One of the challenges for the safety industry is the myth of objectivity and the seduction of order and control. When one holds a thirst for power (through engineering and behaviourism) the last thing one wants to be told is that some things are ‘wicked’ (https://safetyrisk.net/risk-and-safety-as-a-wicked-problem/ ). The last thing that safety wants to hear is that some things are intractable, more than complex, unsolvable and uncontrollable.
So, when it comes to safety, when you hear proclamations that Culture is all confusing, cloudy and ‘abusive’, you know that such a view knows little about culture. Indeed, even trying to capture, define, conceptualise and control one’s definition of culture limits and constrains how one engages, experiences and thinks about culture. You know this when culture is described as a ‘concept’, ‘construct’ or ‘product’.
Engaging with culture is ‘messy’ and beyond complex. Culture is ‘wicked’ (https://medium.com/@PhilipLeslie/culture-as-a-wicked-problem-677042c7996e). So, wishing to place conceptual order on it, congruence, rational analysis, behaviourist bias and mechanical constructs will only lead to frustration and will make things worse.
The last thing that helps in engaging with Culture is an engineering/behaviourist worldview.
If one wants to develop a cultural orientation then acceptance of ambiguity, paradox, dialectic and existentialist/phenomenologist reality is essential. Culture transcends any wish to define and control it and is best understood semiotically and Poetically.
Most of the times when I read Safety speak about culture it comes from a closed and systemic orientation. This disposition limits questioning, discovery, imagination and learning. No wonder some propose that the best thing to do with culture is not talk about it.
One’s linguistics and paralinguistics of culture limits one’s vision of culture.
If you define culture as a ‘concept’, ‘construct’ or ‘product’, no wonder confusion is created.
I read a piece the other day on culture where the author described themselves as ‘not religious’ and then proceeded to write about culture in loaded religious metaphor and grammar. Most of what was written was about endeavouring to ‘transcend’ fallibility and this quest for transcendence is profoundly religious (https://safetyrisk.net/zero-the-seeking-of-infinity/).
Any seeking of transcendence through myth, symbolism and ritual makes such seeking profoundly religious.
Most of the time I hear people claim to being not religious comes from a view with no expertise or experience in religion. Most often use the expression framed by what they reject from childhood.
Of course, when Safety excludes religion from its discussion about culture (which is common) it instantly limits its view and constrains culture to be about behaviours, organising and systems.
Without a Transdisciplinary view it is unlikely that discussion in safety is actually about culture. Most stuff out there in the safetyosphere on culture is not about culture. When culture is constrained by a behaviourist mantra ‘what we do around here’ you know that culture is NOT being discussed.
So, where could one start? Do you know any First Nations people? Have you been ‘on country’? Have you listened to the Dreaming, songlines and been on walkabout? If you can answer these in the affirmative then you may have begun to learn (embodied) culture. You certainly won’t learn much from Reason (https://safetyrisk.net/no-good-reason-to-follow-reason/).
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