a concept that exists to mediate between two opposing ideas, as a transition occurs between them. At the point where one idea has been replaced by the other, and the concept is no longer required, the mediator vanishes. Fredric Jameson introduced the term in a 1973 essay; used by Žižek
According to Žižek, the subject is a ‘vanishing mediator’.39 This concept is adopted from Jameson. In the latter it refers to any phenomenon that allows another phenomenon to emerge and disappears once it has performed that task.