"Now within a nation the individual, if he is truly part of the nation, is simply a cell of the nation individual. It is ridiculous to talk about the power of propaganda. Had the Frenchman been told that they were going to be beaten [in the great war], no single Frenchman would have given way to despair any more than he would if he had been told that he was going to be killed by the Berthas. The real propaganda is what- if we are genuinely a living member of a nation- we tell ourselves because we have hope, hope being a symbol of a nation's instinct of self- prerservation. To remain blind to the unjustnes of the cause of the individual 'Germany,' to recognise at every moment the justness of the cause of the individual 'France,' the surest way was not for a German to be without judgment, or for a Frenchman to possess it, it was, both for the one and for the other, to be possessed of patriotism..."
- Marcel Proust, p. 798, Time Regained
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