“ Under specifiable conditions, families suffering serious losses will feel less deprived than those suffering smaller losses if they are in situations leading them to compare themselves to people suffering even more severe losses. For example, it is people in the area of greatest impact of a disaster who, though substantially deprived themselves, are most apt to see others around them who are even more severely deprived.
Robert Merton. “On Sociological Theories of the Middle Range.” In Calhoun et al (Eds.) Classical Sociological Theory, Blackwell, 2002.
(Notes on) Panic & Plentitude
--Castiglia and Castronovo, A "Hive of Subtlety": Aesthetics and the End(s) of Cultural Criticism
