Aragorn!

This article is about the anarchist theorist. For other uses, see Aragorn (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Aragon (disambiguation).
Aragorn!
Born(1970-01-01)1 January 1970
United States
Died13 February 2020(2020-02-13) (aged 50)
San Francisco Bay Area, United States
Other namesAragorn Bang
CitizenshipUnited States
OccupationsSystems administrator, writer, publisher, editor
MovementAnarchism

Aragorn! (1970–2020), was an Odawa systems administrator, writer, and anarchist. Founder of The Anarchist Library, he helped establish a portion of the anarchist movement's computer networks at the beginning of the 21st century while writing, publishing, or editing numerous texts, some of which are noted as significant for contemporary anarchist thought. He is generally credited as one of the founders of the indigenous anarchism (or anarcho-indigenism) tendency.

Born into an Odawa family, Aragorn was given this name at birth. He joined the punk, vegan, and anarchist movements in his twenties and began writing for numerous anarchist and punk publications. Among the publications he contributed to were Oppression Song, After the Revolution, HeartattaCk, Maximum Rock'nroll, Inside Front, Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed, Attentat, and especially Green Anarchy. Some of his contributions to the latter were noted as indicative of the anarchist movement's reach into First Nations peoples and as landmark moments for the birth of the anarcho-indigenism tendency. In general, Aragorn! favored insurrectionist, queer, or anti-civ tendencies in his publications and projects.

He also founded a relatively large number of websites and digital initiatives starting in the 2000s, the most famous of which, The Anarchist Library, holds a prominent place in anarchist propaganda in the early 21st century, according to certain historians. Aragorn! died in 2020 in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Biography

Aragorn! was born in 1970 in the United States. He was born and raised within the Odawa people and was given the name Aragorn at birth.[1] Later, he adopted the pseudonym 'Aragorn!', choosing the exclamation point to signify 'Aragorn Bang'.[1]

He began joining the punk, vegan, and anarchist movements in his twenties, participating in several fanzines on the U.S. West Coast.[1][2] Aragorn also helped organize Café Che in Berkeley and the Berkeley Anarchist Study Group, one of the oldest anarchist groups in the country.[1][2] The fanzines he contributed to during this period included Oppression Song, After the Revolution, HeartattaCk, Maximum Rock'nroll and Inside Front.[1][2]

At the beginning of the 2000s, he took a hiatus after leaving the punk movement following accusations regarding his sexual conduct, before relaunching several anarchist initiatives.[1][2] These were manifold. Primarily, he wrote and engaged in editorial work for articles and texts through Green Anarchy (2000–2009), Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed, Attentat, and Black Seed (2014–present).[1][2] In the first publication of this list, he sought to demonstrate the proximity between anarchism and the liberation struggles of the First Nations, of which he was a member.[3][4] According to some historians, appellist networks were in contact with him during this period before he broke with them, 'considering that their sectarian nature was dangerous'.[1]

He also founded the publishing house Little Black Cart and launched and maintained a number of digital initiatives, such as anarchyplanet.org, anokchan.org, Anarchy Bang Radio, The Brilliant Podcast, anarchistnews.org, Anarchy 101, The Anvil Review, and The Anarchist Library.[1]

In 2011, he supported anarchist participation in Occupy Canada.[5]

Aragorn! died on 13 February 2020 in the San Francisco Bay Area.[1][2]

Thought

Among the anarchist's political positions, one finds a commitment to the intersectionality of struggles, adopting clear stances in favor of the emergence and development of queer anarchism and eco-anarchism through anti-civ texts; however, he also leaned toward insurrectionary anarchism.[1][6] He reportedly defended the use of propaganda by the deed as a means of conducting the anarchist struggle.[1] The anarchist Bob Black described him as a representative of post-anarchism.[7]

In 2017, in his philosophy thesis, Nicholas Montgomery considered that some of Aragorn!'s texts addressing the philosophical tension between technophilia and technophobia remained among the most 'sophisticated' writings on the subject to date.[6]

Although critical of Eurocentric anarchism, Aragorn! supported a number of elements derived from that philosophical tradition.[8] For instance, he considered mutual aid to be a fundamental tenet of anarchism, despite its roots in the European intellectual tradition.[8]

Legacy

Aragorn! as an indicator for the birth of anarcho-indigenism

Some of his contributions in Green Anarchy, particularly his text titled 'Locating an Indigenous Anarchism', are seen as indicative of the emergence of an anarchist tendency specific to First Nations.[1][3][9] His work is also noted for marking the penetration of the anarchist movement within these peoples.[1][3][10]

Researcher Alexander Dunlap notes this influence, and historian Denisa Krásná describes it as follows:[11][12]

Although Alfred was the first scholar to coin and theorize anarcho-Indigenism, its early foundations can be traced in the writings by the anarchist political theorist, publisher, and writer Aragorn!.

Influence of his digital initiatives

According to historian CEP, Aragorn! 'organized a portion of the movement's computer networks at the beginning of the 21st century', a situation explained by the significant role some of these initiatives played for anarchism in the 2000s and 2010s.[1] For instance, The Anarchist Library alone is said to have gained a notable place in anarchist propaganda during the first decades of the century.[1]

Works

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p CEP 2026, p. 1-10.
  2. ^ a b c d e f "Aragorn!—Elegy for an Antagonist : On Hostility and Its Limits". CrimethInc. 2020-02-19. Retrieved 2026-02-24.
  3. ^ a b c Kauanui, J. Kēhaulani (2021-05-17). "The Politics of Indigeneity, Anarchist Praxis, and Decolonization". Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies. 2021 (1): 25. ISSN 1923-5615. Archived from the original on 2025-11-07. Retrieved 2026-02-27.
  4. ^ Dupuis-Déri, Francis; Pillet, Benjamin (2019). L'anarcho-indigénisme: entretiens réunis et présentés par Francis Dupuis-Déri et Benjamin Pillet. Instinct de liberté. Lux éditeur. pp. 29–31. ISBN 978-2-89596-298-4.
  5. ^ Street politics in the age of austerity: from the indignados to occupy. Protest and social movements. Routledge. 2025. pp. 184–185. ISBN 978-1-003-70443-0.
  6. ^ a b Nicholas Montgomery (2017). Cultivating Autonomy from Empire: Exploring the Edges of Anarchism and Permaculture (PhD thesis). Kingston, Ontario, Canada: Queen's University. pp. 115–117.
  7. ^ Black, Bob (2015). "Notes on post-left anarchism" (PDF). The Anarchist Library: 2.
  8. ^ a b Roman-Alcalá, Antonio (2025). "Anarchism, degrowth, and food sovereignty: exploring overlaps and tensions". Degrowth Journal. 3: 8. doi:10.36399/Degrowth.003.03.04. Archived from the original on 2026-01-28. Retrieved 2026-02-27.
  9. ^ Jacqueline Lasky. "Indigenism, Anarchism, Feminism: An Emerging Framework for Exploring Post-Imperial Futures". Queens University. Retrieved 2026-02-24.
  10. ^ Roman-Alcalá, Antonio (2020-05-20). "Agrarian anarchism and authoritarian populism: towards a more (state-)critical 'critical agrarian studies'". The Journal of Peasant Studies. 48 (2): 309–310. doi:10.1080/03066150.2020.1755840. hdl:1765/133397. ISSN 0306-6150. Archived from the original on 2021-05-03. Retrieved 2026-02-27.
  11. ^ Dunlap, Alexander (2021-01-27). "Toward an Anarchist Decolonization: A Few Notes". Capitalism Nature Socialism. 32 (4): 67. doi:10.1080/10455752.2021.1879186. ISSN 1045-5752. Archived from the original on 2025-06-04. Retrieved 2026-02-27.
  12. ^ Krásná, Denisa (2022). "Towards Horizontal Relationships: Anarcha Indigenism, Decolonial Animal Ethic, and Indigenous Veganism". Canada and Beyond: A Journal of Canadian Literary and Cultural Studies. 11. doi:10.14201/candb.v11i. ISSN 2254-1179.

Bibliography

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.