Robert Long Vision Zero Zero Harm

Zero and a Culture of Denial

ByProf. Robert Long

If you watch the Zero Event promo (https://safety2023sydney.com/) you would be confused to think that safety is some kind of progressive, critical thinking outfit that tackles Transdisciplinarity. It doesn’t.

You would also be confused to think that safety looks outside of its own echo chamberΒ to entertain challenge and critical thinking that might shake foundations, it doesn’t.

You might even think from this promo that safety is able to enter into dialogue with other views than zero. It can’t.

Just listen to the beliefs stated in this promo:

  • β€˜there’s real diversity which is so exciting to see’
  • β€˜there’s no cookie cutter approach’
  • β€˜we can no longer keep doing the way we’ve always done things’
  • β€˜we encourage a different way of thinking and working’
  • β€˜there is no separation between work and home’
  • β€˜WHS is complex but it’s actually simple’
  • β€˜we bring together such a diverse set of perspectives’

Of course, all of this is contradicted by zero, the global mantra and ideology for safety (https://visionzero.global/ ).

The ideology of zero (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/for-the-love-of-zero-free-download/) is the great delusion (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/zero-the-great-safety-delusion/) that sits underneath all that this β€˜promo-speak’ to ensure there is no change, no dialogue, no contemplation of diversity, no Transdisciplinarity, no movement in safety and no denial of zero.

Zero ensures that any language about change is trivial, shallow and tokenistic.

Zero ensures that nothing moves in the culture of safety on counting injury rates, policing regulation and the denial of fallibility (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/fallibility-risk-living-uncertainty/).

Once you jump past the promo, the spruiking of presentations and excursions across Sydney, you find that all of this is marketed as a β€˜zero event’ (https://safetyrisk.net/the-global-zero-event-this-is-safety/; https://safetyrisk.net/safety-as-zero-the-perfect-event/; https://safetyrisk.net/shaping-change-to-zero/ ).

The propaganda of this promo and the meaning of zero cannot co-exists. The ideology of zero is about the denial of fallibility, mortality and vulnerability. The ideology of zero that promotes an immortality of religious/apocalyptic transformation (https://safetyrisk.net/the-spirit-of-zero/), sits underneath all of this promo-speak. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t attend this congress and at the same time also be in denial of zero. Or else, one extolls hypocrisy as a virtue.

Whilst one can go to a workshop on re-deigning workplaces for psychosocial β€˜hazards’, nothing will be said about the brutalism of zero and how Zero creates harm.

So, whilst you attend the Media Festival (https://safety2023sydney.com/programme/international-media-festival-prevention) on safety videos, make sure you watch Spirit of Zero, In the Blink of an Eye (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIhgJ93t0Jw). Make sure you watch this video with your brain connected and Mind on task. Because, this is safety.

Of course, the denial of reality is a mental health disorder (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIhgJ93t0Jw). The denial of fallibility, risk and the essential necessity of harm, is a mental disorder just as obsession is a mental disorder (https://safetyrisk.net/safety-as-a-mental-health-disorder-obsession/). Zero fosters mental illness.

Denialism is the fruit of delusion that maintains two alternate realities at the same time (https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/75904 ).

Denialism is a defence mechanism so that safety can maintain the nonsense myths of: β€˜safety is a choice you make’, β€˜all accidents are preventable’, β€˜believe the impossible’ and β€˜zero is possible’. All of these myths will be confirmed by the safety congress in Sydney that sustains many of the essential silences of safety (https://safetyrisk.net/safety-culture-silences/).

  • The best way to sustain zero mythology is to not talk about it.
  • The best way to sustain zero ideology is to not talk about fallibility.

So, if safety really believes in zero will there be alcohol and sugar drinks at the gala event? Will there be loud music? But, it’s OK, safety only believes in selective harm. The harm we don’t count like, psychosocial harm and harm we can’t see or count. I wonder what coercion will be applied to ensure that zero is not challenged at this congress?

And we know in zero, that the denial of zero as a mental illness, is a sign of secondary denial of mental illness (https://www.banyanmentalhealth.com/2022/02/17/tips-for-helping-someone-in-denial-of-mental-illness/). I have no mental illness, I believe the impossible whilst at the same time believe in fallibility and mortality (https://www.banyanmentalhealth.com/2021/10/29/mental-disorder-anosognosia/ ).

When you look at the four foundational myths of safety (β€˜safety is a choice you make’, β€˜all accidents are preventable’, β€˜believe the impossible’ and β€˜zero is possible’) the evidence for the psychosis of denial is all on show. Just believe! (https://safetyrisk.net/no-evidence-for-the-religion-of-zero/).

The greatest denial, is the denial of death (https://humanposthuman.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/ernest_becker_the_denial_of_deathbookfi-org.pdf). And this is where zero comes most undone. There is nothing more final than death to prove the delusions of zero. So, what safety does is repeat constantly all the times it never achieves zero and then, sell delusions of 1% safer. What a masterful concoction of denial – the denial of denial (https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/denial-how-it-hurts-how-it-helps-and-how-to-cope-202307262958).

Please tell me this is NOT so.

Well done Safety.

Prof. Robert Long

Prof. Robert Long

Expert in Social Psychology, Principal & Trainer at Human Dymensions
Prof. Robert 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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