Encircling the Political

Chapter 2 examined the various ways in which Lacanian theory transforms our view of the objective side of human experience. If up to now our main focus was reality in general (especially in the last part of Chapter 2), I will start Chapter 3 by rearticulating some of the conclusions of the previous chapter but this time with particular reference to the field of political reality. Naturally, what we said about reality in general is also applicable to political reality. ¹ But what is this political reality for which Lacan is relevant? In fact what exactly is political reality in general? We know that in mainstream political science, politics and political reality are associated with citizenship, elections, the particular forms of political representation and the various ideological families. Politics is conceived as constituting a separate system, the political system, and is expected to stay within the boundaries of this system: people, that is to say, politicians, social scientists and citizens, expect to find politics in the arenas prescribed for it in the hegemonic discourse of liberal democracies (these arenas being parliament, parties, trade unions, etc.), and also expect it to be performed by the accordingly sanctioned agents (Beck, 1997:98). Although this well-ordered picture is lately starting to show signs of disintegration, with the politicisation of areas previously located outside the political system (as Beck has put it ‘if the clocks of politics stop there [within the official arenas of the political system], then it seems that politics as a whole has stopped ticking’—Beck, 1997:98), politics can only be represented in spatial terms, as a set of practices and institutions, as a system, albeit an expanding one. Politics is identical to political reality and political reality, as all reality, is, first, constituted at the symbolic level, and, second, supported by fantasy.