the goal of the “great organisation” isn’t to obtain power or money or to impose some idea – the three forms of which history offers examples in such abundance. The goal is to arrest the innocent and then to punish them. The goal is punishment for its own sake, a self-sufficient activity, like art. And recognisable by the splendour of its “senselessness.”
– Roberto Calasso (in K., trans. by Geoffrey Brock, Random House, N.Y., 2005, p. 220)
Even when the executioners and the condemned man join forces, the victim’s position remains “implausible.”
– Roberto Calasso (in K., p. 229)
