Belief by Repetition, the HOP Method
The best way to make myth into truth is by constant repetition. This is a common ploy in all propaganda and indoctrination. HOP does it well.
A simple example is the repetition of the idea of a ‘principle’. If someone calls a brick an apple, would you keep repeating that a brick was an apple over and over? Yet, this is what happens in HOP. What we observe, is the projection of five slogans called ‘principles’ by people with no expertise in ethics and then the lemmings keep repeating these slogans as ‘principles’, not knowing what a principle is.
This is how traditional safety makes language meaningless.
The same happens in safety with the constant repetition of the word ‘professional’. If I call myself a ‘genius’, does that make it so? Naming myth as truth is the domain of religious belief.
How is the word ‘professional’ meaningful without a clearly articulated ethic connected to practice? How can one be professional when the very methods of practice dehumanise persons? Surely, there must be a connection between language and practice? Afterall, all method is directed by a methodology (philosophy).
We see the unprofessional nature of safety over and over: as people are turned into data by injury counting, where zero justifies brutalism and where the focus on objects over subjects is worshiped. As long as we get to zero, it doesn’t matter what we do to people! Just keep repeating the word ‘professional’ or ‘principle’ as if repetition makes it so.
The purpose of propaganda and indoctrination is often projected in slogans, and it serves to hide unethical practice and vice.
If we observe a real profession like nursing and observe its declared principles: autonomy, beneficence, justice, and non-maleficence, we get a much better idea of what a principle is.
So, just keep repeating ‘blame fixes nothing’ over and over and what are you doing? You are regurgitating a slogan and propaganda not speaking sense to anyone. Repeating slogans is what Propaganda wants you to do, all the while covering up meaning and reality. What vice is this slogan ‘blame fixes nothing’ hiding? Naïve exoneration!
And, just listen to all the rhetoric and linguistic gymnastics that follows, as HOP tries to qualify the nonsense meaning of this slogan. Oh ‘blame fixes nothing’ doesn’t mean ‘blame fixes nothing’, it means were all accountable. And, this is what Safety does. It says zero does mean zero. It says 1% safer does mean 1% safer? It says ‘safety first’ doesn’t mean ‘safety first’ and so on. The list is endless.
And all this sloganeering emerges out of a sales motive not any competence in ethics. It’s all about a con.
Conning people to repeat such slogans is a recipe for a disaster that will eventually be tested in a court or in a legal context when one finds out very quickly that such a silly slogan is irresponsible and dangerous. Conning people to call slogans ‘principles’ is unethical and dishonest. But don’t worry, just repeat, repeat, repeat and make it true. There is Safety, in full service of propaganda.
Either language has meaning or retract the silly slogan, admit it was a mistake and start speaking sense-able and intelligent things to people. The more traditional safety like HOP speaks nonsense to people the less credibility it generates until one day it will be seen as a fad and an income stream for a few academics and a collection of uncritical lemmings.
If you want to better understand linguistics and the importance of making sense in risk then there are many practical, positive and constructive alternatives in studying SPoR: https://cllr.com.au/elearning/
Prof. Robert Long
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