I found this passage from Orwell, which I thought interesting:
All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. . . . The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. . . . In nationalist thought there are facts which are both true and untrue, known and unknown. A known fact may be so unbearable that it is habitually pushed aside and not allowed to enter into logical processes, or on the other hand it may enter into every calculation and yet never be admitted as a fact, even in one’s own mind. . . . Every nationalist is haunted by the belief that the past can be altered. . . . Material facts are suppressed, dates altered, quotations removed from their context and doctored so as to change their meaning. Events which, it is felt, ought not to have happened are left unmentioned and ultimately denied. . . . Indifference to objective truth is encouraged by the sealing off of one part of the world from the other, which makes it harder and harder to discover what is actually happening. . .. If one harbours anywhere in one’s mind a nationalistic loyalty or hatred, certain facts although in a sense known to be true, are inadmissible.
- George Orwell, Notes on Nationalism
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