Intellectuals lose interest in simple truths because everyone has access to those. Conquest and war? Too primitive. Better to develop abstract theories, removed from the hustle and bustle of politics, which reflect real intellectual power and can remain the preserve of the expert class.

The problem, of course, is that the world is often a lot less subtle than theories, and in order to understand it one has to make a deliberate effort not to be subtle. Very few manage to do this. For many intellectuals in the past it took years or even decades before they learned how to be as naive as the events around them. Like George Orwell, they ended up feeling much closer to the world but irremediably disconnected from their peers.

What did Orwell conclude? He was not particularly original in thinking that the role of the intellectual is to stand up for truth, but he added two further considerations which have urgent relevance given the war in Ukraine. First, there is no point in defending the truth in public if one does not use the whole arsenal of weapons without which it cannot survive: passion, skill, courage and, if need be, aggression. Second, there is no such thing as standing up for truth unless one has made the difficult effort of looking for it, sometimes on the front lines. The right to speak for truth is not granted but won.

More than ever, we need those who can tell us the truth about the war. The wisdom of the decisions we make in the next few weeks depends on this rare knowledge.