Safety Lover or Safety Hater
What a crazy title for a blog but it was sponsored by a comment made to another blog recently.
Apparently criticism of Safety (the archetype – capital S) means you become a safety (lower case ‘s’) hater. How interesting that criticism seeking to improve safety is perceived by Safety as hate??? What a curious interpretation of criticism, especially when such criticism is backed by extensive research and guidance by way of free materials and a free study program. Here we see the dilemma of the blind compliance mentality. Blind compliance is not about safety but rather conservativism. Healthy and constructive criticism is essential to the improvement, learning and maturity of Safety.
It seems that the best way to demonstrate that one is a ‘safety lover’ is to put one’s head in the sand, imagine all is good and endorse buckets of snake oil masquerading as guidance. Such is the attraction of BBS and other mythologies in safety that promise the world (and zero) and deliver zero. Oh but if you offer criticism, one is a safety hater. How bizarre. If this industry needs anything more than ever it is critical thinking and less sausage compliance. An exploration of transdisciplinarity (https://safetyrisk.net/transdisciplinarity-and-worldviews-in-risk/) could serve as a starting point.
Of course, the primary problem with this binary discourse of love vs hate is its binary nature. Here we go again, Safety consumed with binary opposition, this is how Safety ends up with the nonsense discourse of zero harm. There are always by-products and trade-offs to all binary oppositions:
https://safetyrisk.net/binary-opposites-and-safety-goal-strategy/;
https://safetyrisk.net/the-binary-barnacle/;
https://safetyrisk.net/reality-vs-theory-the-binary-divide/;
https://safetyrisk.net/the-delights-of-the-zero-delusion/ .
The ideology of zero invites brutalism, this is the by-product of the absurd question: how many people do you want to injure today? If one takes the zero pathway one ends up in dehumanizing safety and this makes safety less professional and more dumb. Dehumanising people in the name of safety is not good for Safety. All binary oppositions set up an enemy to hate, if you criticize zero you must be a safety hater and want to kill people. This is the mentalitie of binary opposition.
The best way to tackle binary oppositions is not to accept such discourse. Rather than accept the either/or, black and white trap of binary opposition one needs to subvert the question and challenge it. Binary questions are loaded entrapment questions and set up conflict eg. love vs hate. The best response is NOT to answer a binary question but to challenge the loaded question (hidden agenda) itself. The best response is to name the loaded nature of such questions and ask a binary entrapment question back. Eg. When did you stop bashing your partner? Are you an atheist? Do you vote Greens? Etc. or to name the agenda (numerics) and challenge it.
Loaded entrapment questions are unethical questions and do not carry and honorable purpose. All binary questions want is to gaslight a victim and shape and answer to what they want. Unfortunately you won’t read anything about this in the AIHS BoK on Ethics nor anything in the BoK that criticizes zero ideology.
The pathway to wisdom in safety is to take a middle dialectical path and not buy into binary nonsense. Safety is a wicked problem (https://safetyrisk.net/risk-and-safety-as-a-wicked-problem/) and is not served well by simple BS, BBS and binary entrapment.
Most often binary discourse is premised on simplistic constructs of human ‘being’ that excludes a host of anthropological, educational and psychological reality. What is often undisclosed by those attracted to binary oppositions is quest for power (this is Discourse with a Capital D).
Once you answer the binary question as the gaslighter wants you end up buried in the nonsense of zero, brutalism and dehumanising others in the name of safety.
The challenge to the seduction of binary Discourse is critical thinking and her we go again, then you are branded a ‘safety hater’. This is how binary opposition sets up a Catch 22 in Discourse.
Of course those who can’t manage critical discourse and who are immersed in binary opposition usually marginalize all criticism as ‘hating’. How convenient, how easy, how simple, now Safety doesn’t have to tackle any of the tough questions any more. Keep everything as it is, all is good, pat-on-the-back-safety, well done. Unfortunately such is the anathema of professionalism.
Dr Rob Long
Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)
- Skilled Conversations in Risk and Safety - August 19, 2022
- Traditional Safety - August 18, 2022
- Understanding Safety Incentive Schemes, A Question of Balance - August 18, 2022
- How to be a Safety Extremist - August 15, 2022
- No Safety in Numbers - August 13, 2022
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