A part of truth is always sacrificed for the sake of reality; this lost piece of truth is the true truth [1]. The loss of the true truth is compensated by the semblances. Phallic signifier, the masculine form of semblances, is a memorial erected in the memory of the true truth, and it mediates symbolic mourning [2]. Missing signifier, the feminine form of semblances, rejects the sacrifice and loss of the true truth but it cannot prevent it, it is fascinated by the ceremonial enchantment of sacrifice. Real mourning, which means the loss of the loss, sacrifices the sacrifice itself and goes beyond the masculine and feminine forms of semblances. Phallic signifier, missing signifier and real mourning are respectively completeness (All), incompleteness (not-All) and in-incompleteness (not-not-All).

Truth as the ground of all embodiments constitute the systems [3]. The true truth that is sacrificed for the sake of reality forms the malfunctions. Malfunction opens the space of desire; it separates desire from will. What constitutes will is the reality as the ground of all authorizations. Desire transcends will, because it is oriented towards the malfunction, which is the true truth that is sacrificed for the sake of reality.

In the face of malfunction, the desire to repair and the desire to decompose intertwine; the dimension of desire that transcends will is precisely this ambivalence. The word ‘deserve’ accurately reflects the ambivalence of desire. Desire wants and deserves both reparation and decomposition simultaneously. Will is the clarification and resolution that removes the ambivalence in desire. The move from desire to will disentangles oneself from the enchanting gravitational field of sacrifice, and brings oneself to the field of reality. The move from desire to will can turn reparation into decomposition or decomposition into reparation, but either reparation or decomposition must be chosen.

The completeness (All) of the phallic signifier is a fetish, that is, an authority-body complex. Masculine reality and realism relies on the completeness fetish of the phallic signifier. The incompleteness (not-All) of the missing signifier is the breaking down of the masculine fetish and the manifestation in its stead of the symptom as the desire-malfunction complex. Feminine truth and authenticity relies on the incomplete symptom of the missing signifier [4].

Masculine imposture which relies on the phallic signifier generates the appearance of a false-fake ‘will’. Feminine masquerade which relies on the missing signifier unleashes the true desire to expose the falsity-fakeness of the masculine ‘will’ and undermines it. But the desire thereby also creates the possibility for the emergence of the real will. Real will is constituted by the negation of the incompleteness (not-All) of desire, so it is in-incompleteness (not-not-All); it’s the negation of negation, the sacrifice of sacrifice, the loss of the loss, it is real mourning.

The in-incompleteness of the real will, which negates the incompleteness of desire, may mean two different things: It is either the reparation of the malfunction, or it is the further decomposition of the malfunction. The effect of this decision on the system is indeterminate: There might be reparations that subvert the system as well as decompositions that sustain the system.

The sacrifice of the true truth constitutes the knowledge that conceals the indeterminacy of the malfunction’s effect on the system. This knowledge surrenders to the oscillations of completeness-incompleteness between the masculine and the feminine. Real mourning relinquishes this oscillation, it reveals the underlying indeterminacy and it assumes the ignorance. Ignorance opens the field of truth in the horizon of knowledge.

(Turkish)

Işık Barış Fidaner is a computer scientist with a PhD from Boğaziçi University, İstanbul. Admin of Yersiz Şeyler, Editor of Žižekian Analysis, Curator of Görce Writings. Twitter: @BarisFidaner

Notes:

[1] ‘True truth’ is something other than the ‘truth about truth’. Lacan associates the former with the absence of the sexual relationship and rejects the latter concept (about this, see Lorenzo Chiesa’s book The Not-Two: Logic and God in Lacan). I should note that the referent of the ‘true truth’ is purely fantastical and not substantial. It’s just an ironical expression that refers to the negative space around its signification. The Žižekian thing to do here might seem to be to reject this term on the grounds that ‘it conceals nothing but the void’, but I abstain from that (rather romantic and poetic) gesture, because my purpose here is to distinguish ‘truth vs. reality’ and ‘the void’ obfuscates this distinction. More about the void: “The Void, The Hole Void, Nothing But The Void”

[2] See Symbolic Mourning and Real Mourning (compilation)

[3] See “Clamor and Lenio”

[4] A good example of this is McGowan’s concept of ‘universality’. See “Masculine and Feminine: Truth, Reality and Semblances”, “The Authority-Body Complex”