Naming heterogeneous demands performatively creates their unity.
Evidence
To name a series of heterogeneous elements as ‘working class’, instead, does something different: this hegemonic operation performatively brings about the unity of those elements, whose coalescence into a single entity is nothing other than the result of the operation of naming. The name, the signifier which has – to go back to Copjec’s expression – the ‘breast value of the milk’, constitutes an absolute historical singularity, because there is no conceptual correlate of what it refers to. — Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason, 361
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: A class becomes a people when its name outweighs its concept. — Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason, 362; Empty signifiers cannot be reduced to any concept they name. — Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason, 361; Imagined unity terms like nation and consensus mask class antagonism (+5 more)
Broader Connections
- Imagined unity terms like nation and consensus mask class antagonism
#expands(0.85) - Ideological unity forms through connotative condensation and an axial interpellation
#exemplifies(0.85) - Discursive formations can be unified by a citation system that elevates specific authorial authorities
#exemplifies(0.82) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 92 - Identity labels signal shared projects across wildly varied specific work
#qualifies(0.78)