I was sent this classic today (https://www.shponline.co.uk/culture-and-behaviours/dominic-cooper-to-err-is-human-or-is-it/ ). I get so much safety nonsense sent to me it is hard to keep up.
When you have no linguistic sense nor understanding of an ethic of personhood, it’s so easy to write gobbledygook.
Of course, the context for the saying ‘to err is human’ comes from Alexander Pope (An Essay on Criticism, Part II , 1711) and a Transdisciplinary understanding of Poetics is essential to get its meaning. The phrase sits in a lengthy poem, I have written about this before (https://safetyrisk.net/to-err-is-human-to-forgive-divine/). When I use to teach Pope in Year 12 English and University, and we always knew that context is critical for understanding. Not so in safety.
Safety is one of those industries (not a profession) that frames the world through its own narrow lens, grabs whatever language it decides to mash and distort, all justified by its own ends – usually, the projection of some engineering or behaviourist worldview. Without a Transdisciplinary approach that takes theology, ethics, Poetics, Semiotics, Learning and Religion seriously, one is unlikely to understand Pope, nor what he meant by his phrase ‘to err is human’.
Similarly, discussion about the nature of being phenomenologically human (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326268113_Phenomenology_A_Philosophy_and_Method_of_Inquiry) cannot be separated from an ethic of personhood or cultural anthropology.
When you frame your view of the world through safety, you usually distort that worldview (https://safetyrisk.net/safety-as-a-worldview/ ).
This is why Safety writes so much about the confusion of culture, that it creates for itself.
Safety as an adjective, conditions all that follows. I don’t live for safety; I live to be and live. The meaning and purpose (semiosis) of living is NOT safety.
So, when we come to this piece from Cooper, there is no surprise about the distortion field applied to human meaning. More behaviourism, more engineering, more safety worldview and even a classic sub-heading ‘beyond human’. Transhumanist language is alive and well in safety.
All this sourced in safety classics such as Reason and Rasmussen, there is no element of anything connected to an ethic of personhood.
If an ethic of personhood interests you then perhaps read:
· Arendt, H., (1958) The Human Condition.
· Bauer, J., and Harteis, C., (2012) Human Fallibility, The Ambiguity of Errors for Work and Learning.
· Benner, D., (2016) Human Being and Becoming, Living the Adventure of Life and Love.
· Fuchs,T., (2018) Ecology of the Brain.
· Harding, S., (2015) Paul’s Eschatological Anthropology: The Dynamics of Human Transformation
· Jewett, R., (1971) Paul’s Anthropological Terms, A Study of Their Use in Conflict Settings.
· Kirkwood, C., (2012) The Persons in Relation Perspective, In Counselling, Psychotherapy and Community Adult Learning.
· Lotman, Y., (1990) Universe of the Mind, A Semiotic Theory of Culture.
· Madsbjerg, C., (2017) Sensemaking, What Makes Human Intelligence Essential in the Age of the Algorithm.
· Martin, J., Sugarman, J., and Hickinbottom, S., (2010) Persons: Understanding Psychological Selfhood and Agency
· Schwarz, H., (2013) The Human Being, A Theological Anthropology. Semler, L., Hodge, B., and Kelly, P., (2012) What is the Human? Australian Voices from the Humanities.
· Splitter, L., (2015) Identity and Personhood, Confusions and Clarifications across Disciplines
And there is so much more. If you want to know about fallibility and error then make sure you don’t read Reason (https://safetyrisk.net/no-good-reason-to-follow-reason/) or anything from Safety.
Poor old safety, never talks about ‘fallibility’ (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/fallibility-risk-living-uncertainty/), only loves talk about ‘error’ and even then, never in the context of an ethic of personhood or human meaning. Then mash together a triarchic semiotic with no understanding of semiotics.
One thing is reliable about safety, when it wants to map an idea, it’s most important to leave out the human.
What Safety constantly dishes up in these magazines is a brain-centric worldview, consumed by behaviourism as if this is somehow related to the nature of what it is to be human.
None of this is helpful, constructive, positive or realistic. An alternative practical, positive and meaningful method is offered by SPoR and its free (https://safetyrisk.net/whats-the-alternative-to-traditional-safety-spor/). SPoR is not just about deconstruction but rather a reconstruction of a new approach that works (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/it-works-a-new-approach-to-risk-and-safety/) as if humans matter.
Unless an ethic of personhood and an understanding of fallibility is foundational for incident investigations, you are likely to already know the outcome and it certainly won’t involve learning. It’s very rare that Safety ‘learns’ from accidents.
If you want to learn about Learning then this may help (https://safetyrisk.net/a-definition-of-learning-a-video/).
If you want to know how to do a good incident investigation then you can study SEEK (https://cllr.com.au/product/seek-the-social-psychology-of-event-investigations-unit-2-elearning/).
There is much that SPoR offers for free as in the current module on culture (already running and oversubscribed).
It’s not too late to sign up for the free module on Ethics.
Dr Rob Long
Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)
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Wynand says
The concept of “error” and “human error” remains a bit of a mystery to me, especially in the “Safety” context. If error was so bad, why do safety appoint people who did not achieve 100% in all their exams? How can forgetting something really be an “error” in a context where perfection is the ideal? Is forgetting and “taking shortcuts” then the same? Why can an experienced person not take “shortcuts” derived from years of doing the task? Why is a novice and an experienced person required to take all the same steps in doing a task? Why is it unacceptable for someone to forget something while focusing on something else? Why is the way the human brain functions (for example prioritising decisions subconsciously to allow focus on the perceived main decision at hand) unacceptable for “Safety”? I can go on, and I always come back to the point where I realise I just don’t understand enough to answer all these questions. However, when an incident is investigated, there is an answer for each of the questions, usually with blame to follow. Not being perfect is the biggest sin in safety, yet it seems “Safety” itself cannot acknowledge how far it is from perfection.
Rob long says
Wynand, this industry is so poorly educated that it rejects any challenge of approach to learning. It simply has no capability to face the questions you pose.
It demonises critical thinking and any sensemaking that includes the humanising of persons. Indeed, it rarely talks about persons of humans in what it does. And under the delusions of zero etc delights in the brutalism that results.
It has no idea what to do with falllibility hence this kind of goop Cooper puts out and the industry adores it.
It reinforces its worldview.
It’s what Safety wants.
Fortunately there are some who don’t want this, and it is for those that SPoR offers hope.
simon cassin says
Hi Rob,
A few years ago I spent a year or so, studying the philosophical understanding and interpretation of practical and theoretical reason. During those studies I was introduced to a concept I had never previously heard about. What I now know as the ‘The great rationality debate’ highlighted fundamental flaws in how the concept of human error is comprehended and discussed. I’ll be honest it was as though a whole new perspective suddenly appeared. I don’t want to sound too dramatic about it but it totally blew me away and instantly undermined the taken for granted perspectives of human error used in the H&S world.
Unfortunately the dominant and consistently agreed interpretation of human error is a tough nut to crack. I have attempted to discuss the questionable categorisation of human error with many in the safety profession but unfortunately none have ever entered into a conversation about how the notion of error is categorised or quantified. (N.B. A caveat to this statement is that Dom has told me he has responded to my questions but as of yet his responses haven’t been updated on the SHP post).
Anyway thanks for your thoughts.
Regards
Simon
Rob Long says
Thanks Simon. Yes I find most of what Safety conceptualises simplistic and immature. A very poorly educated mono-disciplinary industry.
One can’t carry on like Safety does about error in a vacuum as if other disciplines have nothing to say. Indeed, Safety thinks their view is the only valid worldview.
Talking about fallibility is taboo in this industry in love with zero and dehumanising persons. As for Cooper, no surprises. I have no interest in the narrow Safety worldview.