The Search for Meaning in Safety Models There is a huge chasm between three things: the intent and design (assumed philosophy) of a model, the semiotic diffusion of the model and what humans make of the model. Models and symbols are not neutral nor objective. All models are semiotics and as such seek to explain […]
Semiotics
Symbols Matter
Symbols Matter We learnt this week that symbols matter. The unprecedented protest of signatures on change.org this week (Defend Our Opera House: Support Louise Herron) demonstrates this. In less that a week over 300,000 signatures were gathered against the NSW Government’s decision to project advertising for a horse race on the Sydney Opera House. It […]
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How Groupthink Works
How Groupthink Works In light of the binary discourse that is floating about my last blog, Like A Collective Brain Snap, this may serve as a follow up. People often scratch their heads wondering why people do things and in exasperation and dismissal come up with the traditional stupidity/idiot causation scenario. This kind of binary […]
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Until Nothing Changes in Safety
Until Nothing Changes in Safety The industry of safety becomes more and more fixed in its current trajectory through its linguistic practices, semiotic meanings and social reproduction. What does this mean? Humans are the sum of their social relationships and the language that is used to communicate identity. Safety articulates itself through a discourse of […]
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Everyday safety
Everyday safety I wrote recently about bells and whistles in safety (https://safetyrisk.net/bells-and-whistles-and-due-diligence/) and how easily Safety is seduced into some delusional campaign of heroes and nirvana. One of the core messages of safety ought to be that there is not utopia and no nirvana. The quest for infallibility is a religious dream. We don’t need […]
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Making Technicians Not Helpers
Making Technicians Not Helpers People have enrolled in the CLLR Certificate online and in face-to-face studies (https://cllr.com.au/register-to-study/) recently, many with graduate and post-graduate qualifications in Safety. Near all, without exception, are looking for the skills and knowledge that is excluded from most safety training and qualifications. Near all report that their qualification has been primarily […]
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The Sacred Bra Tree
The Sacred Bra Tree “When we begin to understand the significance of Bra Trees and roadside memorials then we might learn something about culture and why zero is such a dangerous sacrament” It’s not likely that you have ever seen a ‘Bra Tree’, a rare species of Australian eucalyptus in the Murray/Mallee about 40 kms […]
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The Iconography of Safety
The Iconography of Safety Icons are powerful modes of communication and predate text and print. Danesi in The Semiotics of Emoji demonstrates that we are seeing a re-emergence of the power of icons in everyday communications. Indeed – SMS, emoticons, emojis and graphics/multimedia are changing the very way we communicate J. Icons are profound and […]
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The Acts of God and Act of Humans
The Acts of God and Act of Humans We are told that injury, harm and suffering were once perceived as ‘acts of god’ but are now conceived as ‘acts of man’ (sic) or ‘acts of humans’. This is the new commonly accepted thesis branded as ‘the scientific view’. The idea that injury, harm and pain […]
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No Evidence for the Religion of Zero
No Evidence for the Religion of Zero Vision Zero or Zero Vision? Religious studies demonstrate that in our post-science/post-text world the secular is becoming more religious and the religious is becoming more secular (Ostwalt, 2012, Secular Steeples, Popular Culture and the Religious Imagination Bloomsbury, London also https://aeon.co/amp/ideas/why-religion-is-not-going-away-and-science-will-not-destroy-it). There is no better evidence for this than […]
