“On the one hand, Klaus, surely the only man in Topeka outfitted in white linen, could not take these kids-with their refrigerators full of food, their air conditioning and television, their freedom from stigma and state violence-seriously; what could be more obvious than the fact that they did not know what suffering was, that if they suffered from anything it was precisely this lack of suffering, a kind of neuropathy that came from too much ease, too much sugar, a kind of existential gout.”
Ben Lerner, “The Topeka School”, Picador, 2020
Set the Bar 