Floating signifiers and the construction of hegemonies

In recent months, following the emergence of We can, has been spoken on numerous occasions of the "floating signifiers”To explain the ideological triumph that has shaken the Spanish political landscape. What are floating signifiers? What theory do they refer us to?

Theoretical framework of floating signifiers

The theory of floating signifiers and equivalences comes from the works of Jacques lacan and of Ernest Laclau and it is part of the tradition of psychoanalysis. The premise from which it starts is that the ideological space is made of unbound, unbound elements, whose identity is open, over-determined. by articulating them in a chain with other elements, that is, their "literal" meaning depends on their plus of significance metaphorical.

At this point it is It is very important to remember that for Lacan there is always a primacy of the signifier over the signified (on language and psychoanalysis you can consult the article I wrote for Psychology and Mind a few weeks ago clicking here).

Those elements that are unbound, that "float" in the significant chain, can be such things as "corruption", "rich", "big businessmen", "people". The ideological struggle then resides in what Lacan calls "Capiton Points " (nodal points) that will be able to totalize and include all those "free", "floating" elements, in a single series of equivalences. In this way, each of these floating signifiers will be part of a series of equivalences. Through the metaphorical plus, they will connect with all the other elements of a signifying chain, thus determining their identity. For example, for a communist, fighting corruption is fighting the capitalist order.

But, as it reminds us Slavoj zizek in The Sublime Object of Ideology: “The chain is possible only on condition that a certain signifier, the Lacanian One, "pad" the whole field, and, by encompassing it, effect the identity of this". The crucial point to understand both the success of Podemos and that of any hegemonic ideology is precisely this: knowing how to determine which is the Lacanian one that is capable of padding the rest of signifiers floating.

Floating Significants: Practical Examples

It is common, when debating with an orthodox communist, to end up encountering walls that prevent the discussion from moving forward. These walls are the materialization of the ideological nodal point of communism that is usually the capitalist order. In this way, the war will be the result only of imperialist expansion of private capitalist interests. The equivalence here is as follows: to fight for peace is to fight against the capitalist order. Another classic is that of patriarchy and machismo: capitalism is a masculinized system, made by and for men, fighting against machismo is fighting against capitalism. If we adjust our peephole well, we will see that the pattern is eternally reproduced since the nodal point that quilts communist theory and that endows it with identity is the capitalist order. All free elements, all floating signifiers, can be reduced to the explanation of the contemporary capitalist order and the struggle against it will give us the answers and the solutions. Herein lies the success of a hegemonic ideology.

But obviously ideology is everywhere. For a neoliberal, for example, floating signifiers such as "freedom", "property", "Individual", always tuck under the nodal point of private property such as they they understand. In this way, the concept of "freedom" will be inscribed in the chain of metaphorical significance plus private property.. Examples: “there is only freedom in private space, there is only freedom where there is private property or its reverse: there is no freedom in public space”. One of the greatest successes of neoliberal ideology is, for example, convincing us that there are no ideologies. A neoliberal will tell us, most likely, that we are little machines of marginalist calculation that is guided by selfish and individual interests and that maximizes its utility. The curious thing about this phenomenon is that We are never just utilitarians, but we must pretend to be utilitarians. In this way, I will make myself a planning of the day, a well-marked schedule or I will organize the space in my house in order to get the most out of it all. That is, I am at a meta-utilitarian level in which I must not be utilitarian, but impose a vision utilitarian of my life and say to myself: “how productive and practical I am when ordering this in such and such way".

Floating Signifiers and Ideology

Ideology is not a veil that prevents us from seeing behind things, ideology is the very sustenance of our daily realities. And this goes hand in hand with the fact that an ideology triumphs when even the facts that at first glance contradict it begin to function as arguments in its favor. If I am a neoliberal who has defended austerity to the death as the best way to face the economic crisis and who, currently, in view of the catastrophic consequences that has led to both the macro-economic level and the standard of living of the people, I continue to believe that the problem is public spending is when the ideology has triumphed.

We very often find the one that “is that the deficit has not been sufficiently adjusted” or “the resistance of the State of Well-being are still too important to be able to apply normally the wonderful adjustment program that everything will solve ”. This is the materialization of the success of a certain ideology. Everything is under suspicion and every element that contradicts my first premise is positively picked up to reinforce it.

Podemos is the rearticulation and construction of a new nodal point to pad floating signifiers that could have been padded under a different nodal point. In most European countries, elements such as "corruption", "loss of national sovereignty", "unemployment", "poverty" have been collected and padded under the nodal point of the national struggle against globalization as well as under the point of the liberal-bourgeois decadence of capitalism contemporary. In other words, the chain has been carried out under neo-fascism (the National Front is a terrible example of this).

Podemos has padded those unbound elements under the chain of "democracy" and "people against caste." And it has worked wonderfully well as it has generated a new hegemony.

Do not miss the interview to the author of this article: Alejandro Pérez Polo