Whenever Safety presents so called ‘ideas’, ‘slogans’, ‘models’ or ‘thought bubbles’ from so called ‘thought leaders’, make sure you seek out the hidden worldview.
No text, model or discourse is neutral or objective. It comes from a worldview, a way of seeing the world. A worldview is also known as a methodology, philosophy, ethic or ontology (a theory of being).
It is very rare, anywhere in safety, that a worldview is articulated or declared. But, the worldview is there, it is just not declared openly or transparently, which is unethical.
For example, the swiss-cheese model of linear causality (James Reason) comes from a worldview that is Aristotelian and Determinist in nature. There are other notions of causality that are circular or quantum in nature that oppose such a worldview. The Determinist worldview is loaded with Natural Law ethics that assumes a Deontological progress of events.
A Deontological ethic and natural Law ethics enables the worship of zero and a masculinist pursuit of objects, as a ‘duty’. Even the groups that proclaim a focus on women in safety hold to a masculinist ethic, symbolised in zero. One can only believe in zero in the denial of fallibility and mortality.
Of course, with no expertise in ethics, this enables academics from the so called ‘Safety Science Lab’ to declare zero a ‘moral goal’ (https://safetyrisk.net/zero-is-an-immoral-goal/). Any denial of fallibility and mortality and an expectation of perfection can only lead to the brutalism of persons.
Now, all of this language will seem alien to Safety, because it puts its head in the sand and when any word over 4 letters is presented, is dismissed as ‘academic’. Such a convenient lens with which to keep one’s head in the sand enables philosophies that demonise persons to flourish. Sometimes, these philosophies are hidden in discourse of ‘positivity’, ‘resilience engineering’ and ‘new view’.
If there is a ‘new view’, is that a new worldview? Or, is it discourse bolted on to the same worldview that is the foundation for traditional safety?
Keeping an industry’s philosophical head in the sand enables dehumanising ethics, philosophy and strategies that harm people, to flourish, sometimes in the name of ‘care’. Ensuring that there is no study in ethics, methodology or philosophy in the safety curriculum, enables masculinist philosophies to flourish unconsciously in safety discourse. We see this in the focus on zero and psychosocial ‘hazards’. What such a discourse enables is a politic that hides real motives and beliefs.
Wherever the language of ‘hazards’ is the focus of safety, it is quickly followed up with the language of controls and compliance. Never the language of ‘persons’. In this way the safety association can declare that ‘humans are a hazard’ (https://safetyrisk.net/the-enemy-of-safety-humans/) and the enemy of safety. The political fallout for this kind of thinking is the brutalism of persons.
Whenever you see the language of ‘performance’ on show in safety you know the philosophy of Technique is at work (Ellul) and that the ideology of efficiency will be used to brutalise humans in the name of ‘good’. This never appears openly or transparently, because the underlying philosophy is never articulated or discussed. The philosophy behind a ‘performance’ focus is Instrumentalism and Utilitarianism. In this way the utility of a human towards the efficiency of the system is prioritised.
When the word ‘human’ is used in such a context such as in Human Organisational Performance, you know that humans are a ‘factor’ in a system. The same applies for ‘human factors’ safety. Again, humans are viewed as a subset within a system. The underlying philosophy is rarely declared and this enables people to be dehumanised for the sake of the ‘engineering’ of the system. This is the foundation of ‘resilience engineering’ (RE). RE is not about the resilience of humans but the resilience of a system!
There are other philosophies that are much better focused on human persons and moral meaning than the ones that dominate the safety industry.
In SPoR, the undelaying philosophy is an existentialist phenomenological dialectic. What this means is the focus is on the experience of persons and their uniqueness in being in constant movement in learning. This has been articulated thoroughly in many of the books offered by SPoR for free download (https://www.humandymensions.com/shop/).
So, don’t be seduced by surface messaging about ‘ideas’, ‘slogans’, ‘models’ or ‘thought bubbles’ from so called ‘thought leaders’, make sure you seek out the hidden worldview.
To get to the bottom of a worldview requires asking some tough political questions. Asking some of the tough questions using the Critical Political Questions tool is a good start.
Dr Rob Long
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