Book Launch – 51 Stories in Culture, To Live and To Be

This is a book about culture and the nature of risk. The foundational premise is that culture cannot be known through books or propositions but is best known through the phenomenon of experience and felt knowing. So, in a way, the book is situated in a paradox. But paradox need not be a problem rather a typical characteristic of living and being in culture.

This is also a book that had to be written because the risk and safety industry primarily misunderstands culture as either behaviours, systems or some form of leadership. Most of what Safety parades about as culture is missing some of the most critical elements of culture. Most of the time what is documented is written as if culture is some kind of construct of safety engineering. A typical definition is that culture is ‘what we do around here’ but this definition burdens the risk and safety with the worldview of behaviourism. Indeed, some in risk and safety either propose that safety culture doesn’t exist or that the best thing to do is not talk about it! Ah, the joys of basking in ignorance.

So, this book seeks to address an audience that has been fed a collection of myths about the nature of culture over many years. The myths of culture have been largely constructed by an industry with no expertise in anthropology, cultural theory or social psychology. This book responds to this problem and challenges the industry to consider culture as much more than ‘what we do around here’.

Culture is not just complex; culture is a Wicked Problem. Whilst we need to talk about it, study it and experience it, it has no limit and, like the Semiosphere, Mythosphere, Atmosphere and the Universe, it has no beginning or end.

Yet, in order to live in it and try to affect it, we need to grasp what we can about the lived life of ‘being’ in culture. After all, differences in culture also pose the greatest threat to understanding, community and Socialitie. Unless we understand cultures other than our own, we will never learn to live in harmony and being with others.

The best way to understand culture is to not read anything sourced from the risk and safety industry.

This book uses the semiotic of the Culture Cloud to explore as many dimensions of culture as possible within the confines of a book. The Culture Cloud is a semiotic, metaphor and framework to help tackle everything from worldviews, paradigms and being, to living with risk, human fallibility and faith. The focus of the book also targets the nature of risk and, the risk and safety industry including, it’s culture of safety. Whilst the safety industry argues about itself and even denies such a thing as ‘safety culture’ exists, this is mostly due to one of its principle cultural characteristics, ignorance. There is nothing in any safety curriculum globally that even seeks to address the problem.

Most often, the safety industry comments on culture from a source of no expertise. It simply generates myths that confirm its own comfortable state of worship of paperwork, regulation, legislation and policing. We know this by the many silences and omissions in any discussion about culture in the sector. For example, all of the following are never discussed in books on safety culture: myth, ritual, faith, religion, gesture, semiotics, linguistics, affordance, ethics, para-linguistics, memes, personhood, politics and power. In this book none of these are off limits. This enables a new look at culture through the lens of the Social Psychology of Risk (SPoR) that poses a new way of engaging in culture and risk.

The two authors (with expertise in Anthropology and Social Psychology) bring their considerable depth of experience, education and risk intelligence to this discussion on culture. The comparative stories that each author brings, the rich differences between two distinctly different cultures, views of faith, religion, philosophy and the world, make this a unique book. This enables the reader to feel the richness of diverse cultures but also the way in which these two authors come together in tolerance, understanding, discussion, debate and resonance.

It is through the many stories of this book that the reader walks with each author in their world, experiences their history and begins to understand their particular focus on culture and risk.

The book commences and concludes with a conversation between each author to emphasise a desire to step beyond an academic understanding to a lived experience of journeying in learning. This book is an invitation to join in that walk and understand cultural being.

You can purchase the ebook here: https://www.humandymensions.com/product/51-stories-in-culture/

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Dr Rob Long

Expert in Social Psychology, Principal & Trainer at Human Dymensions

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PhD., MEd., MOH., BEd., BTh., Dip T., Dip Min., Cert IV TAA, MRMIA Rob is the founder of Human Dymensions and has extensive experience, qualifications and expertise across a range of sectors including government, education, corporate, industry and community sectors over 30 years. Rob has worked at all levels of the education and training sector including serving on various post graduate executive, post graduate supervision, post graduate course design and implementation programs.