The Displacement of Agency

When addressed to the weaker party, the phrase you are giving us to much power subtly transfers responsibility for power imbalances onto them. It implies: you are the one granting this authority, you are the one enabling us, as though domination were a gift or misjudgment rather than a structural relation. This rhetorical inversion masks present and historical coercion (operating at macro, meso and micro levels) beneath the language of consent. It echoes what theorists of ideology might call a false voluntarism—the notion that subordinates are complicit because they “gave” their power away, rather than because it was taken or structured out of their reach.

This dynamic is evident in many contexts: colonial paternalism (“we only govern because you entrusted us”), technocratic governance (“the public delegates power to experts”), or corporate paternalism (“users consented to data collection”). In each case, the language of receiving power replaces the reality of exercising it.

The Ethics of False Modesty

From a moral standpoint, when the relatively powerful speak of “too much power,” they occupy the contradictory position of the humble sovereign—asserting mastery even in renunciation. The gesture of self-limitation can become a means of moral accumulation: the powerful gain legitimacy by displaying restraint. It is, in this sense, a form of ethical capital, not a relinquishment of control.

Levinas and Arendt, in different ways, warn against this paradox. True ethical responsibility, for Levinas, is asymmetrical but grounded in vulnerability, not superiority; for Arendt, authentic political restraint comes from shared accountability, not paternal acknowledgment. So, when the strong announce their power as excessive, they often reaffirm the asymmetry rather than dissolve it.

The Rhetoric of Self-Limitation as Power’s Mask

When the powerful say, “you are giving us too much power,” they appear to reject domination — but often in a way that preserves their position as the ones who define the moral field. They retain control over what counts as “too much” and when the boundary has been crossed. This kind of moral self-critique can function as an immunizing discourse: it signals awareness without altering the structure of asymmetry.

Thinkers such as Foucault, Adorno, and Agamben would treat this gesture as a form of reflexive legitimation — the system’s way of absorbing critique. Power does not always sustain itself through denial; sometimes it sustains itself by confessing. In this context, “you are giving us too much power” can become a way of appearing ethically vigilant while continuing to benefit from the very imbalance it names.

Conclusion

If “you are giving us too much power” is spoken by the relatively strong to the relatively weak, the meaning and moral weight of the phrase shifts almost completely.

It ceases to express humility, and instead risks becoming a rhetorical performance of self-awareness that still consolidates authority. The phrase then operates less as a check on power than as a gesture that legitimates it. In this inverted situation, “you are giving us too much power” no longer signals humility or resistance to utilitarian hubris; instead, it becomes a moral performance of power — a discursive strategy that conceals structural domination beneath the language of responsibility.

It is the mirror image of “yes, but it helps some people”: both rely on the presumption that power knows best how to justify itself. The former does so through efficiency, the latter through modesty. Both remain forms of moral self-exoneration.