struck with the difference

When the first great play about climate change turns out to be a comedy, or even a farce, ponderous types will express amazement. But isn't it obvious? That's the form that best captures the gap between what people think the situation is and what it actually is.

Yesterday Oliver Postgate was quoted on the gap between between political realities and actual realities.

Today George Monbiot quotes William Hazlitt at the end of a demolition job on Hazel Blears,

'Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be.'