richard-day-gramsci-is-dead

74 Gramsci is Deadhow this is to be achieved or who is to achieve it. All of that, theyargue, must be left to social actors themselves.It is crucial to note that while the leading identity in a hegemonicarticulation is itself part of the chain of equivalences, it simultaneouslysets itself above it, via the elevation of its particular concerns touniversal status (302). To the extent that the Green movement hasbeen successful in its programme, for example, a diverse array of socialgroups have lined up under the banner of ‘ecological sustainability’,each expressing its own particular concerns about environmentaldestruction: parents as guardians of the well-being of young children;people of colour as those affected by environmental racism; andso on. This elevation has an effect not only on the hegemonizedidentities, however, but also upon the hegemonizing identity itself. Asa corollary of the contamination of the universal and the particular,Laclau argues that hegemony ‘requires the production of tendentiallyempty signifiers’ which articulate chains of equivalence (207). Theempty signifier—not to be confused with Lacan’s floating signifier 6 —has a dual aspect. Empty signifiers are signifiers to the extent thatthey resonate within existing discourses; they do participate in theproduction of meaning. But they tend towards emptiness, or lackof meaning, due to the stresses placed upon them by their usage ina hegemonic articulation. That is, in order to be seen as a generalequivalent for an increasing number of struggles, they must be everfurther removed from their point of origin in a particular struggle.As an excellent example of an empty signifier, the term ‘ Green’ willagain suffice. It manages, with apparent ease, to refer to mainstreampolitical groupings oriented to parliamentary reform (Green Party),underground movements that carry out direct action against thedestruction of the environment and in defence of non-human beings(Green Warriors), and niche-marketed products in the capitalistmarketplace (Green Detergent). The result of all of this overtime isthat most of us are not at all sure what it means to ‘be Green’. Thissignifier tends to emptiness, or lack of meaning, precisely becauseof its fullness, its multiplicity of meanings.Finally, Laclau argues that ‘[t]he terrain in which hegemonyexpands is that of a generalization of the relations of representationas condition of the constitution of the social order’ (207). With thisthesis, we appear to have returned to the empirical realm of the firstdimension; under conditions of (post)modernity, representation—orthe delegation of power in the economy, cultural production andpolitical will formation—becomes ‘the only way in which universality