CONCEPT
Power Asymmetry
The triple structural imbalance — of narrative, institutional incentive, and consequence — that makes everyday resistance rational and simultaneously insufficient.
Power asymmetry in Scott's framework is not a single dimension of inequality but a structural configuration operating on three axes. Narrative asymmetry: the proponent class controls the vocabulary — disruption, upskilling, augmentation, democratization — in which the transition is described, leaving the resister without legitimate terms for her experience. Institutional asymmetry: the metrics that drive organizational decisions measure the proponent's definition of success and are blind to the resister's definition of cost. Consequence asymmetry: the proponent who gets it wrong loses market share; the resister who gets it wrong loses a career. This triple imbalance makes open confrontation irrational for the resister and invisible resistance correspondingly attractive. The same asymmetry that makes resistance rational is the asymmetry that makes resistance insufficient — when you cannot influence the decision, delaying your compliance with it does not change the decision.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The narrative axis is the most underestimated. Scott was acutely sensitive to the relationship between vocabulary and power. In Domination and the Arts of Resistance,