Phantasmagoria: Structures of Signification

You arrive back from an extended stay in a non-Western location and the West shouts at you with its postmodern nothingness. All the signs and the intricate conventions surrounding countless little practices seem so contrived and pointless. You think about it and much later you realise that your exposure to a more modern world in China has heightened your awareness of the fragility and brittleness and ultimate meaninglessness that is Western society.

Then you remember that the world is always a world of signs, distinct yet intertwined with the world of nature. And the shallowness in the Western world is only apparent to you because you have, through your absence, extracted yourself from the system of reinforced signifiers that create the phantasmagoria which structure much of the Western sign world. Were it not for the effective operation of these phantasmagoria, the Western world would always appear as shallow as it appears to you now.

Phantasmagoria rely on the structuring principle of absence, which is continually deferred fulfillment. That is to say, phantasmagoria offer a duel promise.
First, the specific promise of the phantasmagoria, which is a phantastic, intense, compressed state - of sexiness, of exotica, of coolness, of bourgeois satisfaction, etc.
Second, the more general promise that there is more. There is something beyond. There is something. There is a thing. That thing is the Other, and it can never be claimed or reconciled or arrived at.

Somewhat paradoxically, this is what in fact enables us to believe that there is a meaningful world, there is a real world, a world worth living for. And it is like a fairy-tale that we believe in mostly because others believe in it. Indeed, it is made real by others gesturing towards it.
They participate in the semiotic economy around a phantasmagorical subsystem and that subsystem becomes real, just as any slice of social reality (money, love, God etc) is made real purely by acting as if it is real.

One might say that phantasmagoria collectively form a cultural substratum responsible for social stability. They may not be real, but in acting as if they are we make them real. They are so powerful as well as so elusive that they rule us and they are beyond reproach and beyond attack.

It is quite easy to forget in the importance, the practical importance of phantasmagoria, if it is not repeated, reinforced at regular intervals. That is why such signifieds are not in fact the product of an individual psyche, but rather of a social network of semiotic relations.

The economy of signs can be conceived of as a weather system, similar in structure to the synoptic charts of atmospheric pressure meteorologists employ. Such a structure, or system, is composed of sub-systems which the meteorologist calls high- and low-pressure systems. These systems are not the weather itself, but rather the pattern of forces which produces the weather.
Likewise, the phantasmagoria and are not signs in themselves, but structuring principles of absence. They are not semiotic destinations to be arrived at, but forces acting upon, guiding the flow of meaning. They promise a destination, yet that destination is never arrived at and the effect is instead continual differment and deferment: differance.

Important phantasamagoria in contemporary Western culture include:

'Cool'
James Dean, Coke, the Fonz, self-satisfaction, desirability, power, control, contentment, extremely solid sense of self and place in reality.

'Malboro Man'
We call him ‘Malboro Man’ now, but part of the explanation for the massive success of Malboro is the way the brand’s marketing harnesses the phantasm of the rugged, independent pioneer spirit which birthed America.

'Working Class'
Springsteen, Jimmy Barnes, overalls, sweat, machines, factories, honour, comaraderie, ‘salt of the earth’. Blue denim. Blue-collar. Westies.

'The Ocean'
Fish, freshness, cleanliness, wildness, sea creatures, fresh air, mystery, primordiality, goodness, Nature, naturalness.

'The City'
The best of everything, the newest, activity, dynamicism, busy-ness, centre, ‘where it’s at’, pinnacle of human achievement.

'The Journalist'
Honour, integrity, truth, the word. Record. History, public service, noble occupation. The scribe, the truth seeker. The vigilence and public service of the New York Times.