Floating signifiers and the construction of hegemonies

What exactly are floating signifiers? In this article we unravel this concept.

In recent months, as a result of the emergence of the PodemosPodemos, there has been much talk of "floating signifiers".floating signifiers"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 work of Jacques Lacan and Ernesto Laclau and is part of the tradition of psychoanalysis. The premise from which it starts is that the ideological space is made of unbound, unmoored elements, whose identity is open, overdetermined by their articulation in a chain with other elements, that is to say, their "literal" significance depends on their metaphorical plus of significance.

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

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

But, as Slavoj Zizek reminds us Slavoj Zizek in The Sublime Object of Ideology: "The enchainment is possible only on condition that a certain signifier, the Lacanian One, "cushions" the whole field, and, by encompassing it, effects the identity of the field". The crucial point to understand both the success of Podemos and that of any hegemonic ideology is precisely this: to know how to determine which is the Lacanian One that is capable of quilting the rest of the floating signifiers.

Floating signifiers: 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, which is usually the capitalist order..... In this way, war will only be the fruit of imperialist expansion of particular 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, to fight against machismo is to fight against capitalism. If we adjust well our sight glass, we will see that the pattern is eternally reproduced because the nodal point that cushions the communist theory and gives it its identity is the capitalist order. All the free elements, all the 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. Here lies the success of a hegemonic ideology.

But, evidently, ideology is everywhere. For a neoliberal, for example, floating signifiers such as "freedom", "property", "individual", are always quilted under the nodal point of private property as they understand it. In this way, the concept of "freedom" will be inscribed in the chain of plus metaphorical signification of private property. Examples: "there is only freedom in private space, there is only freedom where there is private property or its reverses: there is no freedom in public space". One of the greatest successes of neoliberal ideology is, for example, to convince us that there are no ideologies. A neoliberal will most probably tell us that we are little machines of marginalist calculation guided by selfish and individual interests and maximizing their utility. The curious thing about this phenomenon is that we are never only utilitarians, but we must also appear to be utilitarians.. In this way, I will make a planning of the day, a well-marked schedule or organize the space in my house in order to make the most of everything. That is to say, I am at a meta-utilitarian level in which I must not be utilitarian, but impose a utilitarian vision of my life and say to myself: "how productive and practical I am by arranging this in such and such a 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 facts that at first sight contradict it begin to work 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, nowadays, in view of the catastrophic consequences it has had both on the macroeconomic level and on people's standard of living, continues to insist that the problem is public spending, it is when the ideology has triumphed.

We are very often confronted with "the deficit has not been sufficiently adjusted" or "the resistances of the Welfare State are still too important to be able to apply normally the wonderful adjustment program that will solve everything". This is the materialization of the success of a given ideology. Everything remains 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 quilt floating signifiers that could have been quilted under a different nodal point. In most countries of Europe, elements such as "corruption", "loss of national sovereignty", "unemployment", "poverty" have been collected and quilted under the nodal point of the national struggle against globalization as well as under the point of the liberal-bourgeois decadence of contemporary capitalism. That is to say, the chaining has taken place under neo-fascism (the National Front is a terrible example of this).

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

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