“Politics and its offspring (nationalism, for example) have become the cornerstone of what is good or represents progress.  Political concerns are thought to be inherently excellent.  Man’s progress in today’s society consists in his participation in political affairs.  How many articles and declarations have we not read on that subject!  For example, women finally become human beings because they receive ‘political rights.’  To say that woman, mother of the family, exerting a profound effect on the development of her children, was the true creatress in the long run, the true force from which all politics originated, is now just reactionary talk.  A person without the right (in reality magical) to place a paper ballot in a box is nothing, not even a person.”

          — Jacques Ellul, The Political Illusion