Obsession refers to the manner in which nationalists passionately tender to their faction : " As nearly as possible , no nationalist ever thinks , talks , or writes about anything except the superiority of his own power unit . It is difficult if not impossible for any nationalist to conceal his allegiance ... he will generally claim superiority for it '' ( if the chosen unit of allegiance is a country ) '' not only in military power and political virtue , but in art , literature , sport , structure of the language , the physical beauty of the inhabitants , and perhaps even in climate , scenery and cooking . He will show great sensitiveness about such things as the correct display of flags , relative size of headlines and the order in which different countries are named " . " Some nationalists are not far from schizophrenia , living quite happily amid dreams of power and conquest which have no connexion with the physical world " . Orwell argues that uncertainty over the disasters reported ( " What were the rights and wrongs of the Warsaw rising of 1944 ? Is it true about the German gas ovens in Poland ? " ) makes it " easier to cling to lunatic beliefs ... . Since nothing is ever quite proved or disproved , the most unmistakeable fact can be impudently denied ... . The nationalist is often somewhat uninterested in what happens in the real world "
gas ovens in Poland
The Holocaust
Notes on Nationalism