The narcissism of large differences

What isn't stigmatised will only grow

‘Unlike money, which can simply be divided, dignity is something inherently uncompromisable: either you recognise my dignity, or the dignity of what I hold sacred, or you do not. Only thymos, searching for “justice”, is capable of true fanaticism, obsession, and hatred.’ 

So Francis Fukuyama warned in The End of History about the dangers facing democracy, of the potential conflict brought about by megalothymia - the desire to be seen as superior as others - and perhaps more dangerously, isothymia, the need to be recognised as equal.

With the greater importance given to victimhood, that isothymia has come to apply to suffering, too, a competition that often turns quite ruthless.