When will Safety get it into their silly thinking that zero is impossible? When will Safety realise that Zero is an ideology (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/zero-the-great-safety-delusion/), a language, a disposition and a denial of fallibility? Indeed, the more Safety talks about zero, the more stupid it looks. Moreso, 85% of practitioners in safety think it is a religious ideology, creates dishonesty and fosters bullying (https://safetyrisk.net/update-on-zero-survey-just-believe/ ).
The whole idea that zero is a ‘noble target’ is utter nonsense. How odd to use the language of nobility for such unethical discourse. Any language of perfection directed at fallible people can only ever result in psychological brutalism. Oh well, there goes the first denial, especially as Safety is now obligated to tackle psychosocial health!
But why would we be surprised when even academics (Provan and Rae) from the Safety Science Innovation Lab say the same! (https://safetyrisk.net/zero-is-an-immoral-goal/). Wonderful innovation, go zero!
But why would we be surprised at comment on the morality of zero from people with no expertise in ethics! Indeed, this is why Safety doesn’t articulate an ethic of risk because if it did, it would have to get rid of zero! How astounding that the AIHS Chapter on Ethics in the BoK makes no mention of Power, Zero or Care. A perfect concoction for brutalism. I know, let’s get an Engineer to lecture in Ethics (https://safetyrisk.net/safety-the-expert-in-everything-and-the-art-of-learning-nothing/) and Culture. If you want to know anything about Ethics or Culture, don’t start with safety (https://safetyrisk.net/the-last-thing-is-dont-start-with-safety/ ).
Zero is an immoral target, goal and aspiration. Any expectation of perfection from fallible people (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/fallibility-risk-living-uncertainty/) and fallible systems creates an orientation to brutalism.
How bizarre, no parent on the planet would expect perfection or no harm for their children indeed, we all expect as good parents that our children who live in the real world will take risks and be harmed! When my children have been harmed by fallible living, I don’t consider for a moment that I am a bad parent. Just imaging if one tried to apply the nonsense logic of zero to relationship breakups, divorce or suicide. Could you be so stupid?
Of course, anyone with any expertise in psychosocial health knows that such a suggestion is non- sense.
What crazy logic from an industry obsessed with binary opposition and a silly definition of safety as measured by injury rates! What about all the psychosocial harm cause by such a silly goal? What about the bullying in the name of zero? What about the discrimination, overwork, distress and sociopathic behaviour in the workplace? Are these counted? Of course not, otherwise zero would be an impossibility.
I’d love to see all these silly advocates of zero apply the same logic to running a household and parenting of children. How silly this would be. We already know how harmful helicopter parenting is (https://www.forbes.com/sites/traversmark/2022/11/30/a-psychologist-calls-out-the-many-dangers-of-helicopter-parenting/).
Amalberti and Taleb clearly demonstrate how hype-safety is both harmful and dangerous (http://kgt.bme.hu/files/BMEGT30M400/Taleb_Antifragile__2012.pdf). So, what the target of zero actually does is promote harm!
Ah no not Safety, Safety knows that zero is noble! Of course, the inference of the language of ‘noble’ is that something is morally sound and constructed of high moral principles. Yes, just like HOP that makes slogans principles, again from no expertise in Ethics (https://safetyrisk.net/understanding-the-nature-of-performance-and-hop/).
Yet, strangely, any profession that claims to be a profession, builds their curriculum around a study of Ethics. This is why Safety is not a profession but an amateur activity that encourages and enables harm through immoral practice.
How bizarre that this article is published in a paper called Daily Maverick. There is nothing maverick about zero. Just read the article and it brags about harm minimization, not zero! The article talks about reduction NOT zero! The article is actually not about zero. The zero slogan is used as language for membership in the religious cult (https://safetyrisk.net/safetyzero-culture/).
Just watch In the Blink of an Eye (https://youtu.be/BIhgJ93t0Jw?si=JZhU9bTvsHQDU49g) and tell me zero is not a cult.
It’s about time safety stopped talking about zero and started talking about: care, moral meaning, the abuse of power, psychosocial health and stopped wasting time dreaming for the impossible (https://safetyrisk.net/believe-the-impossible-and-speak-nonsense-to-people/).
It’s about time Safety became a profession that understood the nature of risk and fallibility and stopped looking so immature and stupid in the face of the real world.
Prof. Robert Long
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Eugene says
Rob the very notion of working for a paycheck each week inherently means there are degrees of discomfort of some kind. To your point about the delusion of zero harm; if that were TRULY the goal, not only would we never learn anything or love anyone, but the very nature of work would be eliminated! Of course you and I know that when this inconvenient fact is brought up, it turns into the “Well, zero is aspirational” or “We don’t mean ALL harm, just the really bad stuff” is brought out. It definitely takes a degree of disassociation with the truth for anyone who has sturdied SPOR and works in the safety industry. I hang on to the belief I can reach the boots on the ground by meeting them as real people vs changing the orthodox safety monolith, which I used to think was possible in my lifetime.
Rob Long says
Spot on Eugene. Once we dump the delusions of zero and face up to the realities of risk we become far more acceptable to the people on the front line who know that zero is nonsense.