If voting changed anything they’d make it illegal Emma Goldman 1 In deep north Queensland on 18th August 2016 the state government announced a parliamentary inquiry into the re-identification of black lung throughout its coal mining sector. The select committee received harrowing evidence from … [Read more...] about Mississippi Burning
Search Results for: positivism
What is Your Safety Ethos?
It is considered foundational in the study of Ethics to explore the work of Aristotle . Aristotelian Ethics has a focus on the nature of ‘character’ and virtue. The word ‘ethic’ comes from the Greek ‘ethos’ meaning character, linked to actions in society and culture. The purpose of an ethos is to … [Read more...] about What is Your Safety Ethos?
Holistic Ergonomics
Orthodox ergonomics has a focus on objects and how humans interact with objects. The classic text for orthodox ergonomics is Fitting the Task to The Human by Kroemer and Grandjean. Orthodox ergonomics is framed by a STEM-only worldview and looks at humans as ‘factors’ in a system and understands … [Read more...] about Holistic Ergonomics
Transdisciplinarity and Worldviews in Risk
‘We do not think of the ordinary person as preoccupied with such difficult and profound questions as: ‘What is truth?’, ‘What is authority?’, ‘To whom do I listen?’, ‘What counts for me as evidence?’, ‘How do I know what I know?’, ‘Why do the good suffer?’, How does any of this make sense?’... Yet … [Read more...] about Transdisciplinarity and Worldviews in Risk
The Challenge of the Consciousness Taboo
One of the by-products of STEM-only thinking in safety is the taboo of consciousness. You won’t find this challenging issue being discussed anywhere in the industry. How strange, because if there was any one subject that should be of critical importance to this industry it would be about conscious … [Read more...] about The Challenge of the Consciousness Taboo
And the Innovation is? More Controls…..
One of the great anxieties about Safety is the lack of control. If there was a favourite word for the safety industry, this would be it - controls. This is what attracts Safety to the language of numerics and mechanistic worldviews. Even when it transfers to an interest to neuroscience, psychology … [Read more...] about And the Innovation is? More Controls…..
STEM Safety in Drag
All humans select metaphors and metonymies to form coherent systems in terms of which they conceptualize experience. In safety the predominant grammar is mechanistic anchored to Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM). Even if one claims in safety some source in social science … [Read more...] about STEM Safety in Drag
A Fountainhead of Safety? – The Australian Institute of Heinrich and Skinner
History never says goodbye - It really means see you later Eduardo Galeano A Karl Marx essay, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon is the source of a renowned quote from many historians…….History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. It reflects and aligns with Hegel’s philosophy … [Read more...] about A Fountainhead of Safety? – The Australian Institute of Heinrich and Skinner
Human Dymensions Newsletter–June 2019
Special Focus on Personhood and Risk You may remember that in the April newsletter I discussed the body-mind-brain problem. This was in follow up to the feature of the October 2018 Newsletter on an ‘ethic of risk’. At the foundation of an ethic of risk is the nature of personhood. Unless we … [Read more...] about Human Dymensions Newsletter–June 2019
Crisis? What crisis?
Crisis? What crisis? Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest Denis Diderot 1 The United Kingdom during the 1970s experienced the best of times with the lingering aftermath of the swinging sixties and the worst of times, which included its … [Read more...] about Crisis? What crisis?