Civilization is unbearable, but it is less unbearable at the top.

The line expresses a characteristically sardonic view of modern social life: “civilization” is depicted as inherently oppressive or psychologically taxing, yet its burdens are unevenly distributed. “At the top” implies positions of wealth, status, or power that buffer individuals from the discomforts imposed on everyone else—suggesting that what many experience as stifling becomes more tolerable when one benefits from the system. Read this way, the quote functions as a critique of hierarchy and privilege rather than a blanket rejection of society, and it aligns with countercultural suspicion that mainstream institutions promise progress while producing alienation and inequality.