“Upon the social conditions of existence, rises an entire superstructure of distinct and peculiarly formed sentiments, illusions, modes of thought, and views of life. The entire class creates and forms them out of its material foundations and out of the corresponding social relations. The single individual, who derives them through tradition and upbringing, may imagine that they form the real motives and the starting point of his activity… In historical struggles, one must distinguish… the phrases and fancies of parties from their real organism and their real interests, their conception of themselves from their reality…”
– Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, 1852.