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# An [[hysteric]]al [[identification]] where the [[subject]] recognizes in the [[other]] his [[global]] [[situation]].

In "[[The agency of the letter]]..." the [[signifier]] is turned into an inscription in the [[unconscious]], a seal, which in <i>[[L'identification]]</i> becomes the "unbroken line," <i>[[trait unaire]]</i>, a [[symbolic]] term which is to produce the [[ego-ideal]]. Though this [[trait]] may originate as a [[sign]], it becomes a [[signifier]] when incorporated into a signifying [[system]]: [[identification]] raises the question of the identical. Can it be said that A = A? No, for there already is a difference due to repetition: hence A [[Image:lacansem1b2.gif]] A. Against the One of [[totality]], [[Lacan]] institutes the 1 as the single mark, the unbroken line, made by mere repetition. The [[signifier]] has a [[unity]] only insofar as it is that which all the other ones are not, insofar as it is pure difference: the One as such is the Other. There is no tautology in expressions such as "war is war" or "Lacan is Lacan." The [[real]] [[thing]] has [[nothing]] to do with this, it is the same [[signifier]] that functions to connote pure difference, for, in [[repetition]], the [[signifier]] represents the [[subject]] for [[another]] [[signifier]] and not for some one. The [[identification]] of the [[signifier]] and the [[identification]] with the signfier closely mingle. [[Formal]] [[logic]], the study of the proper [[name]], the [[complex]] grammar of [[negation]]... everything works toward defining the unbroken line as "a [[return]], the seizing of the origin of a counting before the [[number]]." The [[phallus]] as the [[symbolic]] mark is at the origin since "[[narcissism and incorporation should be located in the direction of the [[Father]] and not in the direction of the parasited [[mother]]'s [[body]]." [[Lacan]]'s response to the problem of the origin (the chicken or the egg?) is the rooster, the [[signifier]] that makes the rooster, the [[letter]] or unbroken line. His [[project]] is to create "a [[topology|topological]] [[structure]] of the [[subject]]."

To whomever asks, "What is the [[truth]] of your [[discourse]]?", [[Lacan]] answers: "I am an [[analyst]], and as such, I have to to disappoint you, I don't tell the [[truth]] about [[truth]]." "I can take you very far on the path of the 'who am I' without the [[truth]] of what I am telling you [[being]] guaranteed, but nevertheless, in what I am telling you, it is still a matter of [[truth]]."

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