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The White Mask Speaks

from The Angel of History by Cryptodira

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lyrics

“Enlightenment: my child and my doom.
It is my project, which knows no bounds.
There is nothing which limits or localizes it
except for racial distinctions and national borders.
My subject is open to everyone and all
who embrace my liberal/legal freedom.
And that freedom can only know the embrace
of those who look just like me.”

In return for the affirmation of life, of
revolutionary promise, is exchanged a
“No” to demos, and a “no” to life.
Enlightenment culminates in objective madness
and the negated promises of happiness.
As its hate outlives classical imperialism
and overstays its welcome by globalization
it exhausts all objects in reflection.

As we excavate the childhood of Europe,
we bring to light a bedrock made of myth.
Myths like bondage being freedom, and sacrifice
the only show of value, and sacrifice
our totem, transgression and reason.

The white mask speaks into its own vacuous project
yet suppresses and silences the call which echoes back.
We cannot ignore today what we never knew then:
De-centering and displacement are necessary
consequences and supplements of truth and freedom.

From these contradictions came a truth.
A firm affirmation/affirm a-formation.
The much-repeated promise, for the New.
The promise for liberation and amelioration.
The promise to give empty forms new life.
The promise of security and meaning for each life.
The promise which enlightenment has forgone.

The promise which had nearly been forgotten
by spectacle-fetish malaise and endless-war economy.
But a promise which we recuperate as the empire falters.
A promise which we fall back on in the afterlife of culture.

Blessed be the absent End of History;
for it spares us its cursed presence.
History is still ongoing so long as we find
sacrifice-ideology underpinning freedom-ideology.
There, the ones who go without, the lambs and
the meek will be unfree.
Where found the unfreedom of any
is found the unfreedom of all.

So let us never stop repeating the “yes” we are:
Yes to life. Yes to love. Yes to generosity.
Yes to a deferred promise, ever restated.
The promise for liberation and amelioration.
The promise to give empty forms new life.
The promise of security and meaning for each life.
The promise which enlightenment has forgone.

credits

from The Angel of History, released December 4, 2020
Guest vocals - John Carbone

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Cryptodira New York

Uneasy Listening. ‘The Angel of History’ is available on December 4th, 2020 via Good Fight Music.

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