• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

SafetyRisk.net

Humanising Safety and Embracing Real Risk

  • Home
    • About
      • Privacy Policy
      • Contact
  • FREE
    • Slogans
      • Researchers Reveal the Top 10 Most Effective Safety Slogans Of All Time
      • When Slogans Don’t Work
      • CLASSIC, FAMOUS and INFAMOUS SAFETY QUOTES
      • 500 OF THE BEST AND WORST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
      • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
      • COVID-19 (Coronavirus, Omicron) Health and Safety Slogans and Quotes for the Workplace
      • Safety Acronyms
      • You know Where You Can Stick Your Safety Slogans
      • Sayings, Slogans, Aphorisms and the Discourse of Simple
      • Spanish Safety Slogans – Consignas de seguridad
      • Safety Slogans List
      • Road Safety Slogans 2023
      • How to write your own safety slogans
      • Why Are Safety Slogans Important
      • Safety Slogans Don’t Save Lives
      • 40 Free Safety Slogans For the Workplace
      • Safety Slogans for Work
    • FREE SAFETY eBOOKS
    • Free Hotel and Resort Risk Management Checklist
    • FREE DOWNLOADS
    • TOP 50
    • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS
    • Find a Safety Consultant
    • Free Safety Program Documents
    • Psychology Of Safety
    • Safety Ideas That Work
    • HEALTH and SAFETY MANUALS
    • FREE SAFE WORK METHOD STATEMENT RESOURCES
    • Whats New In Safety
    • FUN SAFETY STUFF
    • Health and Safety Training
    • SAFETY COURSES
    • Safety Training Needs Analysis and Matrix
    • Top 20 Safety Books
    • This Toaster Is Hot
    • Free Covid-19 Toolbox Talks
    • Download Page – Please Be Patient With Larger Files…….
    • SAFETY IMAGES, Photos, Unsafe Pictures and Funny Fails
    • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
    • Download Safety Moments from Human Resources Secretariat
  • Social Psychology Of Risk
    • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
    • Safety Psychology Terminology
    • Some Basics on Social Psychology & Risk
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk – Prof Karl E. Weick
    • The Psychology of Leadership in Risk
    • Conducting a Psychology and Culture Safety Walk
    • The Psychology of Conversion – 20 Tips to get Started
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk And Safety
    • Psychology and safety
    • The Psychology of Safety
    • Hot Toaster
    • TALKING RISK VIDEOS
    • WHAT IS SAFETY
    • THE HOT TOASTER
    • THE ZERO HARM DEBATE
    • SEMIOTICS
    • LEADERSHIP
  • Dr Long Posts
    • ALL POSTS
    • Learning Styles Matter
    • There is no Hierarchy of Controls
    • Scaffolding, Readiness and ZPD in Learning
    • What Can Safety Learn From Playschool?
    • Presentation Tips for Safety People
    • Dialogue Do’s and Don’ts
    • It’s Only a Symbol
    • Ten Cautions About Safety Checklists
    • Zero is Unethical
    • First Report on Zero Survey
    • There is No Objectivity, Deal With it!
  • THEMES
    • Risk Myths
    • Safety Myths
    • Safety Culture Silences
    • Safety Culture
    • Psychological Health and Safety
    • Zero Harm
    • Due Diligence
  • Free Learning
    • Introduction to SPoR – Free
    • FREE RISK and SAFETY EBOOKS
    • FREE ebook – Guidance for the beginning OHS professional
    • Free EBook – Effective Safety Management Systems
    • Free EBook – Lessons I Have Learnt
  • Psychosocial Safety
    • What is Psychosocial Safety
    • Psychological Safety
      • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
      • Managing psychosocial hazards at work
      • Psychological Safety – has it become the next Maslow’s hammer?
      • What is Psychosocial Safety
      • Psychological Safety Slogans and Quotes
      • What is Psychological Safety?
      • Understanding Psychological Terminology
      • Psycho-Social and Socio-Psychological, What’s the Difference?
      • Build a Psychologically Safe Workplace by Taking Risks and Analysing Failures
      • It’s not weird – it’s a psychological safety initiative!
You are here: Home / Covid-19 / Expertise by Regurgitation and Re-Badging

Expertise by Regurgitation and Re-Badging

September 20, 2022 by Dr Rob Long 15 Comments

Originally posted on April 21, 2020 @ 9:15 AM

imageOne of the fascinating things about the Coronavirus pandemic is watching Safety morph into epidemiology expertise. I would like a dollar for every flyer, presentation, podcast, powerpoint, checklist template, toolbox talk and poster set that had jumped into my inbox on a daily basis in the last month that is nothing more than public information with a ‘safety’ brand. Isn’t it odd that Safety has to put its brand on something to make it authentic? How odd to get public information and feel the need to re-badge it as somehow unique to Safety. But this is what Safety does. This is the nature of the Archetype of Safety.

When Safety becomes the all encompassing worldview and lens through which one sees the world everything has to be branded with it. This is the nature of the Archetype. Everything then must have the adjective of ‘safety’ before it. We can’t just have work and life, it must be ‘safety’ work and ‘safety’ life. We can’t just have public health information on Covid 19, it has to be ‘safety’ advice on Covid 19. Even though it’s the same advice!

Archetypes are all commanding forces that shape identity and frame living (https://www.archetypalnature.com/who). It was Jung who searched across societies, civilizations and cultures that had never interacted with each other, and found common narratives, symbols and energies that were identical. He called these forces ‘Archetypes’, primordal forces that drive the human psyche. Jung witnessed these common human drives across cultures and civilizations in art, dance, ritual, religious practice, song, myths and poetics and, even though these groups had never exchanged with each other (eg. Eskimos and Australian Aboriginals) they all shared common drives, symbols, myths, art and stories. You can see a map of the common archetypes here http://www.soulcraft.co/essays/the_12_common_archetypes.html. Other common archetypes one sees in the Safety space include: the Hero and the Ruler. Jung explained the commonality of shared driving forces between cultures as ‘the collective unconscious’. We talk about ‘the Market’, ‘Time’, ‘the People’, ‘Society’ and ‘the Economy’, Good’ and ‘Evil’ in similar ways as Archetypes.

Whenever I write and capitalize Safety it denotes the Archetype (https://safetyrisk.net/understanding-safety-as-an-archetype/ ). Safety as an Archetype refers to no one. Safety as a driving invisible force, commands rule over all things and justifies its own existence and actions as self evidently true. It does this under the assumption that safety is a primary human virtue and that death is anathema. When the word ‘safety’ is raised in any conversation, opposition is interpreted as the quest for anti-safety – death. This is moreso when anchored to Zero, the global mantra for Safety (http://visionzero.global/node/6). In many organisations the words ‘zero’ and ‘safety’ are interchangeable.

Safety commands a binary view of life (as do all archetypes in Jungian understanding) represented in the following mandala (https://conorneill.com/2018/04/21/understanding-personality-the-12-jungian-archetypes/). It is also interesting that the Archetype of Safety is coupled with Innocence yet opposed to Intimacy. So back to Covid 19.

I read many commentaries from the safety sector that cannot understand why OHS is not the first priority in a business/organization. When Safety is the Archetype one is astounded that others don’t make safety first. You will hear many times the claim that others don’t take safety seriously. Yet all Archetypes compete in dialectic, there is no binary opposition. But, this doesn’t stop Safety, who must put his badge on everything and therefore project his binary worldview on everything against the competing archetypes of the Outlaw, the Rebel, the Caregiver and the Jester. None of these Archetypes are compliant. None of these Archetypes know about Zero. This is why a safety qualification somehow gives this industry the right to ride over everything even though it has no expertise in anything other than safety. A safety qualification is not even a generalist qualification, neither one in Law, Medicine, Nursing, Education or Social Work yet, Safety is sure it must brand all of these things as its own. Such is the power of the Archetype. Such is the power of the badge.

So when an Epidemiologist produces a public information product, the only way to make it valid to Safety is to plonk the badge of ‘safety’ on it. You see, Safety can’t be vulnerable or fallible, because Safety is Zero and Zero commands all fear, one harm or injury is now the Enemy. Safety must come first.

I once had a friend who was a fundamentalist Christian who would not do anything unless it had the ‘Christian’ badge. He had to buy ‘Christian’ bread, ‘Christian’ Milk’ and sent his kids to a ‘Christian’ school to study ‘Christian’ Maths. He had made his religion an Archetype. I then asked him where he bought his petrol and he replied ‘BP’, and so I asked him how BP was Christian and he said, ‘don’t be silly, there is no such thing as Christian petrol, but the attendant is ‘Christian’.

  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
  • More about Rob
Dr Rob Long

Dr Rob Long

Expert in Social Psychology, Principal & Trainer at Human Dymensions
Dr Rob Long

Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)

  • Not Just Another ‘Hazard’ - February 3, 2023
  • How to Be Oriented Towards Psychosocial and Mental Health in Safety - February 2, 2023
  • Free Download – Real Risk – New Book by Dr Robert Long - February 2, 2023
  • ISO 45003 and What it Cannot Do - February 1, 2023
  • Harming People in the Name of Good - January 31, 2023
Dr Rob Long
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.

Please share our posts

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Covid-19, Robert Long Tagged With: archetype, coronavirus

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. bernardcorden says

    April 23, 2020 at 2:42 PM

    The article on Counterpunch has since been removed but the original first appeared on the Global Research website:

    https://www.globalresearch.ca/orwellian-lockstep-loaded-syringe/5710144

    Reply
  2. bernardcorden says

    April 22, 2020 at 11:33 PM

    Two very intriguing and recent articles:

    https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/04/22/orwellian-lockstep-and-a-loaded-syringe/

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/I-have-herd-immunity

    Reply
  3. Frank says

    April 22, 2020 at 5:47 AM

    Why is the Safety Archetype, personified as male, will this take us back to the Lucifer, Beelzebub discussion?

    Reply
    • Rob long says

      April 22, 2020 at 5:56 AM

      Frank has, safety is most often portrayed as masculine. Even when discussed as female the metaphors remain masculine.

      Reply
  4. Rob says

    April 21, 2020 at 6:11 PM

    The solutions are about critical thinking. How we think and how we feel as we try and understand the issues to find clarity and sense. There are no silver bullets. Our team Has spent a good deal of time talking about the risks to business continuity from COVID-19, not about safety. We discussed the workspace issues and what we need to do to keep operating, but also the Headspace and Groupspace influences. One thing we didn’t talk about was telling people to wash their hands etc. we also talked about how we keep our workplaces emotional safe havens through facilitation of non hierarchical connections and trust.

    Reply
    • Rob long says

      April 21, 2020 at 7:48 PM

      Spot on Rob, an holistic response involves much more than just branding but thinking holistically about risk regardless of the source.

      Reply
  5. Rob Long says

    April 21, 2020 at 4:34 PM

    Corey, and the jump is for you to make the connections.

    Reply
    • Corey Bender says

      April 21, 2020 at 6:09 PM

      I don’t follow the Christian friend anecdote. I will add kinda like a social psychologist pretending they know about the safety profession. I do agree with some of the directions you go. There are many forces at work. It seems these days people can bring and win lawsuits for about anything. Employer’s always feel the need to do something even a dumb canned poster or all these crazy contourtions caused by corona hysteria. This stifles safety pros often. Blame lawyers and fearful C-suite types, not to mention what gets managers promoted is hardly ever following good sense from below. Not sure about other professions but safety folk get over-ruled quite a bit and innovation is frowned upon. I couldn’t convince any of my past employer’s to allow me access and to spend most of my time on planning and prevention but I better write-up a good accident report so they can send a response to OSHA or Corporate quickly.. Quick story: OSHA showed up at one of our locations and was bullying us to expand the inspection before it even began. I ended up on the phone with the big Safety cheese and they said what does it hurt to have OSHA look around? I thought, that’s what u have your safety people for, I can and have brought up plenty of things but if OSHA writes it up it will be a scramble, if I write it up it’s hardly supported.

      Reply
      • Rob long says

        April 21, 2020 at 7:03 PM

        Corey, pretending? The anecdote links clearly to the notion of branding and the archetype.

        Reply
        • Corey Bender says

          April 22, 2020 at 5:07 AM

          Pretending?

          Reply
          • Rob long says

            April 22, 2020 at 5:53 AM

            Your projection not mine. Perfect example of the safety archetype.

          • Corey Bender says

            April 22, 2020 at 6:15 AM

            You seem like a nice fella

  6. Corey Bender says

    April 21, 2020 at 3:10 PM

    That was an abrupt ending?

    Reply
  7. Jason says

    April 21, 2020 at 2:18 PM

    Any chance of solutions other than pointing out flaws? That seems to be the common theme for all those experts that jump on the anti safety professional bandwagon. Blast the useless safety people, yet give nothing other than cynical views to people who really do their best to get the message across to some who don’t give a toss. Some of us want the message to be about work and not badge safety in front of everything, but help us out here with your infinite knowledge about what we should try instead.

    Reply
    • Rob Long says

      April 21, 2020 at 4:33 PM

      Jason, many many solutions on this site other than pointing out flaws, free courses, free books, so much that is available. It is one thing to deconstruct something and quite another to propose alternatives, I certainly do both. If you want to learn about a new way of thinking and practicing safety please email or enrol. Happy to put you in contact with any number of people who will tell you how it has changed their approach, their organisation and practice of safety.

      Reply

Do you have any thoughts? Please share them below Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

Search and Discover More on this Site

Never miss a post - Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,500 other subscribers

RECOMMENDED READING

viral post – iso 45003 and what it cannot do

Introduction to SPOR – FREE!!

Psychosocial Safety and Mental Health Series

Not Just Another ‘Hazard’

Psychosocial Safety, Is it possible to make it culturally normal?

How to Be Oriented Towards Psychosocial and Mental Health in Safety

ISO 45003 and What it Cannot Do

The KISS of Death in Safety

Behavioural Safety is NOT a Foundation for Tackling Psychosocial and Mental Health

The Worst Approach to Psychosocial Problems is an Attitude of ‘Fixing’

The Language of ‘Hazards’ and Psychosocial, Mental Health

Welcome to the Nightmare, Safety Creates its Own Minefield (as usual)

No Good Reason to Follow Reason

More Posts from this Category

NEW! Free Download

Please take our 2 minute zero survey

Recent Comments

  • Rob Long on Psychosocial Safety, Is it possible to make it culturally normal?
  • Rob Long on Psychosocial Safety, Is it possible to make it culturally normal?
  • Matt Thorne on Psychosocial Safety, Is it possible to make it culturally normal?
  • simon p cassin on Psychosocial Safety, Is it possible to make it culturally normal?
  • Hurak Learning on How to Be Oriented Towards Psychosocial and Mental Health in Safety
  • Rob Long on An Advanced Understanding of Culture – A Video
  • Paul Gentles on An Advanced Understanding of Culture – A Video
  • Brent Charlton on The KISS of Death in Safety
  • Rob Long on The KISS of Death in Safety
  • Brian Edwin Darlington on The KISS of Death in Safety
  • Brian on The Language of ‘Hazards’ and Psychosocial, Mental Health
  • Jaise on The Language of ‘Hazards’ and Psychosocial, Mental Health
  • Rob Long on Posture Myths and Holistic Ergonomics
  • Linda McKendry on Posture Myths and Holistic Ergonomics
  • Rob long on Welcome to the Nightmare, Safety Creates its Own Minefield (as usual)
  • Matt Thorne on Welcome to the Nightmare, Safety Creates its Own Minefield (as usual)
  • Anonymous on Welcome to the Nightmare, Safety Creates its Own Minefield (as usual)
  • Jason on How Bias Inhibits Learning in Safety
  • Rob Long on How Bias Inhibits Learning in Safety
  • Admin on How Bias Inhibits Learning in Safety

FREE eBOOK DOWNLOADS

Footer

VIRAL POST – The Risk Matrix Myth

Top Posts & Pages. Sad that most are so dumb but this is what safety luves

  • 500 OF THE BEST AND WORST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
  • Proving Safety
  • Free Safety Moments and Toolbox Talk Examples, Tips and Resources
  • Road Safety Slogans 2023
  • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
  • ISO 45003 and What it Cannot Do
  • Download Safety Moments from Human Resources Secretariat
  • NATIONAL SAFETY DAY/WEEK IN INDIA 2023
  • How to Be Oriented Towards Psychosocial and Mental Health in Safety
  • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators

Recent Posts

  • Not Just Another ‘Hazard’
  • Psychosocial Safety, Is it possible to make it culturally normal?
  • How to Be Oriented Towards Psychosocial and Mental Health in Safety
  • Free Download – Real Risk – New Book by Dr Robert Long
  • Proving Safety
  • ISO 45003 and What it Cannot Do
  • Harming People in the Name of Good
  • An Advanced Understanding of Culture – A Video
  • Risk and Safety Maturity
  • The KISS of Death in Safety
  • SPoR, Metanoia and a Podcast on Change with Nippin Anand
  • Behavioural Safety is NOT a Foundation for Tackling Psychosocial and Mental Health
  • The Worst Approach to Psychosocial Problems is an Attitude of ‘Fixing’
  • SPoR Comes to Vienna June 2023
  • The Language of ‘Hazards’ and Psychosocial, Mental Health
  • Welcome to the Nightmare, Safety Creates its Own Minefield (as usual)
  • The Visionary Imagination – Louisa Lawson
  • Heaven ‘n Hell and the Safety Religion
  • Confirmity in Conformity
  • Numerology and Psychic Numbing
  • Thinking of Mortality
  • Safety is the Wrong Anchor
  • Foresight Blindness, Hindsight Bias and Risk
  • Getting the Balance Right in Tackling Risk
  • What is SPoR?
  • How Bias Inhibits Learning in Safety
  • Afraid to Let Go of What Doesn’t Work in Safety
  • When You Don’t Know What to do in Safety, Have Another Blitz!!!
  • Gloves and Glasses Compliance
  • A Case of Desensitisation – What Would You Do?
  • How to Leave the Safety Industry
  • The Mythic Symbology of Safety
  • Dark Waters, The True Story of DuPont and Zero
  • 400,000 Free Downloads
  • Am I stupid? I didn’t think of that…
  • Don’t Look Now Safety, Your Metaphor is Showing
  • Ratio Delusions and Heinrich’s Hoax
  • To Err is Human, You Better Believe It
  • Culture as a Wicked Problem, for Safety
  • Safety Leadership Training
  • Cultural Orientation in Risk
  • The Stanford Experiment and The Social Psychology of Risk
  • Objectivity, Audits and Attribution When Calculating Risk
  • Records of safety activities: evidence of safety or non-compliance?
  • Zero, The Seeking of Infinity
  • Safety Leadership Essentials
  • What Can Indiana Jones Tell Us About Culture
  • Safety as a Worldview
  • The Loathing of Limits
  • Culture Cannot be Framed Through Safety

VIRAL POST!!! HOW TO QUIT THE SAFETY INDUSTRY

FEATURED POSTS

Humanising Workplace Health and Safety Management

How is the unconscious in communication critical for understanding and managing risk?

The Safety Worldview and the Worldview of Safety, Testing Due Diligence

Look With Your Heart and Not With Your Eyes

Zero Suicide and the Discourse of Denial

Human Dymensions Newsletter September 2016

The Quantitative and Qualitative Divide in Safety

The Mystery of the Emotions

Safety and Non-Neuroscience

A Picture Tells a Thousand Lies in Safety

The Psychology of Blaming in Safety

King of the World – Why is Sociopathy and Psychopathy so prevalent ‘at the top’?

Free Poster–What is Safety

No Gurus, No Stars, No Heroes Needed in Safety

Face to Face SPoR Workshops 2022

The Trajectory of Zero Vision

Why are we Afraid?

Symbols Have Power

Brain-Centredness and Occular-Centredness in Risk

Focus on ‘Meeting’ people, not legislation – a path to risk maturity

Do Not Go Gently, SPoR and the Civility Myth

Don’t Let Evidence Get in the Way of Safety

The New Leadership – Risk and Safety

Some Basics on Social Psychology & Risk

Non-Binary Decision Making in Risk

Safety Leadership Training

Bounded Rationality–How Can Too Much Safety Be Bad For You?

Don’t Hold the Hand Rail

Off to a Flying Start in Learning with CLLR

Biases and Perceptions in Safety

You Have No Idea What Goes on in the ‘Real World of Safety’

Understanding Risk

Anchoring Safety to Objects

Safety – Just a Few Bad Apples

Psychology and safety

My Journey with SPoR

A Better Language for Risk and Safety

Free Download – Tackling Risk, A Field Guide to Risk and Learning

Managing Risk Rather Than Striving for Absolute Safety

Concept Mapping Risk iCue

More Posts from this Category

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,500 other subscribers

How we pay for the high cost of running of this site – try it for free on your site

WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY?

What is Psychological Safety at Work?


WHAT IS PSYCHOSOCIAL SAFETY