Whether you can articulate it or not, your philosophy and ethic of the human matters for safety (https://safetyrisk.net/and-the-enemy-of-safety-is-humans/ ).
- If you view the human as an object, number or a hazard then brutalising persons becomes easy. This is what the AIHS endorses (https://safetyrisk.net/the-enemy-of-safety-humans/).
- When your deontological ethic is duty to safety (AIHS), not persons, then brutalising people is easy.
- If the most important thing in safety is a number (zero), then brutalising people is easy.
- If humans are just a factor in a system (human factors) then brutalising humans is easy.
- If your model of human decision-making is binary or brain-centric, then brutalising humans is easy.
- If humans are viewed as machines (behaviourism) and as the sum of inputs and outputs, then brutalising persons is easy.
- When your primary focus is performance (HOP), then it’s easy to brutalise persons.
This is why Safety never articulates its ethic or philosophy (methodology) in what it does.
Methodology drives method.
The reason why the Nazis were so effective at brutalising persons is because they had the methodology (nihilism) to drive the method. Perhaps read one of these:
- https://www.ushmm.org/m/pdfs/20090831-nazi-ideology-book-part1.pdf
- https://www.cambridgescholars.com/resources/pdfs/978-1-4438-5422-1-sample.pdf
- https://academic.oup.com/psq/article-abstract/79/4/542/7272286?redirectedFrom=PDF
The more Safety ignores the study of philosophy/methodology, the more it thinks that some change in rhetoric or slogans makes something ‘new’ or ‘different’.
Anyone can propose 5 so called ‘principles and call them ‘truths’ and just as easily demonise persons in the name of performance and systems (https://safetyrisk.net/declaring-what-is-by-what-isnt-hop-as-traditional-safety/). After all, your language shapes thought (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-language-shapes-thought/).
This is why a study of linguistics is critical to belief in safety (https://cllr.com.au/product/linguistics-flyer-unit-21/).
So, the language of One Brain and Three Minds (1B3M) in SPoR, is not just the right linguistics for safety but the right focus for ensuring that humans are considered as embodied persons in an ethic of risk.
In safety, there is simply no response to the question: ‘what is the body for?’
In all the stuff that floats around safety of ‘fast and slow’, brain safety (https://www.tmsconsulting.com.au/blog/safety-performance-with-the-brain-in-mind/), brain focused safety (https://www.ehstoday.com/safety-leadership/article/21917966/is-your-brain-hardwired-for-safety) and mindsafety (https://www.mindsafetyinternational.com/); Safety gets further away from embracing the whole person in tackling risk.
Even then, most of this goop floating about as mindsafety (https://www.safetymind.com.au/) is about engineering and behaviourism.
There’s lots of marketing in safety about neuroscience safety (https://safetyrisk.net/behaviourist-neuroscience-as-safety/ ), delivered by people with no expertise in neuroscience. In safety, if you can sell it, you claim to be an expert. This is how we end up with engineers being experts in learning, ethics, mythology, culture and history. Dig below the spin and its just more behaviourism (https://safetyrisk.net/turning-neuroscience-into-behaviourism/).
In SPoR, we understand the human being as embodied and making decisions in at least the centres of being: the head, the heart and the gut (1B3M). There is a significant body of research to support this ontology (https://safetyrisk.net/evidence-for-one-brian-three-minds-in-spor/). This matters because methodology drives method. If you want a method that works (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/it-works-a-new-approach-to-risk-and-safety-book-for-free-download/), you need a methodology that envisions the human as a whole person.
- Embodied enactivity (https://safetyrisk.net/embodied-enactivity-in-safety/) is critical for ensuring an ethical approach to tackling risk.
- Embodied learning (https://safetyrisk.net/embodied-learning-in-risk/) is critical for ensuring that a method in learning works!
Without an holistic and embodied approach to learning (individually or in teams) what follows won’t be about learning, it will be about training or behaviourism.
BTW, the key to learning is NOT performance. A priority on performance inhibits the learning of any person or team. The purpose of learning is not performance, particularly safety performance. If the primary discourse and focus is on safety performance (https://www.southpacinternational.com/learning-teams/) then there will be no ‘learning teams’ just spin and indoctrination about the 5 non-truths of HOP (https://www.learningteamscommunity.com/introduction-to-hop).
Anyone with any expertise in education and learning knows that the purpose of education and learning is NOT performance. The purpose of education is the development of persons to be ethical participants in society. The purpose of education is to enable the development of maturity and wisdom to act ethically in the world. You don’t read any of this language in the discourse of HOP.
When I first started researching in Education and Learning 50 years ago, we cut our teeth on the work of R S Peters on Ethics and Education (https://archive.org/details/ethicseducation0000pete_s1g4). You’ll read nothing about this in HOP (https://safetyrisk.net/what-is-education-in-risk/) yet this is ‘’bread and butter for any educator. Understanding the concept of education (https://dl.icdst.org/pdfs/files1/b45164aa52b5135665278409c74f0353.pdf) is essential to understanding learning.
One cannot strive for learning if one’s foundation is safety performance.
In SPoR, we don’t undertake learning to improve safety performance. This would be a guarantee to kibosh any chance of learning. When your foundation is safety performance, all learning stops.
Again, this is why 1B3M matters. The purpose of learning is not the movement of data but the movement of embodied persons. The whole person is not a computer on a carcass. Safety can never improve if this is the metaphor of choice. There can be no learning under the energy of such a metaphor.
When we accept that humans are embodied, enactive and make decisions with 1B3M then, the whole approach to risk changes.
Dr Rob Long
Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)
- Podcast – What Jung Can Contribute to Safety – Part One - September 12, 2024
- Relationships as Therapy for Mental Health, A Note for Safety - September 10, 2024
- Cultivating Resilience - September 8, 2024
- No Place for Military Metaphors in Safety - September 6, 2024
- The Influence of C.G. Jung in SPoR - September 5, 2024
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