One year after the Capitol insurrection, the highest-ranking active-duty military officer charged in the attack continues to serve as a major in the Marines.
Christopher John Warnagiris, who's accused of assaulting police and using his body to hold open doors that allowed other insurrectionists to enter the Capitol, is stationed at the Marine base in Quantico, Virginia, where he is assigned to the training and education command.
A Marine Corps spokesperson told The Intercept this week that a hearing was held at Quantico in the fall of 2021 to determine whether Warnagiris should be allowed to remain in the Marines.
“The members of the board, by majority vote and by a preponderance of evidence standard, made recommendations to the Commanding General, Training and Education Command,” the spokesperson said. “The Commanding General, Training and Education Command, reviewed the recommendations of the board and matters submitted by Maj. Warnagiris before making a recommendation to the Secretary of the Navy. No further information can be released at this time.”
While Warnagiris awaits his fate in the Marines and in federal court, where his criminal case is also pending, the Intercept revealed a possible motivation for his role in the attack.
As a senior at St. John’s College, Warnagiris' yearlong capstone writing project was titled “Reason at all Cost: The Defining Human Quality in Epictetus’ Discourses," according to the school's 2002 commencement pamphlet.
"I don’t know what Warnagiris wrote about Epictetus, or whether the philosopher has continued to impact his thinking, but in the years since Warnagiris graduated from college, Epictetus, a relatively obscure Stoic philosopher who lived 2,000 years ago, has become a surprise rock star in the strange world of the alt-right," the Intercept's James Risen reports. "The alt-right has laid claim to Epictetus and a select group of Stoics and other ancient thinkers to underscore their view that they are the defenders of a traditional, white-male dominated Western civilization that is under siege today from the left."
The alt-right's embrace of Epictetus and Stoicism is odd given that the philosophers "advocated for a rational life in which each person accepted that they could only control themselves and their own emotions and behavior, not the external world," according to Risen. Nevertheless, Epictetus' “Enchiridion" is among the “recommended texts on the Red Pill subreddit," according to classics scholar Donna Zuckerberg.
Risen concludes that the alt-right has adopted Epictetus because they believe he reflects the "masculine ideal" of controlling one's emotions and directing energy into action.
"It is as if the alt-right sees Epictetus as an ancient version of Gary Cooper’s character in 'High Noon,' the quiet marshal who stands alone against the bad guys, or Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne, the stern amnesiac who finally remembers who he is and tries to fight against evil forces inside the CIA," Risen writes, adding that while "this fan-boy approach ... may seem laughable," it's also "a symptom of something deeper and more dangerous."
"A belief that they are the guardians of Western civilization against the advancing left-wing hordes seems to tie together both alt-right provocateurs and other conservative intellectuals, and they all now seem to be converging at the extreme edge of the political spectrum," Risen writes. "And this widely held fear of the looming loss of Western civilization seems to be leading many conservatives to believe that overthrowing American democracy may be necessary to save the country."
