What does one mean by the tyranny of the signifier?

Answer 1

It's the first I have heard of it. Whatever it is, it doesn't sound worth the effort.

Deleuze Abstracts
... combines semiological difference (the difference between signifier and signified, language as ... of difference to the same, and erects a "tyranny of the signifier". What Derrida's ...

http://www.arts.uwa.edu.au/EnglishWWW/abstracts/9.html

"...From Deleuze's standpoint, Derrida's attempt to reduce all differences to differences of essentially the same type is a reduction of difference to the same, and erects a "tyranny of the signifier".... "


Deconstruction Criticism and Essays | Lance St. John Butler (essay date 1994)
... in several plays by Beckett, suggesting that in them Beckett attempts to "escape ... from the tyranny of the signifier ...enotes.com/twentieth-century-criticism/deconstruction/

http://www.enotes.com/twentieth-century-criticism/deconstruction/lance-st-john-butler-essay-date-1994

Answer 2

It sounds like something from Lacanian philosophy/literary theory. Jacques Lacan was an interpreter of Freud. He wrote about signifiers as being representative of meaning, but that one could never really know the truth of something because it was hidden behind a chain of signifiers. Think of words as being signifiers. If you tell someone you saw a tree, then that person automatically thinks of a tree. But, their idea of a tree might be different than your idea of one. How would you describe it? Well, a tree has branches and leaves and a trunk. All of these are words or signifiers that describe what a tree is. But, how would you break it down further? How would you describe a leaf for example? You would use more signifiers, like the leaf is fibrous and green. Then, how would you describe green? Thus, the chain goes on indefinitely. The tyranny of the signifier is that it rules the way we describe things and the way we communicate. We can never really unobscure the true meaning of something. In contrary, we confuse it even more through endless signifiers.

Answer 3

a person who commands laws upon another is often wrong.