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Something Other Than Sacrifice

from The Angel of History by Cryptodira

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lyrics

From the fall, we know it all.
Or at least, all which our logos can name.
We took refuge in the proper noun until
metaphor began to suppress itself, in search
of the paradise which instituted it.

Like every search for a lost golden age
which never existed in the first place,
a culture which prides itself in such a search
can only bring its subjects into a state
of dispossession and meaninglessness.
Such is culture which mimics the tragedy of the fall
within each and every unfortunate child it raises.

What shallowness! What abuse of speech!
What pedantry we hear from the demagogue!
He makes “again” the end of his project.
How can the Good let itself be lost to begin with?
What good would it be to let loss come again?
If the Good was lost, it was a lie to begin with.
Turn to look back, and turn to a pillar of salt.
Posit a fall; cover one lie with another.

In the wake of a fall; in the shadow of Lack—
Fate, Guilt and Past are our unmerciful gods.
The Moloch to which our happiness is sacrificed.
We replace social bonds with exchange-relations.
The logic of quid pro quo renders in advance
any utterance effectively useless to say out loud.
With that logic, we equate love and aggression.
Blood and misery stick to this ideology.

From the fall proceeds an eschatology.
A history which can only damage and fail itself.
A history which repeats and turns to salt.
Whether we project the fall onto childhood,
lost love or lost golden ages, there is
no point in fixating our gaze backwards
for too long, in order to long.
There is only forgiveness beyond these schemas.
A forgiveness which was always-already created.

There has to be something other than sacrifice.
There has to be something outside of pain.
There has to be a value which exceeds price.
There has to be more to living than survival.
There has to be adventure hiding in comfort.
There has to be possibility latent in security.

This life we were thrown into could not—
it must not—have meant to have been so sad.
Life has been poured into our hands,
A gift we’re given only to be filled with pain.
It couldn’t have meant to be so forever.

Life has been placed in our hands,
so we have an imperative to drive out
any demagogue who treats life lightly.
Who exploits the pain of repetition
in order to extract a profit from it.

There was nothing to make great again.
So, let’s never say “again” again.
The happiness of the masses
can only lay in the future, not the past.

credits

from The Angel of History, released December 4, 2020

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