The Myth of Meaning: 6 The Eternal Signifier — Structuralism’s Ghosts

The Problem

Structuralist and post-structuralist thought often treats signs, symbols, and systems as carrying significance independently of human interaction. Meaning seems to preexist us, waiting to be decoded, as if language itself were a vault of eternal truths.

The Distortion

This is a subtle return of theology: the “eternal signifier” functions like a secularised deity. By treating structures as pre-given and self-sufficient, we imagine meaning as already embedded in the world — a fixed order to be revealed rather than a relational process to be enacted. Humans become interpreters of eternal significance, not co-creators of it.

The Relational Alternative

From a relational perspective, signs and symbols only carry meaning through interaction. The patterning of potential into actual, the perspectival cuts through which we interpret, is what generates significance. Symbols are tools of relational alignment, not repositories of preordained meaning. Meaning is performed, not inherited.

Takeaway

The “eternal signifier” is theology repackaged in semiotic form. Relational ontology dissolves this ghost: meaning arises dynamically, contingent on perspective and interaction, never residing in structures beyond relation itself.