly, in the case of Bannon, since he was known to be a reader of Arktos Media, a publication which the unnamed man in london advised Jorjani beome it´s Editor-in-Chief, and since Jorjani was supposed to be a man of direct contact with, alongside Jellyfish. At some point Jorjani would meet the unnamed man in london, when he himself was there for a visit with exiled Iranian nationalist groups, sometime shortly after the election of Trump in 2016.[24] On January 2, 2017, Jorjani received an email from Bagley saying that the US Government funding would be received by February 1, after Trump´s inauguration.[25] On March 8, 2017, Jorjani would write an email to Bagley in which he stated he wanted to get rid of Richard Spencer as the leader of the AltRight Corporation.[26] At some point Bagley stopped answering Jorjani´s emails, but he received a document from the unnamed londoner describing how Jellyfish intended to infiltrate the Venezuelan oil.[27] In between January 2 and March 8, as part of the plan Jellyfish claimed to Jorjani that they made contacts with the right people within the Trump Administration, which is reflected in an article put out by the pro-Putin Israeli commentator Avigdor Eskin, who claimed in article published by RIA Novosti on February 2 that Jellyfish had made contact with Michael Flynn.[28] Ultimately, nothing is understood to have been achieved in Jorjani´s relationship with Jellyfish, since Michael Bagley was arrested by the FBI and Steve Bannon reportedly had never heard of him.[29]
Furthermore, according to Teitelbaum the unnamed Londoner who he speaks of is connected to the Sufi traditionalist Martin Lings and he has many ties to wealthy middle easterners including the former Emir of Qatar Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and the Iranian nationalist Darius Guppy, who is known for illegally raising money and is himself a friend of Boris Johnson.[30]
Contact with Avigdor Lieberman
On October 9, 2023, in the context of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war Jorjani sent out a tweet stating that he had made contact with Avigdor Lieberman back in 2018 persuading him against intervening Iran and supporting groups such as the MEK because it would be "counter-productive in terms of clearly defining the pro-Israeli, and even pro-Zionist character of our movement".[31]
Views
Jorjani's ideas have been described by journalist Olivia Goldhill as influenced by Dark Enlightenment philosophy, particularly that of Nick Land.[32] In a 2023 Break The Rules livestream, Jorjani denied being influenced by Land.[33][non-primary source needed]
The Prometheist Manifesto
In "The Prometheist Manifesto", Jorjani criticised the modern concept of God as a "jealous and tyrannically wrathful God-Father, archetypally identical to Zeus".[34] Instead, Jorjani supported the idea of the myth of Prometheus as the creator of Man and likened the fire that he stole from Olympus as a symbol of the power of technology and science to free humanity from scarcity and ignorance.
According to Benjamin Teitelbaum, Jorjani presented him a copy of Prometheus and Atlas to give to Steve Bannon as a gift.[35]
In the Prometheist Manifesto, Jorjani endorsed the false claim that COVID-19 was created as a bio-weapon at the Wuhan Virology Laboratory in China.[36][non-primary source needed]
Views on white nationalism
Speaking at a conference organized by Richard Spencer in 2016, Jorjani referred to the collapse of the Sasanian Persian Empire as the "first and greatest white genocide."[7] In 2018, Jorjani identified himself as an "Iranian Zionist".[37][non-primary source needed] Jorjani has written in support of eugenics and has claimed that Iran cannot culturally, technologically, and scientifically advance unless it restores its "pre-Arab and pre-Mongol genetic character".[7] In 2017, he predicted that Muslim citizens and immigrants would be deported from Europe by 2050.[38]
In 2017, Jorjani stated that he is not a white nationalist or racist.[15] He identifies himself as a progressive and a feminist.[17] After resigning from AltRight, he stated that the organization was "reduced, basically, to a platform for organizing alt-right rallies attended by some very questionable individuals who I want not very much to do with".[15]
According to Harrison Fluss and Landon Frim writing in Jacobin, Jorjani has promoted various antisemitic and white nationalist fringe conspiracy theories, despite disputing the label:
Jorjani's writings, political activities, speeches, and media appearances have drawn charges of antisemitism and Islamophobia. In one instance, he suggested that Yahweh and Allah were actually space aliens who enslaved their believers and tricked them into committing genocide. He has openly characterized certain high-ranking Nazi officials as akin to supermen with psychic powers. While Jorjani has vehemently denied the charges of bigotry leveled against him, his public statements do make you wonder.[39]
