Selective Cause to Appease the Anxiety of Death – A Video

In a wonderfully sharp analysis (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIAnAUgL0D0), Dr Nippin Anand exposes why accident investigations often seek simple cause.

Through the case study of Trump and the mid-air collision – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/01/trump-plane-crash-character-sidney-blumenthal) we see that the quest to suppress anxiety of death as a characteristic of the investigations mindset.

Of course, there is no such thing as ‘root cause’ but that doesn’t stop the Safety world from attributing this idea where it doesn’t exist (https://safetyrisk.net/causation-myths-stop-looking-for-linear-and-root-cause/ ). Similarly, the nonsense of Reason’s Swiss Cheese bears the same resemblance, of seeking a simplistic answer to why things happen.

It doesn’t matter whether its Reason’s linear swiss-cheese or Heinrich’s dominoes, such semiotics already align their mythical bias with a desired outcome. With Reason, the only answer that fits is linear. How convenient. Such is the legacy that burdens the safety industry, then booms in accolades at his passing. The concoction of the swiss-cheese is a burden not a blessing on the risk and safety industry.

In the case of Trump, we see that anything ‘woke’, that demonstrates any sophistication in thinking or diversity in worldview, is a cause of any problem. In this case, the DEI is under attack from Trump whose Right Wing agenda seeks out the destruction of anything with which he disagrees (https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2025/02/13/trump-war-on-dei-escalates/78537133007/).

In this way, it doesn’t matter what catastrophe emerges (eg fires in LA) Trump already knows what the problem is. This provides a wonderful simplistic cause for his cult that gives assurance and certainty against the anxiety of death. Don’t worry, have faith in Trump the saviour (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20g1zvgj4do) and thou shalt be saved.

In a similar way the safety industry knows what is wrong before it happens. Safety investigations are often a method for confirming what is already known. Most often when an event occurs the safety manager is given a time limit and directions about when to produce a report. The recipe is simple. Find a scapegoat, engineer a report, affirm the cause and follow up with more volumes of regulation and paperwork.

Of course, there is no correlation between the accumulation of paperwork and how people make decisions about risk.

Enjoy the video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIAnAUgL0D0

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Dr Rob Long

Expert in Social Psychology, Principal & Trainer at Human Dymensions

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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.