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A Nazi's PhD Thesis

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Brian Leiter, in his blog, has posted an abstract of the doctoral dissertation of one Jason Reza Jorjani, a lecturer in humanities at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. The fellow with his fist in the air is Jorjani.


Technological science has shattered the worldviews of all traditional cultures subjected to it, at times provoking reactionary religious responses that only underscore the traumatic force of this worldwide development. Yet, as I argue, this world-colonizing force is not neutral. The anticipatory projection and world-building characteristic of scientific theorization are grounded in a practical comportment, so that the essence of technology or Craft is ontologically prior to theoretical science. In other words, science is always already Technoscience. Moreover the theoretical concepts and methodologies involved in predictive calculation and in crafting frameworks that model and mold the world are derived from pre-conceptual ideas of an aesthetic character, namely Prometheus and Atlas—titanic gods with a Greek genealogy and a cosmopolitan promise.

Diabolically, this reveals itself through attention to what it is about Nature that eludes the grasp of theorization. The ideas or idealities foundational to Technoscience are not abstract, as the concepts derived from them are. Rather, they are spectral personae. The mathematical and geometric structure of scientific projections cannot model those phenomena that most strikingly manifest the spectrality of Nature. These so-called "paranormal" phenomena are perfectly normal in animals and even simpler organisms still guided by instinct. It is our hypertrophied technical intellect that has atrophied them, but they can be regained through a cultivation of intuition. Indeed, only aesthetic intuition can consciously recognize the specters of Technoscience and transform our hitherto unconscious relationship with them to one wherein we are superhumanly empowered by embodying them rather than experiencing them as alienating instrumental forces.

Don't understand it? Don't sweat that.

As Leiter also observes, Jorjani is a neo-Nazi. Here is a Youtube of a speech of his, if you can bear it.

These two facts, the obscure style of his dissertation and his neo-Nazism, are related. The abstract makes Jorjani sounds a lot like Heidegger. The worshipful reversion to Greek mythology, technophobia, back-to-Nature wistfulness, heck, there's even the bit at the end here about becoming superhuman -- these are the usual elements in the compound of a Nazi trying to seem profound and high-brow.

Oh, and I hope to say something more about this fellow Jorjani tomorrow.
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