Redefining terms

During the process of developing my theoretical method for this thesis, I have used the terms ‘antagonism/social antagonism’ and ‘dislocation’ somewhat interchangeably. This is, however, an error that needs to be corrected. Therefore I seek to clarify the use of the terms before I go any further.

A conflation of these terms is not an uncommon error. In Hegemony and Socialist Strategy Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe assumed an identity between antagonism and dislocation, considering antagonism to be responsible for the impossibility of society (Torfing, 1999:128). This, however, assumes that the impossibility of society is external, rather than internal to society. As Zizek points out, what is negated in social antagonism is already negated by a force prior to it- the Real (Zizek, 1990).

It is the Real that is responsible for the impossibility of society, and this impossibility is inscribed in the term ‘dislocation’. Stavrakakis contends that dislocation an ‘unrepresentable’ moment is much closer to the Real than antagonism, which is more the attempts to negate the initial negation caused by the Real (Stavrakakis, 1997: 126). Thus dislocation reveals the lack around which the social is based, whereas antagonism involves the competing efforts to suture this lack. This is a distinction between internal and external responses to the Real; dislocation is an internal response as it is between symbolisation and the Real, whereas antagonism, as an external response to the effect of the Real lies in the limit between different competing antagonisms.

Therefore, because of the effect of the real, every identity is dislocated. This dislocation produces both the symptom, the internal effect of dislocation and social antagonism. Thus social antagonism is a displacement of the effect of the Real. Social antagonism occur because of any attempt at universalism requires both the negation of alternative meanings and of the initial lack, for which alternative meanings compete to cover up. As an illustration, in market environmentalism, the failure of the market in the production of global climate change is a symptom, but this symptom, as effect of the basic dislocation of the discourse (it cannot be fully universal) is inscribed in a social antagonism, normally against ‘control economies’ which are making the problem worse. The main aim of social antagonism is to domesticate and externalise the threat of dislocation and the symptom; this is the effect of ideology.

There are, however, different kinds of responses to dislocation in through social antagonism. Jacob Torfing categorises these as;
Torfing (1999:120) suggests that this produces several different kinds of responses;
- Open confrontation between discourses;
- Displacement; social antagonism;
- Super-ego demand;
- Internalisation; concrete universality.

These responses all, with the exception of concrete universality (which produces radical change), are attempts to subvert the effect of the Real and maintain the stability of the discourse. This stability is, however, an illusion; through the negation of the negation we are under the illusion that the annilhation of the antagonistic force will allow our full constitution. Rather, as Zizek states, the moment of the dissipation of antagonism is when we feel dislocation at its strongest- and start looking for new enemies.

I should also note that dislocation can occur in an already established discourse; an identity can be dislocated (initially) and later suffer a dislocation when ‘A dislocation of a discourse results from the emergence of events which cannot be domesticated, symbolised or integrated within the discourse in question’ (Torfing, 1999:301). Therefore while dislocation produces antagonism, antagonism can also produce dislocation, as can the symptom. Dislocations also occur to certain depths and thus requires/produces different responses; a discourse can be deeply dislocated, which we either produce radical change or a major antagonistic enemy, or subtly dislocated, in which the same would occur on a much smaller scale.


Stavrakakis, Y. (1997). Ambiguous Ideology and the Lacanian Twist. Journal of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research, 8-9, 117-130.
Torfing, J. (1999). New Theories of Discourse; Laclau, Mouffe and Zizek. Oxford: Blackwell.
Zizek, S. (1990). Beyond Discourse-Analysis. In E. Laclau (Ed.), New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time. London: Verso.