Who Needs Yalom When We Have Žižek?
WILLIAM J. URBAN
Lacan’s Logic of the Signifier
With both the Kantian notion of the sublime and the Hegelian external reflection, we ‘start out’ from a position of Being, of something to be attained, and end up experiencing how this Being is ‘a nothing in the form of something’ when reaching a determinate reflection of this Being (For They, 53) Hegelian dialectics is thus not an ultimate insight into the existence of some all-encompassing Unity, of a One which contains, mediates and sublates all differences, nor an absolute relativity that would be consistent with a belief in some Great Multitude. Rather, Hegel endeavors to think the split of One into Two, of a cleaving of the One from within, not into two parts. The split is not between two halves, somehow existing together on the same plane, but between Something and Nothing, between the One and the Void of its place. (For They, xxvi) So the existence of the One of the Thing, of Being, is not simply ‘false,’ to be opposed to its ontological companion, Nothingness. The One is self-identical with the void, of nothingness as its very kernel. To grasp the Hegelian dialectical process properly, we have to shift our perspective of dialectics from an ontological one (which takes place within the ‘thing itself’) to an epistemological one (which reveals the logic of our cognition of reality). (For They, xcvi) By doing so, it becomes apparent that this void – the Lacanian subject – is that gap/vanishing mediator that not only initially sets the dialectical process in motion, but also acts as the very space within which that process takes place. It is through the logic of the signifier that the subject is most clearly defined.
What exactly is a signifier? Lacan gives us a simple enough definition: ‘the signifier represents the subject for another signifier.’ (For They, 171–2) Yet in a first reading, it seems rather tautological and does not seem to tell us much. Yet here lies the precise point: differentiality does not involve two distinct species held apart on the same plane, defined by their common genus. Rather, the presence of one term, of a signifier, is the same as saying its opposite is absent. Žižek writes that ‘the opposite of one term, of its presence, is not immediately the other term but the absence of the first term, the void at the place of its inscription (the void which coincides with its place of inscription) and the presence of the other, opposite, term fills out this void of the first term’s absence.’ (For They, 22, italics in original) A signifier is that which appears against the background of its possible absence, representing or embodying its possible absence, and assuming positive existence in the presence of its opposite. So in Lacan’s definition of the signifier, the two signifiers are differentially related via a third term, the void of their possible absence. The differentiality of the signifier expresses its Lacanian non-all logic: ‘there is no signifier which does not represent the subject’ does not mean that all signifiers can represent the subject (completely, without remainder), as would be the case in some universal judgment. Rather, it means that the subject is split, forever preventing us from conceiving the subject as a Whole, as one would do in ego-psychology.
However, just as with the ‘positing of presuppositions,’ this process is potentially never ending: if for some signifier, another signifier represents for this first signifier the void of its possible absence, its lack or the subject, what represents the subject for this second signifier? Still another signifier. Every signifier entertains a particular series of relationships with other signifiers and the process soon begins to spiral into what Hegel might call a ‘bad infinity.’ In order to achieve an understanding of the Master-Signifier, Žižek has us examine Marx’s development of his conception of value in Capital. (For They, 23)
The Simple form of value is equivalent to the Lacanian definition of the signifier: for commodity A, commodity B appears as its expression of value. The second form is a simple expansion of the first, where, like the signifier, equivalences are multiplied: for commodity A, the series of commodities B, C, D, and E appear as its expression of value. What is important to note is that there is a radical contradiction between use-value and (exchange-)value (as there is between a signifier and its void-place of inscription), so that the first term of each must be posited as a dyad. Just as a commodity can express its (exchange-)value only in the use-value of another commodity, a signifier’s void-place of inscription – the subject – can only be represented in the presence of another signifier. In the Expanded form, the subject ‘is simultaneously represented and not represented since at this level, something remains concealed in the relationship to this same signifier.’ (Lacan, quoted in For They, 24) We should immediately recognize this oscillation between representation and non-representation, the ultimate failure of the subject’s signifying representation, as being homologous to the failure we discussed above in regards to the representation of the Thing. The Kantian subject that is engaged in an external reflection of the Thing and the group (or group theorist) that searches for an adequate representation of the Group-Thing-Idea both fail, for the Substance they engage with ultimately reveals itself to be Subject. This should become more clear below.
To achieve the General form of the value/signifier, an inversion or movement of double reflection of the Expanded form must be accomplished so that we obtain the following: ‘commodity A gives expression to the value of all other commodities’ and likewise, ‘a signifier represents the subject for all the other signifiers.’ This Master-Signifier is not on the same level as all the other signifiers and is thus not the finally found, proper representative/signifier of the subject. It is a ‘reflective’ signifier in the sense that the very impossibility of finding a properly signifying representation of the subject is reflected into this representation itself. Homologous to Kant’s inversion of the lack of representation (of the Thing) into the representation of that lack, we have here the reflective inversion of a lack of a signifier (of the subject) into the signifier of the lack. This logic makes a totality out of a contingent group:
‘[A]ll signifiers represent the subject for the signifier which in advance represents for them their own failure and is precisely as such – as the representation of the failure of representation – “closer” to the subject than all the others (since the Lacanian “subject of the signifier” is not a positive, substantial entity persisting outside the series of its representation: it coincides with its own impossibility; it “is” nothing but the void opened up by the failure of its representations).’ (For They, 25)
What this implies is that the General form itself can be inverted into: ‘one signifier for which all the other signifiers represent the subject,’ so that we have not only ‘one for all the others’ but ‘all the others for the one’ as well. (For They, 26)
The logic of how the Master-Signifier comes to totalize ‘any of the others’ into ‘all the others’ is illustrated through the process of how a contingent multitude of individuals come to identify themselves as a cohesive group. ‘Group’ or ‘interpersonal existential psychotherapy’ or ‘the thing we do here between 5 and 7 pm each Thursday’ can be thought of as a Master-Signifier. It is that signifier that ‘quilts’ all the other signifiers into a unified whole, and the paradox is that it does so by representing the very failure of the group’s multiple attempts at signifying itself. It is not a signifier that is given in advance and that everyone has agreed to work with (this would be the understanding of external reflection, that there is some immediate, substantial entity prior to the very activity of reflection). Rather, the group’s very failing effort to signify itself, to define what it is and what it is there to accomplish – whether that accomplishment is conceived of as being on a collective or individual level – sustains the notion of ‘group,’ transforming the set of contingent relations between individuals into a ‘group.’7 That is, the group exists only insofar as its members take themselves to be members of this ‘group’ and act accordingly. Similarly, the Kantian subject, attempting to reunite with some primordial Thing that was somehow lost to him, only finds such a Thing to reunite with in the first place because of the very Thing-sustaining activity of his search: ‘that to which the process of return is returning is produced by the very process of returning.’ (Parallax, 46)
If any member is foolish enough to attempt to define what ‘group’ is for the others, they should eventually experience the impossibility of doing so, as it will always fail in some fashion with other members, since what the Master-Signifier attempts to speak of is that very difference – that gap or void in the signifying order. A signifier is, after all, only the bundle of its differences from other signifiers and since this is true for every signifier, this is ‘resolved’ by way of excluding from the series a Master-Signifier which thereby remarks the void of their very space of inscription. (For They, 48) So ‘group’ as a Master-Signifier is an attempt to displace the others, to speak of that difference and thus it occupies a place of exclusion. This exceptional position is precisely what transforms contingent relations between individuals into a coherent grouping, a logic expressed in the Lacanian ‘masculine’ logic of sexuation which implies an exception to the universal function. In short, the Master-Signifier is never prior to the various attempts to speak of it, but is only the result of the failure to do so, remarking the series of these failures.
Another way to conceive of the group along these lines is through the very struggle of the various notions of ‘group,’ notions that attempt to orient and legitimize themselves to this Master-Signifier. These differing signifiers can be conceived as struggling for ascendency, striving to be known as the signifier which ‘speaks’ for the excluded difference that constitutes the group as a Whole. The members who are producing them, however, overlook how all of these vying signifiers ‘are in search of the subject for a signifier which has already found it for them.’ (For They, 25) That is, the ‘all’ represents for the Master-Signifier the Subject while the Master-Signifier represents the very impossibility of providing such a representation. The group is, in a sense, a failure and in its realization of this, it finds ‘success.’ It is precisely in this sense, when what once appeared to be defeat is suddenly now a victory, that the Master-Signifier acts as the Lacanian point de capiton (the ‘quilting point’). (For They, 78)
What is quilted is meaning. The Master-Signifier stops the incessant sliding of the ‘signifieds’ beneath the signifiers by knotting them together, so to speak. This is the theoretical content behind Lacan’s advocacy for the use of punctuation in analysis, the ‘need for an internal interruption in the course of a session.’ (Roudinesco 272) If we extend this notion of analysis to group therapy, Yalom’s repeated emphasis that the therapist‘s technique should be consistent and positive and his basic posture one of ‘concern, acceptance, genuineness, empathy,’ (117) shows itself to be the exact opposite of what a Lacanian therapist’s technique might be: one of creating an atmosphere of frustration through not meeting the group’s demands to supply them with meaning. A Lacanian therapist would do this through punctuating the session, creating verbal ‘cuts’ of sorts and by equivocal utterances, all with an aim to directly open up a void in which the group members would then be obliged to fill in with their own meaningful content. The treatment would thus effectively be complete when the group members catch on to the fact that it is they themselves who are supplying the very meaning that they are looking for through their direct questioning of the therapist. As Žižek writes, ‘[t]herein resides the paradoxical achievement of symbolization: the vain quest for the “true meaning” (the ultimate signified) is supplanted by a unique signifying gesture. One can see… how this gesture [is] meant to be rejected.’ (Interrogating, 301)
The group could also be conceived of as a signifying chain which – because of a ‘primordially repressed’ missing signifier, the Lacanian ‘binary signifier’ – runs in a vicious circle, attempting to close the constitutive lack. As it turns, the group produces Master-Signifier after Master-Signifier, each of ‘which endeavor to close the circle by retroactively providing it with foundation.’ (For They, 216) The ‘repressed’ must remain so, since the very symbolic order is defined by this void; if it were to become known, filled out or exposed, the order would lose its consistency and collapse.8 Yalom provides us with a fitting clinical example. One group member was late for a session and as he walked down the corridor, the adjoining observation room door was just then opened to allow a student to enter and at this precise moment the group member saw and heard the observing students giggling at some private joke. Although the member, like all group members, knew of the existence of the observers behind the mirrored, observing glass (as this is standard practice), it nevertheless stunned him. When he spoke of it in the last moments of the meeting, it equally shocked the entire group. The next session found him absent and the group engaged in what Yalom calls a ‘flight mode,’ for the ‘event was a catastrophe of major proportions for the entire group.’9 This vignette offers us an excellent image of the void that must be excluded if the group is to retain its consistency, for the inside of the observation room (its Beyond, in a sense) is not normally to be viewed by the group members themselves. For the length of the treatment, it is ‘known,’ but only in its ‘ex-sistence,’ to use the Lacanian term: it operates precisely as a void, an absence and if it becomes ‘filled out’ – especially in such an irreverent and disquieting manner as it was for this unfortunate group – group cohesiveness begins to dissolve. This is strictly homologous to the logic of the Master-Signifier: all the signifiers (the group) represent the subject (void) for the One (Master-Signifier) and when this void becomes filled out with another signifier (say, ‘observing students laughing behind the mirror’), the group necessarily must break down from what it once was.10
In providing such examples, one always runs the risk of ‘reifying’ terms such as ‘void,’ ‘lack,’ and ‘subject.’ In the above example we can certainly use Lacanian algebra to name the group an S2 (Being) and the stand-in for its place, an S1 (Master-Signifier, Nothing) and it would be correct, yet what is thereby lost is the minimal gap – that ‘almost nothing’ between the element (S2) and the stand-in for its void-place of inscription (S1).(For They, xxvi) This ‘almost nothing’ between the ordinary and the empty signifier is the Lacanian subject, $. Lacan endeavors to get us to think of the Whole, the One of the symbolic order which has no externality (void or otherwise) but only insofar as there is a certain constitutive ‘outside’ to it through the use of his difficult objet petit a. We will introduce and apply this paradoxical object through Žižek’s discussion of Hegel’s Monarch, which closely resembles the logic of the signifier. We will argue that the therapist can be seen in light of this object and is to the group what the Monarch is to the state.
Lacanian-themed puzzles
