The ultimate authority is only the sum of its interpreting officials

Evidence

The quest to reach the ultimate authority who will finally resolve K’s official status can never end, because the big Other cannot be encountered in itself: there are only officials, more or less hostile, engaged in acts of interpretation about what the big Other’s intentions. And these acts of interpretation, these deferrals of responsibility, are all that the big Other is. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 100

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the big Other as purely constituted by acts of interpretive deferral — a clean, usable formulation.
• XREF: connects to: Authority is a constructed, analyzable mechanism rather than a natural given; Even a governor’s formal power is limited against recalcitrant agencies; A head of state governs only as a simulacrum of himself — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 95 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Authority is a constructed, analyzable mechanism rather than a natural given #expands (0.85)
• Authority over a topic belongs to its trained practitioners, not outsiders #expands (0.80) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 320
• Even a governor’s formal power is limited against recalcitrant agencies #complicates (0.75)
• A head of state governs only as a simulacrum of himself #complicates (0.70) — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 95