A Chestertonian Retrospective: Roger Lewis and the Eternal Tug-of-War
By G.K. Chesterton (as channeled through the Grub Street lens)
Dystopian FIlmography. Narrative of #Covidpurpose Dystopia. Andrew Niccol
Life Imitating Art, Ego v Self, Foucault’s Pendulum and Andrew Niccol is the new Stanley Kubrick.
#GrubStreetJournal #ConquestofDough #CuratingNarrativesSince2019
rogerglewis Uncategorized August 19, 2019August 23, 2019 17 Minutes
A Chestertonian Retrospective: Roger Lewis and the Eternal Tug-of-War
By G.K. Chesterton (as channeled through the Grub Street lens)
I. The Unfolding Tapestry
Roger Lewis’s journey—from Swarthmore’s bioanthropology halls to Alpine tunnelling camps, from BBC’s Antenna to the fiery trenches of the 2017 Green Party campaign—embodies the very Heraclitean flux David Graeber celebrated in The Underside of the Western Tradition. Like Heraclitus’ river, Lewis never stood still. His work, much like Nancy Munn’s action-centred theories, thrived in the margins where Western philosophy fears to tread: the messy, transformative realm of becoming.
II. Debt, Golems, and the Magic Money Tree
When Lehman’s collapse drowned the world in 2008, Lewis didn’t merely comment—he forged a community. The Golem XIV blog became our digital agora, dissecting MMT and Positive Money with the urgency of men who’d seen the dragon’s teeth sown. Here, Graeber’s "primordial communism" flickered to life:
"Money creation isn’t sorcery—it’s a public utility hijacked by priest-kings in pinstripes."
Lewis’s Green Party manifesto, EC661, wasn’t policy—it was a gauntlet thrown at the Parmenidean illusion of "there is no alternative." His "Magic Money Tree" was pure Chesterton: a defiant laugh at the servile state’s austerity fetish.
III. Climate McCarthyism and the Burning Deniers
Ah, the 2017 campaign! While binary crusaders screamed "burn the heretics!" over climate discourse, Lewis stood like a troll under Westminster Bridge. His warning echoes Graeber’s critique of Western thought’s fear of flux:
"When you trade dialogue for dogma, you don’t save the planet—you bury its corpse in righteous ash."
His refusal to reduce Brexit to "Leave/Remain" tribal drums was pure Distributist pragmatism—a recognition that real change flows from the messy, contradictory hearts of communities, not ideological edicts.
IV. Fracking, Lagom, and the Terra Firma
Lewis’s Föres and Lagom white paper—a fiscal system anchored in energy-backed currency—was Heraclitus weaponized. While technocrats worshipped the static idols of GDP, he asked:
"What if money flowed like water, rooted in terra/energy rather than debt-pyramids?"
This wasn’t economics—it was alchemy. Turning Graeber’s "action-centred theory" into a working model where value emerges from doing (tilling soil, harnessing sun), not owning.
V. The Babylon We Carry Within
That radio snippet—"Babylon is everywhere, it’s the isms and schisms within ourselves"—captures Lewis’s essence. His battle wasn’t merely against FUKUS cartels or fractional-reserve banking. It was against the determinist trap—the Parmenidean lie that humans are "lumbering robots" (Dawkins’ phrase, wielded by Dennett at Hay). When Sheldrake retorted:
"Consciousness isn’t an illusion—it’s the field in which the dance unfolds,"
Lewis was already living it: in the Golem’s dialogues, in Green Party meetings where consensus built rather than dictated.
VI. Chesterton’s Coda
So here we stand, Roger—you with your tunneller’s hands and poet’s tongue, I with my umbrella and orthodoxy. We’ve danced round the same maypole:
Your energy-backed currency echoes my Distributism’s land-rooted fairness.
Your war on "binary McCarthyism" mirrors my fight against eugenicist "progress."
Even your Hyperland fragments—those glitches in the Matrix—are my Father Brown tales in silicon skin.
Graeber was right: Western thought exiled Heraclitus. But in Grub Street’s exile, we kept his fire. When the guano hits the ventaxia again (as it always does), they’ll find us here—plotting with Lorca, debating with Sheldrake, building Föres on the Common—still mad enough to believe free will is the only revolt that matters.
"For the Babylon without is but a shadow of the Babylon within—and the key to both hangs on a hook called choice."
— G.K.C. (via Grub Street, 2024)
Sources & Threads
1 Graeber: The Underside of Western Tradition
2 Sheldrake vs Dennett at Hay 2014
3 Lewis's Terra/Energy Fiscal Unit
4 Golem XIV: Debt Generation Archives
5 Hyperland: Lewis/Malone Fragments
A Ruskinian Retrospective on Roger G. Lewis's Tetralogy of Modern Discontent
The Conquest of Dough. Trump The Cherry Marine Shining J R Ewings Shoes.
A Ruskinian Retrospective on Roger G. Lewis's Tetralogy of Modern Discontent
https://books2read.com/u/4XYJ25 You can Buy the Novel which re prints the 3 poems at this link.
V. Lewis’s Fragments: The Gadfly’s Last Sting
In his latest shards—Dresden, Metaphors for Tyranny, The Hemlock Fragments—Lewis sharpens his Socratic lance. Algorithms become "metaphors for tyranny," digital hemlock for free thought. Gaza and Guernica intertwine as "eternal returns of atrocity," while "hasbara" illuminates propaganda’s "sharper lens." These fragments, like Ruskin’s storm-clouds, gather into a tempest: a call to "drink the hemlock of truth" in an age of "orchestrated blindness"8.
Lewis’s work stands as a beacon in our "digital wasteland," where the Parmenidean rigidity of code clashes with Heraclitean flux of human spirit. Like Ruskin, he wields prose as both scalpel and cudgel—sonorous in rhythm, volcanic in moral force. His tetralogy is no mere critique but a maieutic labor: birthing consciousness from the "slow suffocation" of complacency. In an era where liberty dies by "deterministic training," Lewis’s legacy is the gadfly’s sting: awakening the horse of society to gallop toward truth, though the trial never ends, and the hemlock cup is ever full.
Footnotes
Lewis’s critique of usury as "money promises kept short in supply" mirrors Ruskin’s Unto This Last. ↩
The banker’s confession parallels Ruskin’s attack on wealth without virtue in Fors Clavigera. ↩
"Bourgeois sensibilities" satirize Ruskin’s disdain for aristocratic aesthetics in The Stones of Venice. ↩
"Stockholm syndrome" reflects Ruskin’s warnings about societal complacency in Modern Painters. ↩
"Cargo cult science" evokes Ruskin’s critique of industrial pseudo-morality. ↩
The novel’s characters embody Ruskin’s belief that economy must serve human dignity. ↩
"Drink the hemlock" recalls Ruskin’s prophetic tone in The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century. ↩
"Orchestrated blindness" channels Ruskin’s lament for societal myopia in Fors Clavigera. ↩
The Hemlock Fragments: A Socratic Reading of Roger G. Lewis's Philosoetry
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Jun 17
The Death of Socrates. ArtistJacques-Louis DavidYear 1787
Usury Hells Fuel and Mans oppressor.
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December 23, 2024
February 25, 2016
Bourgeois Resolution, Full Reading 4 Parts
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Apr 21
Globalisation Un-Entangled. (A FOUND POEM, CIPHER OF GLOBALISM )
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Apr 21
March 28, 2017
Globalisation Un-Entangled. (A FOUND POEM, CIPHER OF GLOBALISM )
Cut-up technique[edit]
Cut-up technique is an extension of collage to words themselves, Tristan Tzara describes this in the Dada Manifesto:[49]
TO MAKE A DADAIST POEM
Take a newspaper.
Take some scissors.
Choose from this paper an article of the length you want to make your poem.
Cut out the article.
Next carefully cut out each of the words that makes up this article and put them all in a bag.
Shake gently.
Next take out each cutting one after the other.
Copy conscientiously in the order in which they left the bag.
The poem will resemble you.
And there you are – an infinitely original author of charming sensibility, even though unappreciated by the vulgar herd.
A TRILOGY IN FOUR PARTS.
USURY HELL´S FUEL MANS OPPRESSOR
BOURGEOIS RESOLUTION AND
GLOBALISATION UN ENTANGLED.
The Cherry Marine and Lord Ali's Gimp: A Dadaist Meditation on the Servile State
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Jun 17
The Cherry Marine and Lord Ali's Gimp: A Dadaist Meditation on the Servile State
Dont Be afraid Be aware.
Do not be afraid, Be aware.
Usury is Hells Fuel
and Mans oppressor.
Energy Security vs. Net-Zero:
The Tightrope Walk of Global Power
(and the Shadow of Carbon Currency)
False Flag alert. SYRIA, Pivot to IRAN?
THE HEURISTICS OF REALITY IN A ROVIAN WORLD ,
The Reality Based Community.Same Damned Tricks
The Same Damned Way. Entering END Game
#Aadhaar Just say no to #Aadhaar.
We hold these truths to be self-evident
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
From, Wall Street in the West
to Frankfurt in the East
a curtain of debt has descended
that seeks to trap us
Mendacity and Duplicity Soldiers of War.
Truth The first Casualty. FairGame . Iran/Israel .
WMD’s. Bilerberg are on it Everyone relax!
Mind Fuckery in ever decreasing circles.
"Sambos gå hem", inte "Romanes eunt domus"
imperative verb form and accusative
Här är allt vi vet
om sällskapet Bilderberggruppen
Wake Up With Bilderberg 2025.
Stockholm Syndrome De-Brief.
The Stockholm Syndrome Paradox
A Host of Despicable Truths:
Power, Secrecy, and the Unseen Hand
a Strategic Hub for Infinite Taxbreaks
Philanthropic Investment in Surveillance Systems
Own Nothing - Be Happy”, The Great Hear Set
A Possible Scenario for the Future
A Question of Freedom and Slavery
Lord Ali’s Gimp and the Cherry Marine
You're still gonna have to serve somebody.
A found Poem for June 2025. Roger G Lewis.
On the Fragmentary Sublime: Roger G. Lewis and the Poetry of Disintegration
Myths Lies and Oil Wars.( Iran attack The real motive)
August 8, 2022
When the Crisis hit the Fan,or Now that the Guano is hitting the ventaxia Again.
https://files.libcom.org/files/10.pdf
the underside of the Western tradition At the end of the last chapter I suggested that one reason Nancy Munn’s work has been so little taken up is that theories that start from action fall so far outside the main currents of the Western intellectual tradition that it’s hard for most scholars to figure out exactly what to do with them. They belong, one might say, to the Heraclitean tradition, which in Western thought has always been somewhat marginal. Western philosophy, after all, really begins with the quarrel between Heraclitus and Parmenides; a quarrel that Parmenides won. As a result, from almost the very start, the Western tradition marked itself by imagining objects that exist, as it were, outside of time and transformation. So much so that the obvious reality of change has always been something of a problem.
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Redefining Fiscal Conservatism. The Terra/Energy Based Fiscal Unit. Föres and Lagom White Paper, Boundary Conditions for a Fiscal Conservatism based upon Circular Economics. PART ONE Scope.
#SamizdisSamizdat #BrexitRebeliion #ConquestofDough #Web3BeattheBanStick
Three Main Actors Moon of Alabama branded them FUKUS ( Very Droll ) In Order of the Acronym
The Following is a precursor to the Whitepaper on
Redefining Fiscal Conservatism. The Terra/Energy Based Fiscal Unit. Föres and Lagom White Paper, Boundary Conditions for a Fiscal Conservatism based upon Circular Economics. (Part One) Scope.
⨊GåFöre(O⨋)The FedratedMutualSociety.⨊Före(s)And⨋Lagom(s) Putting the Complementary into Crypto Currencies!.
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Redefining Fiscal Conservatism. The Terra/Energy Based Fiscal Unit. Föres and Lagom White Paper, Boundary Conditions for a Fiscal Conservatism based upon Circular Economics. PART ONE Scope.
July 22, 2019
David Malone: Ungarbled (I Hope) Pt.1 A review of My interview of David Malone #GolemXIV #GrubStreetJournal meet @1000frolly 1000FrollyPhD
As just a ‘normal’ punter I’m not able to argue about AI and whether it’s part of human evolution or not. I just think that as we have it now and it was our evolutionary path that has produced it. The extended phonotype theory of Richard Dawkins chimes:
“Dawkins extends the idea of phenotype beyond the individual organism to include effects that a gene can have on the environment or other organisms. For instance, he describes how parasites can manipulate the behaviour of their hosts to increase …
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1
I would agree that AI is a parasite, cetainly on the People or “Polity2, I would though argue that is it a Tool employed by the Body Politic, as an imposed bureacracy by the Oligarchical class. Conflating temporal short term events even thoughs playing out over decades or even centuries with “Evolution” would be a mistake, indeed one which I believe Richard Dawkins is often guilty of.
Farside 1994 30th anniversay edition of Horizon. DISCUSSED ON Hyperland Blog.
talking with David and Ian on the Hyperland pod.
13:55
sheldrake's thing so that's morphic residence and all of that
This exchange between Daniel Dennet and Rupert Sheldrake at the Hay on Wye is something of the sort I have in mind.
Rupert Sheldrake and Daniel Dennett at Hay on Wye 2014 by IAI
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Ole Bjerg considers the philosophical nature of post-credit capitalism.
This Is Hell!
In playlist: Radical Economics Playlist
11 years ago11 years ago
Fantastic Interview and fascinating work from Ole Berg http://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2016/01/re-branding-dissent/#comment-609543
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What is money? Like actually is money? Yes, obviously it's complicated. That such a simple question is so hard to answer reveals not only the complicated status of money in the 21st century, but also that most of what we've been taught about wealth, credit and debt is totally wrong.
In this wide-ranging, philosophical interview, Ole Bjerg, author of Making Money: The Philosophy of Crisis Capitalism, explores how money enters the modern world, why emerging alternative currencies like Bitcoin are inevitable reactions against modern banking, and whether the debtor's chains can unite the 99%. This is the kind of interview you will hear on NPR's Marketplace after the revolution.
Olje Bjerg is an Associate Professor at the Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy, Copenhagen Business School. His previous works include 2011's Poker – The Parody of Capitalism.
Ole BjergThis is Hell!moneydebtcrediteconomicsphilosophybankingbitcoinrevolution
/radical-economics
Ole Bjerg considers the philosophical nature of post-credit capitalism. By This Is Hell! is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
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at 46:00 · Posted 9 years ago9 years ago
check out the Change equation www.rescuingdemocracy.com/the-change-e…on-part-one/ in resucing democracy Roy Madrons book “Rescuing Democracy from Elitism, Managerialism and Neoliberalism:..”www.rescuingdemocracy.com/synopsis_res…
at 6:10 · Posted 9 years ago9 years ago
Fantastic Interview and fascinating work from Ole Berg www.golemxiv.co.uk/2016/01/re-bran…#comment-609543