The title of this piece is based on the writings of Max Weber, a German philosopher and seminal sociologist. In his English translation of Weber’s The Protestant Ethic & the Spirit of Capitalism, Talcott Parsons turned this curious couplet of words into a landmark statement of the human condition. The “iron cage” as he phrased it came as an indictment of the modern era, in which rationalization has caused a series of effects that has engendered a prison which further and further enslaves us. Rationalization is the development of social actions and interactions that are based on efficiency or calculation rather that being motivated by custom, emotion or tradition. Weber saw this as a movement in part of society’s emancipation from magic, a disenchantment from the world. His is a specific critique of Europe, but the effects of rationalization and modern capitalization as a driving force behind global colonialization and as the basis of a global economy have particular significance.
This “spirit of capitalism” which Weber saw not as a Marxian concept, in which economics are seen as the basis of all human institutions including religion; instead, he was convinced that the protestant religious movement shaped the direction of economic thought and beliefs which fueled current modern economics which is mechanistic and based on rationalism. Modern capitalism grew out of a religious pursuit of wealth, where wealth was a sign of spiritual fulfillment, as characterized by the thoughts of American novelist Walker Percy, “As long as I am getting rich, I feel well. It is my Presbyterian blood.” Yet this pursuit of wealth eventually gave way to the pursuit itself as a rational means of existence, and the rational ends outgrew and stopped being reliant on the underlying religious movement behind it, leaving only rational capitalism. This increasing rationalization of society irregardless of tradition or custom in a disenchanted world leads to what Weber called a "polar night of icy darkness."
In a shatteringly prescient passage Weber states, “The Puritan wanted to work in calling; we are forced to do so. For when asceticism was carried out of monastic cells into everyday life, and began to dominate worldly morality, it did its part in building the tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order. This order is now bound to the technical and economic conditions of machine production which today determine the lives of all the individuals who are born into this mechanism, not only those directly concerned with economic acquisition, with irresistible force. Perhaps it will so determine them until the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt.” (Page 181, 1953 Scribner's edition.)
Rationality fuels modernity, modernization has rationality at its core, cultivating efficiency irregardless of motivation; this fuels behaviors in the capitalist market and the administration of the state and bureaucracy in which efficiency is preeminent and necessitates ever increasing compartmentalization. This compartmentalizing and mechanization becomes our prison. Disenchanted and slaves to efficiency and production for fulfillment severed from any spiritual component, the system veers towards dehumanization and exploitation. It fosters the raping of the earth and its resources and forces life outside of a balance with nature. An iron cage, a life cased in steel, a polar night of icy darkness.
For this inception of our delving into this concept, we have explored various sympathetic materials. Since the world is interrelated and interdependent, we often find that many things correlate between various traditions. Here we conjoin several seemingly disparate narratives into a larger movement on the subject matter of Herr Weber. We gather these elements for the distinct purpose of creating associations and interweaving metaphors across dialogues. This is attained through a series of movements housed under the title of Stahlhartes Gehäuse. A song of many parts: De Petrecut, The Curse Upon Iron, Stahlhartes Gehäuse, Klage II, and Ma Uitai Spre Rasarit.
lyrics
Stahlhartes Gehäuse - a song of many parts
A. De Petrecut
B. Curse Upon Iron - Kaua Needmine
C. Stahlhartes Gehäuse - Part 1
D. Klage II - Lament II
E. Stahlhartes Gehäuse - Part 2
F. Ma Uitai Spre Rasarit
A. De Petrecut
Fire, fire, trandafire
Dar tu ce te-ai zăbovit
Şi n-ai înflorit?…
Bud, Bud, Rosebud
Why did you wait so long to bloom.
To bloom?…
De Petrecut” is a Romanian ritual funeral song to accompany the deceased as they transition into the other world. Stemming from the Borlovenii Vechi in Banat this selection of drone harmony which is sung on the way to the graveyard of which is sung directions for a safe journey. Other “laments” are sung by key women at certain prescribed moments that beseech the sun not to rise till the dead person has all the food and drink they need for their journey “from the land of pity to the pitiless land,” or speak of planting and decorating a pine tree at the head of the grave. These chants are what survive from an archaic oral tradition. Here we lament the death of modern civilization in the grips of the stranglehold of rationality.
B. Curse Upon Iron - Kaua Needmine
In “The Curse Upon Iron” or Raua Needmine in the original Estonian, we fuse a magical hex conducted by Veiljo Tormis into a martial drum piece. Here we strive to sever iron from its power over us and to regain our hold over it. Based in shamanism and the ritual incantations of the Finnish Epic the Kalevala, Tormis notes that, “in order to acquire power over a material or immaterial thing, one communicates knowledge to the object. Thus the describing and explaining of the birth of iron to iron itself forms a part of the shamanic process. The magical rite is performed to restrain the evil hiding inside iron. Each and every thing created by man may turn against man himself when used without respect towards the living.”
C. Stahlhartes Gehäuse - Part 1
Knife like life
Cased in steel
This life under duress
Drenched in Axiom
Steel hard casing
These prison walls enclosing
Housed in unrelenting demand
Coffins engulfed in flames
Stahlhartes Gehäuse
Shackled enslaved steel cage
Steel graves death embrace
Condemned and damned to lie
Pressed within an iron cage
This light cloak no more
This harsh razor existence
This harsh razor existence
Coffins nailed into place
Gutted embalmed euthanized
Coffins nailed into place
Gutted, embalmed, euthanized
Stahlhartes Gehäuse the third piece in this overall movement is a four part song. Here the Curse, this Hex incanted upon Iron, we place in a larger construct; that which is the basis for Max Weber’s theory. We pull the various threads of the phrase apart and regain a foothold on their implications. Break its spell by casting our own by naming it and recounting to itself its properties. This is intersected midway through by a break in which a poem from the great Austrian poet Georg Trakl is recited. Klage II or Lament II is a sympathetic allusion to the plight of humankind as this intersection, in the stranglehold of this prison, this ‘light cloak,’ to be shed at a moments notice, is our guillotine. We are the crimson body dashed on horrid reefs.
D. Klage II (Lament II)
Schlaf und Tod, die düsteren Adler
Umrauschen nachtlang dieses Haupt:
Des Menschen goldnes bildnis
Verschlänge die eisige Woge der Ewigkeit.
An schaurigen Riffen zerschellt der purpurne Leib.
Und es klagt eine dunkle Stimme über dem Meer.
Schwester stürmischer Schwermut
Sieh ein ängstlicher Kahn versinkt unter Sternen,
Dem schweigendem Antlitz der Nacht.
Sleep and Death the gloomy eagles
Whirr all night about this head:
The icy wave of Eternity
May devour the golden image of man.
On horrid reefs the crimson body is dashed
And the dark voice laments over the sea.
Sister of stormy melancholy
Look a tremendous boat is sinking beneath the stars,
To the mute countenance of night
Klage II or Lament II is a poem by the great Austrian poet Georg Trakl (1887 -1914) chosen by Markus Wolff as fitting allusion to Weber’s theory. One of the last poems he wrote before taking his own life, while in the military working as a doctor caring for the wounded and dying on the front in WWI.
D. Stahlhartes Gehäuse - Part 2
Stahlhartes Gehäuse
Knife like life
Cased in steel
This life under duress
Drenched in axiom
Coffins aflame
Cased in steel
Steel hard casing
These prison walls enclosing
Housed in unrelenting demand
Coffins engulfed in flames
Stahlhartes Gehäuse
Shackled enslaved steel cage
Steel graves death embrace
Condemned and damned to lie
Coffins aflame!
Coffins aflame!
E. Ma Uitai Spre Rasarit
Foaie verde margarit,
Ma uitai spre Rasarit,
Vazui primavara vind.
Eu cunos’ vara când vine
Pa fluturi sspa albine,
Pa frunza da maracine,
Pa cântatul cucului,
Pa haitul plugului.
Primavara cand soseste
Neica la plug îmi haieste,
Mândra la pânza-mi nalbeste,
Cine om atunci traieste
Si ce-I place tot iubeste.
I Looked Toward the Rising Sun
Green leaf of the daisy,
I looked toward the sun,
I saw springtime coming.
I know spring when it comes,
By the butterflies and bees,
By the hoys of the plowman.
As the spring arrives,
The young man gets ready to plow.
His sweetheart starts bleaching the cloth.
It’s then that a bold man really lives
And makes love to every girl that pleases him
Ma Uitai Spre Rasarit the final movement is translated as “I looked toward the rising sun” here at the end of this journey we beseech the sun to return and greet it with optimism and nostalgia. A donia from Lelesi, Gorj sung by the queen of donia singers the Oltenian Gypsy Maria Lataretu.
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La traversée du désert n'aura pas duré quarante jours mais quatre longues années...
Avec Панихида, Батюшка renaît enfin de ses cendres et, bien que désormais seul (ou plus exactement entouré de deux chanteurs), Христофор accomplit un miracle. Il s'inscrit dans la continuité de Литоургиiа avec un black metal orthodoxe qui nous convie ici à une cérémonie dédiée aux morts. Sa vision est englobante : les mélodies, la gravité et le silence font toucher le paradis ; l'agressivité est luciférienne. Jordan Vauvert
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PSA: if there was an album you heard a couple years ago and thought it was ok, listen to it again and you might love it.
That's what happened to me with this album. I cannot fathom why it didn't stick with me back then. Same thing happened with Decoherence's Unitarity for that matter. Matten
