Main Article Content
Abstract
The paper contains a theoretical introduction addressing the paradigm of
vulnerability – a way of thinking that might provide us with a new perspective on
education. This perspective allows for an analysis of the current, diverse forms
of cultural and identity wars, with a focus on the struggle for victim status. The
politics of victimization is not reconstructed as a threat to stable democratic
order, but as an epiphenomenon of a deeper ontological problem – the deficit of
universality, especially in what is common and collectively shared. The perspective
of vulnerability is treated as an alternative to other ways of constructing
universalism, both within and outside of education.
Article Details
Copyright (c) 2025 Karolina Starego
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References
- Boublil, E. (2024). A critical phenomenology of vulnerability: Toward a paradigm shift? A
- contribution to an interdisciplinary trialogue on vulnerability. Human Studies, 47(2), 275-285. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-024-09736-3
- Brown, W. (1995). States of injury: Power and freedom in late modernity. Princeton
- University Press.
- Brunila, K., & Rossi, L. M. (2018). Identity politics, the ethos of vulnerability, and
- education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 50(3), 287-298. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2017.1343115
- Butler, J. (2004). Precarious life: The powers of mourning and violence. Verso.
- Butler, J. (2011). Ramy wojny. Kiedy życie godne jest opłakiwania? Książka i Prasa.
- Butler, J. (2012). Precarious life, vulnerability, and the ethics of cohabitation. The Journal of
- Speculative Philosophy, 26(2), 134-151. https://doi.org/10.5325/jspecphil.26.2.0134
- Butler, J. (2016). Rethinking Vulnerability and Resistance. In. Butler, J., Gambetti, Z., &
- Sabsay, L. (Eds.). Vulnerability in resistance. Duke University Press.
- Carusi T. & Szkudlarek, T. (2020). Education is society… and there is no society: The
- ontological turn of education. Policy futures in education, 18(7), 907-921.
- Chouliaraki, L. (2021). Victimhood: The affective politics of vulnerability. European Journal
- of Cultural Studies, 24(1), 10-27. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549420979316
- Chouliaraki, L., & Banet-Weiser, S. (2021). Introduction to special issue: The logic of
- victimhood. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 24(1), 3-9. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549420985846.
- Chouliaraki, L. (2024). Wronged: The weaponization of victimhood. Columbia University
- Press.
- Cole, A. M. (2007). The cult of true victimhood: From the war on welfare to the war on
- terror. Stanford University Press.
- Cole, A. (2016). All of us are vulnerable, but some are more vulnerable than others: The
- political ambiguity of vulnerability studies, an ambivalent critique. Critical
- Horizons, 17(2), 260-277. https://doi.org/10.1080/14409917.2016.1153896
- Czarnecka, A. (2011). Posłowie od tłumaczki. W: Ramy wojny. Kiedy życie godne jest
- opłakiwania?, Butler, J.,Książka i Prasa (273-275).
- Daigle, C. (2023). Posthumanist Vulnerability. Bloombsbury Publishing.
- Ferrarese, E. (2017). The vulnerable and the political: on the seeming impossibility of thinking
- vulnerability and the political together and its consequences. In The Politics of
- Vulnerability (pp. 74-89). Routledge.
- Fineman, M.A. (2004). The autonomy myth. A theory of dependency. New Press.
- Fineman, M. A. (2010). The vulnerable subject: Anchoring equality in the human condition.
- In Transcending the boundaries of law (pp. 177-191). Routledge-Cavendish.
- Fineman, M.A. (2021). Universality, vulnerability, and collective responsibility. Les ateliers de
- l'éthique, 16(1), 103-116. https://doi.org/10.7202/1083648ar
- Fineman, M. A. (2010a). The vulnerable subject and the responsive state. Public Law & Legal
- Theory Research Paper Series, No. 10-130.
- Fineman, M. A. (2023). The significance of understanding vulnerability: ensuring individual
- and collective well-being. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law-Revue
- internationale de Sémiotique juridique, 36(4), 1371-1383. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-023-10021-2
- Fukuyama, F. (2018). Identity: The demand for dignity and the politics of resentment. Farrar,
- Straus and Giroux.
- Gilson, E. (2013). The ethics of vulnerability: A feminist analysis of social life and practice.
- Routledge.
- Hekman, S. (2014). Vulnerability and ontology: Butler's ethics. Australian Feminist
- Studies, 29(82), 452-464. https://doi.org/10.1080/08164649.2014.967742
- Hochschild, A.R. (2017). Obcy we własnym kraju. Gniew i żal amerykańskiej prawicy.
- Wydawnictwo Krytyka Polityczna.
- Horwitz, R. B. (2018). Politics as victimhood, victimhood as politics. Journal of Policy
- History, 30(3), 552-574. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0898030618000209
- Illouz E (2007) Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism. Cambridge: Polity.
- Li, H. L. (2017). Rethinking vulnerability in the age of Anthropocene: Toward ecologizing
- education. Educational Theory, 67(4), 435-451. https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12264
- Longo, M., & Lorubbio, V. (2023). Vulnerability. From the paradigmatic subject to a new
- paradigm of the human condition? An introduction. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law-Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique, 36(4), 1359-1369. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-023-09999-6
- Lopez, B. R., Madrid, N. S., & Zaharijević, A. (2021). Rethinking Vulnerability and Exclusion.
- Springer International Publishing.
- Łangowski, M. (2016). Wulnerabilność w życiu i filozofii Emmanuela Mouniera. Studia
- Pelplińskie, 49, 215-228.
- Mackenzie, C. (Ed.). (2014). Vulnerability: New essays in ethics and feminist philosophy.
- Oxford University Press.
- Michalak, A. (2018). Wulnerabilność Doroty Masłowskiej w obliczu „syndromu drugiej
- powieści” jako temat" Pawia królowej". Kultura Współczesna. Teoria. Interpretacje. Praktyka, 103(4), 211-224.
- Mouffe, M. (2005). Paradoks demokracji. Wydawnictwo Naukowe Dolnośląskiej Szkoły
- Wyższej.
- Nungesser, F., & Schirgi, A. (2024). Debating the vulnerability Zeitgeist: Introduction to an
- interdisciplinary trialogue. Human Studies, 47(2), 251-260. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-024-09742-5
- Salmela, M., Capelos, T. (2025). Collective Victimhood: The Shallow Social Bond of
- Ressentiment In: For Against Together: Antagonistic Political Emotions. (eds.) L. Osler & T. Szanto. Cambridge University Press (Forthcoming).
- Ranciére, J. (2007). Dzielenie postrzegalnego. Estetyka i polityka. Wydawnictwo Ha!art.
- Ranciére, J. (2024). Uncertain Times. Polity Press.
- Sormunen, M. (2023). Rethinking effective remedies to the climate crisis: A vulnerability
- theory approach. Human Rights Review, 24(2), 171-192. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-023-00686-4
- Starego, K. (2024). Różnica–tożsamość–edukacja u schyłku neoliberalizmu. O potrzebie
- ustanowienia nowego uniwersalizmu. INSTED: Interdisciplinary Studies in Education & Society, 26(2 (96)), 9-32.
- Świerkosz, M. (2018). Ciała podatne na zranienie. Judith Butler, samozniszczenie i radykalne
- akty oporu. Etyka 57, 69-86. https://doi.org/10.14394/27
- Taylor, A., & Pacini-Ketchabaw, V. (2015). Learning with children, ants, and worms in the
- Anthropocene: Towards a common world pedagogy of multispecies vulnerability. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 23(4), 507-529. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2015.1039050
- Tomczok, M. (2017). Wulnerabilność. Zwierzęta, ludzie, Śląsk w twórczości Izabeli Czajki-
- -Stachowicz i Teofila Ociepki. W: Polityki relacji w literaturze kobiet po 1945
- roku, red. A. Grzemska, I. Iwasiów, Szczecin, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu
- Szczecińskiego.
- Vlieghe, J. (2007, November). Judith Butler and corporeal vulnerability: A new perspective on
- the public dimension of education. In Research Community-FWO-Vlaanderen, Date
- : 2008/11/08-2008/11/08, Location: Leuven.
- Wearing, J. (2023). Ontology as a guide to politics? Judith Butler on interdependency,
- vulnerability, and nonviolence. Ergo an Open Access Journal of Philosophy, 9. https://doi.org/10.3998/ergo.2624
References
Boublil, E. (2024). A critical phenomenology of vulnerability: Toward a paradigm shift? A
contribution to an interdisciplinary trialogue on vulnerability. Human Studies, 47(2), 275-285. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-024-09736-3
Brown, W. (1995). States of injury: Power and freedom in late modernity. Princeton
University Press.
Brunila, K., & Rossi, L. M. (2018). Identity politics, the ethos of vulnerability, and
education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 50(3), 287-298. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2017.1343115
Butler, J. (2004). Precarious life: The powers of mourning and violence. Verso.
Butler, J. (2011). Ramy wojny. Kiedy życie godne jest opłakiwania? Książka i Prasa.
Butler, J. (2012). Precarious life, vulnerability, and the ethics of cohabitation. The Journal of
Speculative Philosophy, 26(2), 134-151. https://doi.org/10.5325/jspecphil.26.2.0134
Butler, J. (2016). Rethinking Vulnerability and Resistance. In. Butler, J., Gambetti, Z., &
Sabsay, L. (Eds.). Vulnerability in resistance. Duke University Press.
Carusi T. & Szkudlarek, T. (2020). Education is society… and there is no society: The
ontological turn of education. Policy futures in education, 18(7), 907-921.
Chouliaraki, L. (2021). Victimhood: The affective politics of vulnerability. European Journal
of Cultural Studies, 24(1), 10-27. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549420979316
Chouliaraki, L., & Banet-Weiser, S. (2021). Introduction to special issue: The logic of
victimhood. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 24(1), 3-9. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549420985846.
Chouliaraki, L. (2024). Wronged: The weaponization of victimhood. Columbia University
Press.
Cole, A. M. (2007). The cult of true victimhood: From the war on welfare to the war on
terror. Stanford University Press.
Cole, A. (2016). All of us are vulnerable, but some are more vulnerable than others: The
political ambiguity of vulnerability studies, an ambivalent critique. Critical
Horizons, 17(2), 260-277. https://doi.org/10.1080/14409917.2016.1153896
Czarnecka, A. (2011). Posłowie od tłumaczki. W: Ramy wojny. Kiedy życie godne jest
opłakiwania?, Butler, J.,Książka i Prasa (273-275).
Daigle, C. (2023). Posthumanist Vulnerability. Bloombsbury Publishing.
Ferrarese, E. (2017). The vulnerable and the political: on the seeming impossibility of thinking
vulnerability and the political together and its consequences. In The Politics of
Vulnerability (pp. 74-89). Routledge.
Fineman, M.A. (2004). The autonomy myth. A theory of dependency. New Press.
Fineman, M. A. (2010). The vulnerable subject: Anchoring equality in the human condition.
In Transcending the boundaries of law (pp. 177-191). Routledge-Cavendish.
Fineman, M.A. (2021). Universality, vulnerability, and collective responsibility. Les ateliers de
l'éthique, 16(1), 103-116. https://doi.org/10.7202/1083648ar
Fineman, M. A. (2010a). The vulnerable subject and the responsive state. Public Law & Legal
Theory Research Paper Series, No. 10-130.
Fineman, M. A. (2023). The significance of understanding vulnerability: ensuring individual
and collective well-being. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law-Revue
internationale de Sémiotique juridique, 36(4), 1371-1383. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-023-10021-2
Fukuyama, F. (2018). Identity: The demand for dignity and the politics of resentment. Farrar,
Straus and Giroux.
Gilson, E. (2013). The ethics of vulnerability: A feminist analysis of social life and practice.
Routledge.
Hekman, S. (2014). Vulnerability and ontology: Butler's ethics. Australian Feminist
Studies, 29(82), 452-464. https://doi.org/10.1080/08164649.2014.967742
Hochschild, A.R. (2017). Obcy we własnym kraju. Gniew i żal amerykańskiej prawicy.
Wydawnictwo Krytyka Polityczna.
Horwitz, R. B. (2018). Politics as victimhood, victimhood as politics. Journal of Policy
History, 30(3), 552-574. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0898030618000209
Illouz E (2007) Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism. Cambridge: Polity.
Li, H. L. (2017). Rethinking vulnerability in the age of Anthropocene: Toward ecologizing
education. Educational Theory, 67(4), 435-451. https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12264
Longo, M., & Lorubbio, V. (2023). Vulnerability. From the paradigmatic subject to a new
paradigm of the human condition? An introduction. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law-Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique, 36(4), 1359-1369. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-023-09999-6
Lopez, B. R., Madrid, N. S., & Zaharijević, A. (2021). Rethinking Vulnerability and Exclusion.
Springer International Publishing.
Łangowski, M. (2016). Wulnerabilność w życiu i filozofii Emmanuela Mouniera. Studia
Pelplińskie, 49, 215-228.
Mackenzie, C. (Ed.). (2014). Vulnerability: New essays in ethics and feminist philosophy.
Oxford University Press.
Michalak, A. (2018). Wulnerabilność Doroty Masłowskiej w obliczu „syndromu drugiej
powieści” jako temat" Pawia królowej". Kultura Współczesna. Teoria. Interpretacje. Praktyka, 103(4), 211-224.
Mouffe, M. (2005). Paradoks demokracji. Wydawnictwo Naukowe Dolnośląskiej Szkoły
Wyższej.
Nungesser, F., & Schirgi, A. (2024). Debating the vulnerability Zeitgeist: Introduction to an
interdisciplinary trialogue. Human Studies, 47(2), 251-260. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-024-09742-5
Salmela, M., Capelos, T. (2025). Collective Victimhood: The Shallow Social Bond of
Ressentiment In: For Against Together: Antagonistic Political Emotions. (eds.) L. Osler & T. Szanto. Cambridge University Press (Forthcoming).
Ranciére, J. (2007). Dzielenie postrzegalnego. Estetyka i polityka. Wydawnictwo Ha!art.
Ranciére, J. (2024). Uncertain Times. Polity Press.
Sormunen, M. (2023). Rethinking effective remedies to the climate crisis: A vulnerability
theory approach. Human Rights Review, 24(2), 171-192. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-023-00686-4
Starego, K. (2024). Różnica–tożsamość–edukacja u schyłku neoliberalizmu. O potrzebie
ustanowienia nowego uniwersalizmu. INSTED: Interdisciplinary Studies in Education & Society, 26(2 (96)), 9-32.
Świerkosz, M. (2018). Ciała podatne na zranienie. Judith Butler, samozniszczenie i radykalne
akty oporu. Etyka 57, 69-86. https://doi.org/10.14394/27
Taylor, A., & Pacini-Ketchabaw, V. (2015). Learning with children, ants, and worms in the
Anthropocene: Towards a common world pedagogy of multispecies vulnerability. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 23(4), 507-529. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2015.1039050
Tomczok, M. (2017). Wulnerabilność. Zwierzęta, ludzie, Śląsk w twórczości Izabeli Czajki-
-Stachowicz i Teofila Ociepki. W: Polityki relacji w literaturze kobiet po 1945
roku, red. A. Grzemska, I. Iwasiów, Szczecin, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu
Szczecińskiego.
Vlieghe, J. (2007, November). Judith Butler and corporeal vulnerability: A new perspective on
the public dimension of education. In Research Community-FWO-Vlaanderen, Date
: 2008/11/08-2008/11/08, Location: Leuven.
Wearing, J. (2023). Ontology as a guide to politics? Judith Butler on interdependency,
vulnerability, and nonviolence. Ergo an Open Access Journal of Philosophy, 9. https://doi.org/10.3998/ergo.2624