Governance
Understanding reality layers and symbolic power: Why clarity can feel threatening
Lu Heng highlights how conflating symbolic legitimacy with enforceable authority fuels resistance to clarity in critical systems.
Headline
Lu Heng highlights how conflating symbolic legitimacy with enforceable authority fuels resistance to clarity in critical systems.
Context
“The Internet has been steadily moving toward decentralisation for decades. From infrastructure to applications, from blockchain to Web3, almost every layer is reducing single points of control. Yet one critical layer remains stubbornly centralised: names and numbers—domain names and IP addresses. This is not a philosophical issue but a structural risk…” ——Lu Heng, CEO at Cloud Innovation, CEO at LARUS Ltd, Founder of LARUS Foundation.
Evidence
Pending intelligence enrichment.
Analysis
In his December 2025 essay “On Reality Layers, Symbolic Power, and Why Clarity Feels So Hostile” , Lu Heng — CEO of LARUS Limited and founder of the LARUS Foundation — sets out a structural explanation of how power operates in governance debates, especially around Internet infrastructure. Heng identifies two fundamentally different layers of power: the reality layer, which is grounded in sovereign authority, courts, contracts and enforceable rights; and the symbolic layer, which depends on legitimacy, consensus, moral framing and narratives. The reality layer produces binary, enforceable outcomes such as legal injunctions or contract execution. The symbolic layer, by contrast, functions through voluntary compliance and collective belief without direct enforceability. Heng observes that many debates feel hostile because participants operate on different layers: one side advances clarity based on enforceable frameworks, while the other defends symbolic constructs that lose coherence under scrutiny. Also Read: Breaking the centralised choke point: Why IP addresses must be decentralised Heng explains that symbolic systems often rely on ambiguity to maintain meaning and protective positions. When clarity collapses ambiguity, roles and narratives that depend on that ambiguity are threatened. This makes clarity feel hostile, even where it serves operational integrity. Clarity shifts focus to contracts, courts and technical rules — mechanisms that leave less room for moral or identity-based narratives to influence outcomes.
Key Points
- Lu Heng distinguishes between reality layers that carry executable power and symbolic layers that operate through legitimacy and consensus.
- He argues that conflating symbolic authority with real enforceable power breeds hostility toward clarity because it threatens protective narratives.
Actions
Pending intelligence enrichment.
