Counter-hegemony works by reattaching emptied signifiers to their original meanings.
Evidence
Here we see the clear difference with the Boulangist movement. Its brevity as a political event allowed its unifying signifiers to operate as almost entirely empty – in actual fact the symbols of the Resistance in Italy functioned in a not dissimilar way in the few months following the Liberation. But the construction of a long-term hegemony is a very different matter: the process of emptying a few central signifiers in the creation of a historical singularity will always be subject to the structural pressure of forces that will try to reattach them to their original signifieds, so that any ‘expanding’ hegemony does not go too far. Limiting the scope of the movement from concept to name is the very essence of a counter-hegemonic practice. — Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason, 367
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Empty signifiers cannot be reduced to any concept they name. — Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason, 361; Rulers can make odious things acceptable simply by renaming them — Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason, 74; Reclaimed identity terms retain traces of struggle rather than being cleansed of negativity — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 397 (+4 more)
Broader Connections
- An empty signifier can be captured and reinscribed by opposing sectors
#corroborates(0.92) — Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason, 403 - The right weaponizes analytic terms by appropriating them and emptying their meaning.
#exemplifies(0.85) — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 472 - Reclaimed identity terms retain traces of struggle rather than being cleansed of negativity
#expands(0.80) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 397 - Fragmenting dominant slogans linguistically lets colonized subjects remap their own identity
#exemplifies(0.78) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2505