"I used to think that what scared me was the idea of being abandoned until someone said to me, "Only children can be abandoned. Adults can't be abandoned because we have a choice. Children don't have a choice.""

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And in the general hardening of outlook that set in ... practices which had been long abandoned ... -- imprisonment without trial, the use of war prisoners as slaves, public executions, torture to extract confessions, the use of hostages and the deportation of whole populations -- not only became common again, but were tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive.

— George Orwell