Lacan v. Gender Pt. 3

The signifying chain, which represents the unconscious, is put into play. The mirror has revealed the inadequacy of the individual in the face of an extrinsic world. The phantasy of totality is redeployed as the anchoring signifier for the unconscious, the phallus. From this point all other relations of unconscious derive their "structure," or rather, it is the relation to this master signifier whence all other signifiers may be posited. The phallus founds a topographical field, a landscape, upon which may be charted desire. We must first ask, however, how this master signifier comes into play, i.e. what initiates this move of the unconscious to establish itself as anything other than a smooth screen? what occasions the transition from a nebular to a solar system?

When the presubjective individual recognizes its imago (a second-level bifurcation, for the image need not of necessity be interpreted), it finds itself within a rupture. On the one side of this interstice there emerges a concept of the individual, internal psychic life; on the other, the harsh brutality of the external world. The self projects an image into the world and this projection does not require the sanction of any intention. Nor does the projection in any way invoke the individual according to a law of internal/external correspondence. Thus, the individual is fundamentally separated from, yet always already within a world. This conjoining without conjunction places the individual within an impossible situation, as a being of agency, yet also without this same agency--a dynamic resonance within a dialectical situation sans resolution (the original solution, a phantasy of totality, was extant prior to the subjective break).

The breech of this solution, through the imposition of the law of non-correspondence, is thus of critical importance to the understanding of signification and desire. To return to the argument presented in Lacan v. Gender Pt. 2, the position of The Woman (La Femme) serves as the signifier of non-correspondence in relation to The Man. Strictu senso, the position of the non-correspondent cannot be signified within a system, for it is this non-correspondent (the coherent contradiction as Derrida might call) which guarantees the signifying system. Such an appearance by this apparition would serve as a ton of dynamite, blasting away the ramparts and eliminating any possibility of an internal/external dichotomy. Within the space of any discourse then, the other of the discourse must be annihilated simultaneously with the founding of the discourse. And yet without this non-existant other, the signifying chain would cease to function, desire would grind to a halt. There would be no animating force, nothing to prod the system into production, as it would be weighed down under its own inertia.