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== def ==

One of the questions Zizek asks about ideology is: what keeps an ideological field of meaning consistent? Given that signifiers are unstable and liable to slippages of meaning, how does an ideology maintain its consistency? The answer to this problem is that any given ideological field is "quilted" by what, following lacan, he terms a point de capiton (literally an "upholstery button" though is has also been translated as "anchoring point"). In the same way that an upholstery button pins down stuffing inside a quilt and stops it from moving about, Zisek zrques that a point de capiton is a signifier which stops meaning from sliding about inside the ideological quilt. A point de capiton unifies an ideological field and provides it with an identity. Freedom, i.e, is in itself an open-ended word, the meaning of which can slide about depending on the context of its use. A right-wing interpretation of the word might use it to designate the freedom to speculate on the market, whereas a left-wing interpretation of it might use it designate freedom from the inequalities of the market. The word "freedom" therefore does not mean the same thing in all possible worlds: what pins its meaning down is the point de capiton of "right-wing" or "left-wing". What is at issue in a conflict of ideologies is precisely the point de capiton - which signifier ("communism", "fascism", "capitalism", "market economy" and so on) will be entitled to quilt the ideological field ("freedom", "democracy", Human rights" and son on).