What does "false consciousness" mean?

A faulty understanding of the true character of social processes due to ideology.

False consciousness

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A faulty understanding of the true character of social processes due to ideology. Marxism
"The author is less inclined than Jung to treat freedom as an ideological illusion or false consciousness."

"The author is less inclined than Jung to treat freedom as an ideological illusion or false consciousness."

Calque of German falsches Bewusstsein, as used by Friedrich Engels in a letter to Franz Mehring (1893).