– structure is never closed
– structure is marked by an impossibility (the real) which prevents the full constitution of meaning
– every subject is a discursive construct whose identity depends on its relationship to other subjects and objects
– each discursive construct is never fully constituted, but essetially incomplete or lacking, the subject is also lacking and incomplete
Radical Contingency (from Laclau)
– if a subject were a mere subject position within the structure, the latter would be fully closed and there would be no contingency at all
– Radical contingency is possible only if the structure is not fully reconciled with itself, if it is inhabited by an original lack, by a radical undecidability that needs to be constantly superseded by acts of decision. These acts are, precisely, what constitute the subject, who can only exists as a will transcending the structure.
– Because this will has no place of constitution external to the structure but is the result of the failure of the structure to constitute itself, it can be formed ony through acts of identification. If I need to identify with something it is because I do not have a full identity in the first place. These acts of identification are thinkable only as a result of the lack within the structure and have the permanent trace of the latter. Contingency is shown in this way: as the inherent distance of the structure from itself (Laclau 1996: 92 cited in Glynos 2007: 129).
It is in these situations of structural failure that we see the emergence of subjectivity in its radical form: subjects are literally compelled to engage in acts of identification, whose aim is to fill the void made visible by a dislocatory event with new signifiers and discourses (129).
The incorporation of the individual into the symbolic order occurs through identifications. The individual is not simply an identity within the structure but is transformed by it into a subject, and this requires acts of identification (Laclau cited in Glynos 2007:130).
Fantasy
– a narrative that covers-over or coneals the subject’s lack by providing an image of fullness, wholeness, or harmony, on the one hand, while conjuring up threats and objstacles to its realization on the other.
– when successfully installed, a fantasmatic narrative hooks the subject – via the enjoyment it procures – to a given practice or order, or a promised future practice or order, thus conferring identity (130).
– insofar as the mode of enjoyment … (involves) the subject’s complicitous concealment of the radical contingency of things, we are dealing with a case in which the ideological dimension is foregrounded.
– insofar as the mode of enjoyment … (involves) the subject’s attentiveness to the radical contingency of socio-political relations, we are dealing with a cases in which the ethical dimension is foregrounded (131-2)