Revisability: 4 Power Is Control Over Revisability

Power is usually imagined as intention, coercion, or domination. But revisability reframes the concept: power is asymmetric control over which deviations can still re-enter a system as meaningful information.

This is a subtle, coldly structural view—power does not require malice, intent, or visibility. It operates quietly, through the very rules, rhythms, and architectures that govern a system.

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1. Revisability is the medium of power

A field can appear vibrant, democratic, resilient, and pluralistic. It can reward freedom, host debate, survive shocks, and display difference.

Yet if it decides which deviations are allowed to influence constraints, it has effectively concentrated power—even if every participant acts with good will.

Power and revisability are two sides of the same coin:

Wherever revisability is restricted, power resides.

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2. Power without villains

The mechanisms that constrain revisability often operate without identifiable actors:

• Algorithmic optimisation loops select which behaviours “count.”

• Institutional memory enforces certain paths while ignoring others.

• Norms define what counts as intelligible contribution.

• Temporal rhythms privilege some actions and suppress others.

None of these require intent. None of them require conspiracy.

Yet each ensures that some deviations are never taken up as information. This is power in action.

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3. Visibility is misleading

Common assumptions link power to visibility:

• The loudest voice is assumed powerful.

• The most central node is assumed in control.

But revisability flips this intuition:

The system that appears loudest may be the most constrained.

Power is measured by what can be re-cut, not who shouts the loudest.

An actor may appear omnipotent while the field ignores or deflects their interventions entirely. Conversely, subtle constraints may quietly determine the field’s shape.

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4. The structural grammar of power

Power operates through revisability in familiar and unfamiliar ways:

• Norms and rules: They define which deviations are legitimate.

• Platforms and architectures: They filter, amplify, or suppress signals.

• Metrics and incentives: They decide which behaviours are rewarded or punished.

• Temporal pressures: They accelerate some actions and defer others.

All of these are invisible until we ask: What deviations are still intelligible?

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5. Subtle asymmetries

Power is often distributed unevenly—not because of intention, but because of structural asymmetries. These asymmetries are reinforced when:

• deviations are moralised,

• compliance is aestheticised,

• efficiency is optimised,

• or dissent is personalised.

Revisability collapses quietly, and power solidifies without a clear face or villain.

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6. Implications for ethics

If ethics is the preservation of revisability, then:

• Acts of power are ethical or unethical to the extent that they expand or restrict revisability.

• Good intentions matter less than structural consequences.

• Resistance aimed only at visible actors is often futile; the hidden constraints matter far more.

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7. Looking ahead

Now that we can see power as control over revisability, the next post will explore subversion as the deliberate restoration of revisability.

Unlike protest or dissent, effective subversion does not aim to overthrow, punish, or dominate. It reopens the field to new intelligibility, counteracting the silent accumulation of structural power.