Pluth, Ed. Signifers and Acts: Freedom in Lacan’s Theory of the Subject. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007.
Blog post originally published on May 15, 2009 at 9:56
The ego ideal is the symbolic or linguistic foundation of identification. It plays, in the symbolic order, roughly the same role that the mirror image plays in the imaginary order —it is something the ego strives to be but is not. 52
Driving around in a sports car to “piss daddy off.” What is at stake here is the signifier “father.” That is, even though they set themselves up in a defiant relation to the ego ideal, the ego ideal is still for them the point of view from which they have a place and are “seen” by the Other, and this is still, whether they are seen by the Other as good or bad, narcissistically satisfying. Defiant or not, the common factor here is that in these examples they remain seen by the Other, and their actions occur entirely within the Other’s scope. Indeed, their actions are for the Other, even when they appear to be against the Other (53).
What is important here is the notion that the ego ideal is a signifier in the Other from whose “point of view” the individual is given meaning and a place. … In Lacan’s revision of the mirror stage, the child is compelled or encourged to identify its mirror image (ideal ego) as itself by a parent (or someone else) saying something like “That’s you Jimmy! Yes it is!”
The child finds that it has a place ein this symbolic Other by means of the Other’s affirmation of a place for the child. The child is told by the Other what he or she is (54).