Subtracting distortion from a discursive field would cause the field to disintegrate

Evidence

Indeed Lacan reveals how discourse itself in its fundamental structure is authoritarian since, out of the free- Boating dispersion of signifiers, it is only through the intervention of a master signifier that a consistent field of meaning can emerge. For him, the status of the master signifier, the signifier of symbolic authority founded only on itself (in its own act of enunciation), is strictly transcendental: the gesture that ‘distorts’ a symbolic field, that ‘curves’ its space by introducing a nonfounded violence, is stricto-sensu correlative of its veIY establishment. This means that if we were to subtract from a discursive field its distortion, the field would disintegrate. — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 596

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains the Lacanian master signifier as self-founding transcendental authority whose distorting violence is constitutive of meaning.
• XREF: Analogous to the constitutive outside in ch4 — meaning, like identity, needs a nonfounded founding point. — connects to: Every consensus stabilizes irreducible chaos, and permanent stability would end politics — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 586; Violence and antagonism are ineradicable and admit no final political solution — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 605; Institutionalized discursive practices can lose credibility and collapse — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 53 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Discursive formations are held together by regularity, not uniformity, of statements #qualifies (0.80)
• Institutionalized discursive practices can lose credibility and collapse #expands (0.72) — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 53