For a while Orwell had presumed that what people were missing was the church. But now it seemed clear that it was something more powerful. Patriotism, he wrote, had ‘overwhelming strength’ – Hitler and Mussolini had grasped its importance and exploited it in their rise to power. Those who opposed them had not and had paid the price. People’s need for belonging would never go away, Orwell warned. There would never be a world of Constants, adrift from their nation, cosmopolitan, floating between countries as if they were towns. You could either accept this fact and incorporate it into your
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