A reality system collapses when private knowledge outstrips what the big Other credibly allows

Evidence

This brings us to the second half of the second antinomy of the therapeutic imaginary: there is far more abuse than had previously been thought possible. The sense of the possible here has little to do with what actually happened; rather, it is what is deemed credible by the virtual figure that Lacanian theory calls the big Other. The big Other is something like the virtual observer assumed to be the audience for official discourse, and it is the big Other which secures the consistency of any reality system. There is always some discrepancy between what groups and individuals know and what the big Other believes. This is because, as Lacan notes, a defining feature of the big Other is its inability to see everything. However, a severe crisis will occur if the discrepancy between what groups and individuals know and what the big Other “believes” becomes too marked. In such conditions, the official reality system is in danger of collapse. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1941

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the Lacanian big Other as the virtual audience of official discourse that stabilizes reality, and the condition for its collapse.
• XREF: Connects to Fisher’s capitalist realism concept and to Whyte’s work on how official discourse manages the gap between knowledge and belief. — connects to: Official pretense and private knowledge must diverge for social reality to function — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 95; Excess knowledge that trust is being built can itself collapse it into distrust; Reality constitutes itself by repressing an unrepresentable Real — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 40 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Official pretense and private knowledge must diverge for social reality to function #corroborates (0.88) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 95
• Personalized internet feeds destroyed shared common knowledge and split the public into oppositional realities #exemplifies (0.85)
• Reality constitutes itself by repressing an unrepresentable Real #qualifies (0.82) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 40
• Stigmatized knowledge is truth-claims marginalized by official knowledge institutions #exemplifies (0.80) — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy, 177
• AI could flood society with pseudo-culture that distorts shared reality #exemplifies (0.80) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 694
• Excess knowledge that trust is being built can itself collapse it into distrust #exemplifies (0.78)
• Knowledge becomes idées reçues when it detaches from reality and circulates anonymously between texts. #expands (0.78) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 321
• Absolute Knowledge’s anonymity threatens to abolish individual interpretive initiative #expands (0.77) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 1135
• Advanced societies conflate knowledge with decision-competence and truth with power #qualifies (0.76) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 634
• A scientific measure of power would destroy social reality’s substitutes #complicates (0.75) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 600
• Losing the fact-potential distinction makes thought submit to existing society #qualifies (0.74) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 40