A [[Lacanian]] [[concept]] derived from [[Saussurean]] [[structural]] [[linguistics]]. In structural linguistics, [[language]] is a a [[system]] in which there are no positive [[terms]], only differences. This means that language only refers to language; that [[words]] are only distinct because they are not [[other]] words. Imagine [[looking]] for a definition of a [[word]] in a [[dictionary]]. When one finds the definition it consists of only other words. This endless [[Signifying chain|chain of signifiers]] is halted by the [[master]]-[[signifier]].
MASTER-SIGNIFIER (see also IDEOLOGY. JEW)One of Žižek s key terms and the centrepiece of his renewed analysis ofideology is the notion of the master-signifier. Zižek provides perhapstwo accounts of how the master-signifier works in making appearnatural or conventional what is in fact a forced and artificial con-struction of reality: "The elementary operation of the point de capitonshould be sought in this "miraculous" turn, in this quid pro quo bymeans of which what was previously the very source of disarraybecomes proof and testimony of a triumph' (p. 124); and 'the Master-Signifier [is] no longer a simple abbreviation that designates a series ofmarkers but the name of the hidden ground of this series of markersthat act as so many expressions-effects of this ground" (p. 202). That is,the master-signifier is not a simple empirical quality that makes sense ofpreviously existing circumstances, but rather a kind of radical hypo-thesis that proposes an ahvays unrepresentable signifier throughwhich these very circurnstances become visible for the first time.'Therein resides the paradoxical achievement of symbolization: thevain quest for the "true meaning" (the ultimate signified) is supplantedby a unique signifying gesture" (p. 301). But if this is the uniquestrength and power of the master-signifier - that it is not simply anempirical designation, that it already takes into account our owndistance from it, its inability points to be definitively stated - it is also thisthat opens up a certain way out of it, for we are always able to point toa deeper explanation of it, what it ''itself stands in for and what allowsto be stated. It is something like this that is to be seen in Hegel's notof concrete universality and in Žižek's thinking instead of the empty space oenunciationother [[signifiers]]. As Žižek writes of the way that the master-signifier is itsown limit: Lacan, in contrast refers to Derrida. [[Marx]]'directly offers a concept s conception of thiselement [of the supplement[commodity]] [[fetishism]], namely the concept as an example of the Mastera master-Signifier,Si in relation to S ... In Lacan, Si stands for the supplement ... and,simultaneously, for the totalizing Master-Signifier ... the Centrewhich Derrida endeavours to "deconstruct" is ultimately the very sup-plement which threatens to disrupt its totalizing power' (p.210).signifier:
<blockquote>[[Money]] refers to [[value]] as such, and all other commodities are [[thought]] of in terms of how much money one can get for [[them]]. That is, money as a commodity becomes [[self]]-referential -- money is worth (signifies) money, instead of [[being]] worth X [[number]] of commodities -- and all other commodities are worth ([[signify]]) money.<ref>Kotsko, Adam, ''Žižek and [[Theology]]'', 2008, 30.</ref> </blockquote>
Just as money in Marx's conception of [[commodity fetishism]] is [[in-itself]] devoid of value, the master-signifier is devoid of value, but provides a ''[[Point de capiton]]'' or [[quilting point]] around which other signifiers can stabilize.
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As I stated at the end of Part 2, Lacan assigns great importance in his theorisation of the psychoanalytic process to what he calls 'master signifiers'. These are those signifiers that the subject most deeply identifies with, and which accordingly have a key role in the way s/he gives meaning to the world. As was stressed, Lacan's idea about these signifiers is that their primary importance is less any positive content that they add to the subject's field of symbolic sense. It is rather the efficacy they have in reorienting the subject vis-à-vis all of the other signifiers which structure his/her sense of herself and the world. It is precisely this primarily structural or formal function that underlies the crucial Lacanian claim that master signifiers are actually 'empty signifiers' or ‘signifiers without a signified’.[[Category:Symbolic]][[Category:Terms]]As with all of Lacan's key formulations, the notion that the master signifiers are 'signifiers without signified’ is a complex one. Even the key idea is the following. The concept and /or referent signified by any 'master signifier' will always be something impossible for any one individual to fully comprehend. For example, 'Australian-ness' would seem to be what is aimed at when someone proffers the self-identification[[Category: 'I am an Australian'. The Lacanian question here isConcepts]][[Category: what is 'Australian' being used by the subject to designate here? Is ‘Australian-ness’ something that inheres in everyone who is born in Australia? Or is it a characteristic that is passed on through the medium of culture primarily? Does it, perhaps, name most deeply some virtues or qualities of character all Australians supposedly have? However, even if we take it that all 'Australians' share some basic virtues, which are these? Can a closed list everyone would agree upon be feasibly drawn up? Is it not easy to think of other peoples who share in valuing each individual trait we standardly call 'Australian' (egPsychoanalysis]][[Category: courage, disrespect for pomposity)? And, since 'Australian' would seem to have to aim at a singular entity, not a collection, or else some grounding quality of character that could perhaps unite all of the others, which is this? And is this 'essential’ quality- again- simply biological, perhaps genetic, or is it metaphysical, or what? What Lacan's account of 'master signifiers’ thus emphasizes is the gap between two things. The first is our initial certainty about the nature of such an apparently obvious thing as 'Australian-ness'. (We may even get vexed when asked by someone). The second thing is the difficulty that we have of putting this certainty into words, or naming something that would correspond to the 'essence' of ‘Australian-ness’, beneath all the different appearances. What Lacan indeed argues, in line with his emphasis on the decentred self, is that our ongoing and usually unquestioning use of these words represents another clear case of how the construction of sense depends on the transferential supposition of 'Others supposed to know'. Though we ourselves can never simply state what 'Australian-ness', etc. is, that is, Lacan argues that what is nevertheless efficient in generating our belief in (and identification with) this elusive 'thing' is a conviction that nevertheless other people certainly know its nature, or seem to. Just as we desire through the Other, for this reason Lacanian theory also maintains that belief is always belief through an Other (for example, in the Christian religion, priests would be the designated Others supposed to know the meaning of the Christian mystery vouchsafing believers' faith). At this point, it is appropriate to recall from Part 1 Lacan's thesis that castration marks the point wherein the child is made to renounce its aspiration to be the phallic Thing for the mother. A subject's castration amounts at base, for Lacan, to the acceptance that it is the injunctions of the father- and through his name the conventions of the big Other of society- that govern the desire of the mother. The 'master signifiers' are also what Lacan calls phallic signifiers. The reason is exactly that- despite the difficulty of locating any simple referent for them- they nevertheless are the words that seem to intimate to subjects what 'really matters' about human existence. While no Christian believer may know what ‘God’ is, nevertheless s/he will be in no doubt of the transcendent importance of whatever It is that this word names. Lacan thus is drawing together his philosophical anthropology and his theorization of language when he defends the position that it is the consequence of 'castration' that subjects are debarred from immediate knowledge of what it is that the ‘phallic signifiers’ signify. He is also arguing, in the psychoanalytic field, a position profoundly akin to the Kantian postulation that finite human subjects are debarred from immediate access to things in themselves. Jacques Lacan's argument is that it is this lost 'signified', which would as it were be ‘more real’ than the other things that the subject can readily signify, that is what is primordially repressed when the subject accedes to becoming a speaking subject at castration. When the subject accedes to the symbolic, he repeats, the Real of aspired-to incestuous union, and the sexualized transgressive enjoyment or jouissance it would afford, is necessarily debarred.]]
