In Praise of HOP Blame Shifting in Safety

Part of the S2 and HOP obsession with blame shifting is making sure that individuals incur no blame but systems do (https://safetyrisk.net/the-myth-of-shifting-blame-from-individuals-to-systems/).

Typical of HOP linguistic gymnastics, the shifting of blame also solves nothing.

In what sense does a system hold responsibility or accountability? Is the System so personified and archetypical for HOP that it somehow answers for its own problems? Moreso, if systems are fallible then ‘blame fixes nothing’ must also apply to the blame shifted to systems?

This is what happens when you make slogans rather than an ethic or methodology, direct your thinking about risk.

It is also evidence that those with a blame obsession, have done little research or exploration in the matter: https://safetyrisk.net/the-meaning-of-blame-thinking-beyond-the-spin-and-slogans/ Such is typical in safety of what is known as epistemic trespass (https://safetyrisk.net/epistemic-trespassing-and-safety/). Ah safety, where engineers are historians, anthropologists, cultural experts, linguists and mythologists.

What is more, when you have little clue about ethics, it’s easy to call slogans ‘principles’ and then get every uncritical lemming in safety to repeat it. This is not different than the use of the word ‘professional’. I must be a safety professional, because I repeat the language as often as I can. Repetition creates truth as Dr Goebbels discovered, the first rule of propaganda (https://monoskop.org/images/4/44/Ellul_Jacques_Propaganda_The_Formation_of_Mens_Attitudes.pdf).

So, here is a dose of reality:

• Blame shifting is common with individuals who have symptoms of borderline personality disorder or narcissistic personality disorders (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6405044/).
• Blame shifting is common to the defence mechanism of avoidance/denial and is more damaging than the ownership of blame and blameworthiness itself.
• Blame shifting is common in gaslighting.
• The technique of blame shifting to systems simply enables a different kind of confrontation and hidden bullying in the discussion about ineffective systems.

The trouble is in safety, the whole purpose of the Law, Act, Regulation and Standards is to find blame so problems can be fixed (https://safetyrisk.net/the-pcbu-the-law-blame-reality-and-the-con/). Sorry HOP folks, and S2 myth makers, blame fixes things. If one is found to be blame-shifting in court then the court doesn’t look kindly on avoidance of liability. After all, the court wants to know if what happens in your organisation is legally defendable. Who designed and wrote the system?

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Prof. Robert Long

Expert in Social Psychology, Principal & Trainer at Human Dymensions

Latest posts by Prof. Robert Long (see all)

• Safety Beliefs – Free Workshop July - June 10, 2026
• Weick’s Understanding of Systems - June 8, 2026
• Creating Safety Beliefs for Markets, Products to Sell and Incremental Safety - June 6, 2026
• The Evolution of Safety Beliefs and Rhetoric - June 6, 2026
• The Ethics of Safety Beliefs and Cognitive Dissonance - June 4, 2026

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.