Changes

The transition out of the mirror stage (though never fully beyond it) marked by symbolic identification is thus a radical point of departure at which the imaginary and real are suddenly cancelled, though they are also retained as necessary conditions of possibility for the symbolic. Furthermore, the advent of the symbolic order retroactively structures the preceding orders such that they no longer maintain their originary force and wholeness, but are always already cut across by the powerful divisions of the symbolic order. The diachronic exposition of the RSI here reveals its inadequacy, as it necessitates chronological reversal if we are to retain fidelity to Lacan’s synchronic topology of the nexus.15