A sovereign subject is only the effect of an effect.

Evidence

A subject-effect can be briefly plotted as follows: that which seems to operate as a subject may be part of an immense discontinuous network (“text” in the general sense) of strands that may be termed politics, ideology, economics, history, sexuality, language, and so on. (Each of these strands, if they are isolated, can also be seen as woven of many strands.) Different knottings and configurations of these strands, determined by heterogeneous determinations which are themselves dependent upon myriad circumstances, produce the effect of an operating subject. Yet the continuist and homogenist deliberative consciousness symptomatically requires a continuous and homogeneous cause for this effect and thus posits a sovereign and determining subject. This latter is, then, the effect of an effect, and its positing a metalepsis, or the substitution of an effect for a cause. — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 1759

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘subject-effect’ and ‘metalepsis,’ both load-bearing for the strategic essentialism debate.
• XREF: Pairs with the ‘race-struggle’ counter-history of Foucault’s Society Must Be Defended — both dismantle a posited sovereign origin. — connects to: A law binds only because sovereign will chose to be bound by it — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 197; The individual is an effect of power, not its presupposed target — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 48; Sovereignty produces a will to law rather than a rule of law — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 418 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• A law binds only because sovereign will chose to be bound by it #contradicts (0.80) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 197
• The individual is an effect of power, not its presupposed target #corroborates (0.78) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 48
• Sovereignty produces a will to law rather than a rule of law #contradicts (0.75) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 418
• Sovereign power makes principles rather than obeying them #contradicts (0.75)