Zygmunt Bauman Quote

The average person appreciates a value only in the course of, and through comparison with the possessions, condition, plight or quality of other persons. … The awareness that the acquisition and enjoyment of that value is beyond the person's capacity … triggers two mutually opposite, but equally vigorous reactions: an overwhelming desire (all the more tormenting because of the suspicion that it might be impossible to fulfill); and ressentiment—a rancor caused by a desperate urge to ward off self-deprecation and self-contempt by demeaning, deriding and degrading the value in question, together with its possessors.

pp. 24-25 [Quote is from Max Scheler, Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen ] - The Art of Life (2008)