LSE Public Lectures and Events:

"Wronged: the weaponization of victimhood"
Date: March 6, 2025
Host: London School of Economics and Political Science
Chair: Professor Miria Giorgio
Main Speaker: Professor Lili Huliaras Huliaragi
Panel: Professor Rosalind Gill, Professor Karin Jorgensen, Professor Radha Hedge

Episode Overview

This episode centers on Professor Lili Huliaras Huliaragi's new book, Wronged: The Weaponization of Victimhood, exploring how the concept of victimhood is strategically used in contemporary political and media discourses. The discussion interrogates the rise of "victimhood culture," its co-option by powerful groups—especially the far right—and its consequences for justice, recognition, and public debate. The event includes Huliaragi’s keynote, commentary from panelists, and an engaging audience Q&A.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Introduction to the Book and Event

• Miria Giorgio [00:14] introduces the panel and frames the conversation as a timely exploration of victimhood as both a personal and political category.
• Main question: "Who is vulnerable?"—the key challenge raised by Huliaragi's book.

2. Understanding Victimhood as a Political Weapon ([04:43]–[36:19])

• Victimhood is not neutral: Huliaragi explodes the myth of the passive, suffering victim, showing how claims to victimhood are actively made and contested.
• Far right communication:
  • The far right consistently appropriates victimhood language to justify cruelty and maintain power.
  • Example: US abortion debates where fetuses are framed as victims with rights, and women seeking abortions as perpetrators.
    • Quote: "Victimhood... is about claims to suffering that confirm moral status to the claimant and attribute responsibility for the infliction of or the relief of suffering to other actors." – Lili Huliaragi [11:09]
• Two Languages of Pain:
  • Rights – Framing suffering as a social or political injury (e.g., human rights discussions).
  • Trauma – Framing suffering as emotional or psychological harm.
  • These languages enable victimhood to "shape-shift," serving different political purposes.
• Victimhood as Social Capital:
  • Pain and suffering confer moral and political value, turning victimhood into a form of capital for social recognition and domination, not just empathy.
• Bifurcation and Mutability:
  • Victimhood is mutable; one group may present as both victim and perpetrator (e.g., women in abortion debates being both blamed and "saved").
  • Non-person entities (like fetuses) can be cast as "victims," while real, historically oppressed persons can be denied victim status.
• Distinguishing Vulnerability from Victimhood:
  • Huliaragi insists on separating victimhood (a communicative act, a claim) from vulnerability (a social and structural reality).
    • Quote: "Victimhood is a claim about me, an act by which I announce myself. Vulnerability... is about social space and social positions." [29:35]
  • Structural indicators (class, gender, race) reveal who is actually vulnerable; claims to victimhood may mask or distort these realities.
• Policy and Social Implications:
  • Emphasize collectivist narratives and alliances across vulnerabilities rather than divisive, individualized claims.
  • Advocates reflexivity and suspicion about all claims to victimhood—who speaks, from which position, and with what evidence?
    • Quote: "We need to start asking questions about victimhood that break down that concept into its communicative constituents..." [33:05]
• Concluding Warning:
  • Without clear-eyed appraisal, the tactical use of victimhood risks producing more suffering.
    • Quote (paraphrasing Arendt): "The most probable change will be to a world with more, not less, suffering." [35:55]

3. Panelist Reflections and Critique ([36:26]–[64:20])

Professor Rosalind Gill [36:26]

• Historical Perspective:
  • Commends Huliaragi for tracing the genealogy of victimhood, especially the role of the white, male soldier as "testimonially entitled" to pain.
  • Highlights alternative histories where liberation movements (feminism, LGBTQ, postcolonial) rejected victimhood in favor of agency and pride.
• Economy of Believability and Affective Injustice:
  • Notes persistent disparities—women and racialized groups still struggle to be heard or believed.
    • Quote: "Even if women do everything right, their voices and their stories still often don't break through beyond mere visibility." [40:00]
• Challenges and Cautions:
  • Critiques the risk of adjudicating whose victimhood is "valid" based strictly on social position, possibly reversing existing injustices without solving them.
  • Advocates distinguishing between cynical, powerful appropriators of victimhood (e.g. Trump) and the many who express genuine grievance.

Professor Karin Jorgensen [47:30]

• Victimhood as Emotional Regime:
  • Draws on William Reddy’s concept—today’s "emotional regime" revolves around public performances of suffering.
  • The loudest (wealthiest, most powerful) voices dominate, overshadowing genuine suffering of the marginalized.
    • Quote: "The powerful and the dominant... can successfully cast themselves as victims." [49:29]
• Hope for Change:
  • Calls for renewed ethical commitments to justice and narrative craftsmanship to counteract the dominant regime of weaponized victimhood.

Professor Radha Hedge [54:50]

• Communication and Media Dynamics:
  • Connects victimhood performance to platform capitalism: claims to pain become commodified and shaped by attention markets.
• Racial/Gendered Tropes:
  • Perpetual cycling of mythic figures—the "compassionate white soldier," "innocent white female victim," and "quietly suffering women of the Global South."
  • These tropes reinforce power relations and systematically exclude non-white claims to victimhood.
    • Quote: "Both have the capacity to regenerate across context and in order to sustain the myth of the fundamentally flawed black male body and consolidate compassionate white masculinity." [57:00]
• Heuristics and Methodology:
  • Praises Huliaragi's proposed heuristic as a way forward for studying victimhood critically within media and communication studies.

4. Huliaragi’s Brief Response ([64:50]–[69:11])

• Explains historical focus on World Wars and the privileging of white male pain in public culture.
• Acknowledges omission of other genealogies (e.g., feminist and postcolonial resistance) but argues the book aimed to examine present dominant imaginaries.
  • Quote: "If the focus is on what dominates our public culture today, then we need to go back to the 20th century and look at two key moments... the two world wars." [64:50]
• Connects past public memory to current "toxic masculinity" and the continued disbelief of women’s claims.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Victimhood... is about claims to suffering that confirm moral status to the claimant and attribute responsibility for the infliction of or the relief of suffering to other actors."
  — Lili Huliaragi [11:09]

• "Victimhood can thus be claimed by everyone and anyone. It can be claimed by perpetrators... by those who do not exist as persons (e.g., fetuses). Just as it can be attached to known persons, victimhood can also be denied to real persons."
  — Lili Huliaragi [23:01]

• "Victimhood is a claim about me, an act by which I announce myself. Vulnerability... is about social space and social positions."
  — Lili Huliaragi [29:35]

• "We need to seek to replace the hate driven uses of victimhood that divide us... with uses of pain that highlight continuities and intersections of vulnerability."
  — Lili Huliaragi [31:55]

• On power and voice:
  "Because the voices of the most powerful and wealthy in society are also the loudest, their claims are heard over and above the suffering of the marginalized."
  — Professor Karin Jorgensen [49:29]

• "Another world is possible."
  — Professor Rosalind Gill referencing Stuart Hall [46:52]

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Segment | |----------|-------------------------------------------------| | 00:14 | Introduction (Giorgio, panel overview) | | 04:43 | Huliaragi keynote: definitions and examples | | 20:00 | The languages of pain: trauma and rights | | 29:35 | Differentiating victimhood from vulnerability | | 33:05 | Huliaragi’s heuristic framework | | 36:26 | Prof. Gill commentary | | 47:30 | Prof. Jorgensen commentary | | 54:50 | Prof. Hedge commentary | | 64:50 | Huliaragi’s responses to panel | | 69:15 | Audience Q&A: Social media & victimhood | | 72:00 | Platformization of pain, commodification | | 78:15 | Ignorance and the erasure of suffering |

Audience Q&A Highlights ([69:15]–[80:00])

• Role of Social Media:
  • Huliaragi notes platforms amplify claims that benefit their economic model, privileging already prominent voices and transforming collective suffering into individualized, "monetizable" pain.
  • "The economic interest of the platform determines which claims to pain go viral." [72:20]
• Ignorance and Forgetting:
  • The structure of public memory builds in exclusion, preferring some narratives of suffering while consigning others to oblivion.
• Weaponization of 'Woke':
  • Terms like "woke" serve to trivialize genuine struggles for justice, used strategically by those in power to undermine marginalized voices.

Takeaways for Listeners

• Victimhood has become a powerful, mutable currency in political and media discourse, often leveraged to uphold existing privileges.
• There is a persistent gap between who is structurally vulnerable and who is granted victim status in the public imagination.
• Critical analysis requires refusing simple binaries and examining who claims victimhood, from where, and to what end.
• The rise of individualized, commodified expressions of pain—especially on social media—risks obscuring collective injustices and stymying social change.
• Reflexivity, context, and a commitment to collectivist, intersectional justice are vital for reclaiming the narrative of victimhood.

Suggested Further Reading (from speakers’ references)

• Culture of Complaint, Robert Hughes
• Empathy and Moral Development, Martin L. Hoffman
• Empire of Trauma, Didier Fassin & Richard Rechtman
• Works by Lauren Berlant, Sara Ahmed, Kate Mann, Gilly Kay and Sarah Banet-Weiser, Amia Srinivasan

This summary seeks to capture the depth and dynamism of the discussion, highlighting the nuances and critical interventions offered by panelists and the audience. For a deeper exploration, readers are encouraged to consult Lili Huliaragi’s book and the referenced works.