The Unfinalizable Learner - Lichnost’, AI, and the Cyborg Ontology of Uniqueness A Critical Commentary on Matusov (2026)

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Published: Apr 13, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5195/dpj.2026.817
Keywords:
lichnost’, uniqueness, equity, AI, cyborg, Bakhtin, Haraway, Dialogic pedagogy, self-education, universal basic income

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Olga Shugurova
Independent Scholar

Abstract

This critical commentary responds to Matusov’s (2026) “Against Equity: Toward a Uniqueness Model of Educational Justice” by pursuing three interconnected lines of argument. First, I support and extend Matusov’s provocation that the equity model functions ideologically, drawing an explicit parallel to Marx’s critique of religion as the opium of the people to expose how the remedy mystifies the structures that produce suffering, including the unexamined subject position of those who appoint themselves distributors of educational justice. Second, I argue that Matusov’s invocation of lichnost’ (личность) needs to be placed at the heart of education for a uniqueness approach, grounded in Bakhtin’s (1984) ontology of the once-occurrent event of being. Third, I argue that AI, as a new cultural phenomenon, renders the equity apparatus obsolete by dissolving the scarcity conditions on which it depends. Also, the emerging human-AI hybrid, understood through Haraway’s (1985) cyborg concept, extends lichnost’ into a new form: the cyborg uniqueness of a being whose becoming is co-authored by human and non-human intelligence.

Article Details

How to Cite
Shugurova, O. (2026). The Unfinalizable Learner - Lichnost’, AI, and the Cyborg Ontology of Uniqueness: A Critical Commentary on Matusov (2026). Dialogic Pedagogy: A Journal for Studies of Dialogic Education, 14(1), C1-C9. https://doi.org/10.5195/dpj.2026.817
Issue
Vol. 14 No. 1 (2026)
Section
Commentaries on published articles
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Author Biography

Olga Shugurova, Independent Scholar

Olga Shugurova holds a doctorate in Education from Nipissing University. Her current research develops the concept of cyborg lichnost as a framework for theorizing human and AI uniqueness as it emerges through dialogic entanglements and mutual learning experiences. She has over 18 peer-reviewed publications and serves as Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Dialogic Pedagogy journal.

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