You Can’t Believe in Zero and Learning at The Same Time
The next instalment from this rubbish IOSH magazine is an article on learning . Yes, you guessed it, from the same magazine that proudly parades the gobbledygook nonsense (https://safetyrisk.net/zero-vision-creates-mindless-gobbledygook/) of the zero cult. Well you can’t have you cake and eat it too.
You can’t parade an article about learning and at the same time extol the vices of the zero cult. If you believe in zero then you can’t believe in learning. The foundation of all learning is risk and the foundation of zero is the reduction of all risk. Yes, from the same magazine that wants to indoctrinate the Education profession with its own cult .
Isn’t it funny how a qualification in safety makes one an expert in everything: learning, education, social work, law, nursing and epidemiology. Sorry to inform Safety but real living where fallible people engage in life and movement is what makes for professional and ethical conduct. The worshiping of a number does not.
No-one who believes in zero can be professional. The denial of fallibility is anti-professional.
So now lets turn to learning. The crazy thing about this article is that it doesn’t discuss learning. This is an article about IOSH training, stress and CDP.
If Safety wants to know about learning and education then it should start by embracing a transdisciplinary approach (https://safetyrisk.net/transdisciplinary-safety/ ). Goodness me, maybe safety might learn something by listening to experts from different discipline?
So when it comes to work and learning, it might be nice to know what learning is. All learning comes from movement. There can be no learning without movement and any movement threatens the ideology of zero. If you move in this world you will be harmed. The only way to achieve the absolute of zero is with total stasis (https://safetyrisk.net/the-stress-of-stasis/ ).
What this article should really be discussing is the anxieties (https://safetyrisk.net/measurement-anxiety-in-safety/) and mental health disorders associated with the ideology of zero. The problem is not the pressures of work but for safety denying the very fallibility of being human and creating a delusional world on the basis of zero ideology. If you want to be stressed off your face at work, just follow the zero cult. Then you will spend every ounce of energy chasing the unattainable and punishing everyone for making choices to harm.
The pursuit of the zero cult is the pursuit of distress. It’s easy, set an unattainable goal and then publish every time you don’t achieve it. Now there’s a definition of dumb.
Dr Rob Long
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Rob Long says
Brilliant Poetry. BTW, broken windows is like every projection about Giuliani, pure mythology. Amazing how the will to believe in the management of objects and tidiness is the rejection of the reality of messiness.
Bernard Corden says
Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani was a strong advocate of the broken windows doctrine and zero tolerance, which he claimed was responsible for dramatic reductions in the NYC crime rate but it was the delivery of “The Hill We Climb” poem by Amanda Gorman during the inauguration of President Biden that met the moment:
When day comes we ask ourselves,
where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry,
a sea we must wade
We’ve braved the belly of the beast
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace
And the norms and notions
of what just is
Isn’t always just-ice
And yet the dawn is ours
before we knew it
Somehow we do it
Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn’t broken
but simply unfinished
We the successors of a country and a time
Where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president
only to find herself reciting for one
And yes we are far from polished
far from pristine
but that doesn’t mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect
We are striving to forge a union with purpose
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and
conditions of man
And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us
but what stands before us
We close the divide because we know, to put our future first,
we must first put our differences aside
We lay down our arms
so we can reach out our arms
to one another
We seek harm to none and harmony for all
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew
That even as we hurt, we hoped
That even as we tired, we tried
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious
Not because we will never again know defeat
but because we will never again sow division
Scripture tells us to envision
that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree
And no one shall make them afraid
If we’re to live up to our own time
Then victory won’t lie in the blade
But in all the bridges we’ve made
That is the promise to glade
The hill we climb
If only we dare
It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit,
it’s the past we step into
and how we repair it
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation
rather than share it
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy
And this effort very nearly succeeded
But while democracy can be periodically delayed
it can never be permanently defeated
In this truth
in this faith we trust
For while we have our eyes on the future
history has its eyes on us
This is the era of just redemption
We feared at its inception
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs
of such a terrifying hour
but within it we found the power
to author a new chapter
To offer hope and laughter to ourselves
So while once we asked,
how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?
Now we assert
How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was
but move to what shall be
A country that is bruised but whole,
benevolent but bold,
fierce and free
We will not be turned around
or interrupted by intimidation
because we know our inaction and inertia
will be the inheritance of the next generation
Our blunders become their burdens
But one thing is certain:
If we merge mercy with might,
and might with right,
then love becomes our legacy
and change our children’s birthright
So let us leave behind a country
better than the one we were left with
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest,
we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one
We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west,
we will rise from the windswept northeast
where our forefathers first realized revolution
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states,
we will rise from the sunbaked south
We will rebuild, reconcile and recover
and every known nook of our nation and
every corner called our country,
our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,
battered and beautiful
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid
The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it
There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in – Leonard Cohen
Rob Long says
Thanks Mike, Safety is the industry that just keeps on giving. IOSH mag is no exception to the endless amateurish nonsense the sector provides.
Michael Dale says
Rob you have been on fire the last few days, I love every part of each post