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==Ideology==
The [[signifiers]] or [[signifying chain]] are unstable and liable to [[slippage]]s of [[meaning]].
How does an [[ideology]] maintain its consistency?
What keeps of [[ideological]] field of [[meaning]] consistent?
Any given [[ideological]] field is "quilted" by the ''[[point de capiton]]''
A point de capiton unifies an ideological field and provides it with an identity.
What is at issue in the conflict of [[ideologies]] is precisely the ''[[point de capiton]]''.
[[Signifiers]] such as "[[freedom]]", "[[democracy]]", "[[human rights]]," etc. are open-ended.
Their [[meanings]] can slide about depending on the context of their use.
For example, a [[right-wing]] [[interpretation]] of the word "[[freedom]]" 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]]''.
==Imaginary==
Perhaps the most important feature of the ''[[point de capiton]]'' is that the [[stability]] it provides is, however necessary, an [[illusion]].
The ''[[point de capiton]]'' is an instance of [[imaginary]] [[identification]] disrupting the integrity and [[rationality]] of the [[symbolic]] [[order]] itself.
Though these disruptions are strictly speaking inimical to the [[symbolic]] [[order]], they are also vital to its [[existence]] as a field for producing [[meaning]], for such disruptions serve to anchor the [[signifying chain]] and keep it from devolving into a [[psychotic]] process of pure [[linguistic]] [[self-referentiality]] without even the [[illusion]] of [[external]] reference.
