“And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident...collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything has changed and changed completely under your nose.
“The world you live in - your nation, your people - is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed.
“Now you life in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed.
“And this is how it happens. The form is embraced rather than the spirit. The past is worshiped along with the “idea,” and people and reality become casualties in the process.” - Milton Mayer - ‘They Thought They Were Free, The Germans 1933-1945’.
Excellent!