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You are here: Home / Learning / You Can’t Believe in Zero and Learning at The Same Time

You Can’t Believe in Zero and Learning at The Same Time

January 21, 2021 by Dr Rob Long 4 Comments

You Can’t Believe in Zero and Learning at The Same Time

imageThe 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.

  • Bio
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Dr Rob Long

Dr Rob Long

Expert in Social Psychology, Principal & Trainer at Human Dymensions
Dr Rob Long

Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)

  • What is the Human Body for in Safety? - April 29, 2022
  • You Don’t Fess Up Without Trust - April 27, 2022
  • Sense-Making and Decision-Making in Risk - April 25, 2022
  • Holistic Responses to Mental Health - April 23, 2022
  • Linguistics, Language and Meaning in Risk - April 20, 2022
Dr Rob Long
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.

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Filed Under: Learning, Robert Long, Zero Harm Tagged With: learning, Zero Harm

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Comments

  1. Rob Long says

    January 24, 2021 at 9:34 AM

    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.

    Reply
  2. Bernard Corden says

    January 22, 2021 at 1:14 PM

    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

    Reply
  3. Rob Long says

    January 22, 2021 at 6:51 AM

    Thanks Mike, Safety is the industry that just keeps on giving. IOSH mag is no exception to the endless amateurish nonsense the sector provides.

    Reply
  4. Michael Dale says

    January 21, 2021 at 10:51 PM

    Rob you have been on fire the last few days, I love every part of each post

    Reply

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