Life & Wisdom Quote by George Orwell

Orwell’s line lands like a cold audit of the left’s favorite fantasy: that people will reliably choose economic interest or global solidarity over the old, sticky pull of nation. The jab is in the adverbs. “Usually” concedes exceptions just enough to sound empirical, while “always” snaps shut the door on internationalism as a mass political engine. It’s not lyrical; it’s a grim ranking of allegiances, written by someone who watched ideology collide with instinct and lose.

The subtext is less “patriotism is good” than “ignore it at your peril.” Orwell is diagnosing why revolutions stall, why working-class unity fractures, why cosmopolitan appeals so often read as elite scolding. Class hatred can be potent, but it’s volatile and situational: it requires sustained grievance, organization, and a clear enemy. Patriotism offers something easier to carry: identity without homework, belonging without theory. It turns abstract politics into family romance - “us” with a flag.

Internationalism, for Orwell, suffers a built-in handicap. It asks ordinary people to feel responsibility beyond the borders where taxes, wars, and daily humiliations are actually administered. In the 1930s and 1940s context - fascism’s rise, the Spanish Civil War, World War II, the betrayals of Stalinism - “international” movements repeatedly demanded loyalty to distant committees and shifting party lines. National loyalty, however compromised, felt legible.

The quote’s intent is strategic as much as cynical: a warning to socialists and liberals that politics built against the nation will be outflanked by anyone willing to wrap power in the flag.