The binary dichotomy of work-as-imagined and work-as-done is yet another construct by academics to create a market.

Moreso, it seems if any of these lords or gurus in safety declare something, it is deemed both truth and incontestable. The lemmings fall in line because truth has been declared.

How odd, this adoption of academic views on explaining away human error and bizarre understandings of causation, imagination and blame. What is even more bizarre is that those declaring slogans and bizarre views on causation, imagination, blame and human error, have little expertise in what is being projected. But that’s the market, no curriculum in critical thinking and little interest in Critical Discourse Analysis. What a hot market to sell in to.

Much of this simply confirms Ballantyne’s notion of Epistemic Trespass (https://safetyrisk.net/epistemic-trespassing-and-safety/ ). It also confirms that the safety industry adores simplistic binary constructs and lacks the skills in critical thinking to deconstruct the underlying philosophy being projected in this marketing. For example, the creation of dichotomies and binary constructs is straight out of the Cartesian playbook.

We can go all the way back to Plato for find the seduction of the binary and then to Descartes who created the body-mind problem. There’s nothing quite like the seduction of the binary for safety. It’s so simple, easy and marketable. If you want to sell into safety, make it binary (https://safetyrisk.net/escaping-the-binary-in-safety/).

Standing against binary thinking and dualism is holism, which is where SPoR stands. That is, there is no division into binary parts but that human life and being is holistic, inter-connected, inter-affected and inter-corporeal. In this philosophy we understand our own bodies socially as interrelationships between the systems in our own bodies eg. nervous system, brain, heart, gut, respiratory system, immune system, skin and all the senses. We are not a computer on a body that directs the body what to do. This means that all we do is integrated within ourselves and with others. A simple example is how stress can affect the whole body, nervous system, breathing, energy level, heart rate and clouded thinking. Similarly, stress is contagious and can affect social context.

Unfortunately, Safety loves this binary stuff: its either fast or slow, S1 or S2, WAI or WAD, linear or not linear, blame or no blame and, zero or not zero. Such an easy sell into a market that lacks discernment or any sense of wickedity in thinking.

The trouble is, none of this is real. Life is not binary and all these concoctions of dichotomies simply help sell into a market keen to have the back and white. It’s an easy sell and there’s plenty of money to be made from the gullible who can’t think critically.

One of the most important things when selling into the safety market is making sure that whatever binary claim is made, have no research or expertise to support it.

• When you’re on the blame fixes nothing scam, make sure you have no research or expertise in the psychology of blame: https://safetyrisk.net/the-meaning-of-blame-thinking-beyond-the-spin-and-slogans/
• When speaking about Imagination have no research into the nature of Imagination: The Cambridge Handbook of the Imagination (Cambridge — Abraham, Anna (editor) – (2020) Cambridge University Press (Virtual Publishing).
• When selling whatever binary version of culture one desires, make sure you have no research expertise in culture, Anthropology or Religious Studies.

This is Epistemic Trespass at its best (https://safetyrisk.net/epistemic-trespassing-and-safety/).

The reality is, Imagination has many definitions and is NOT Cartesian. Here is research from Stevenson (with 12 definitions of the imagination) to illustrate the point:

Moreso, Imagination is not disembodied but embodied. The imagination is not just brain work. This is why an ethic of personhood is foundational to understanding human decision making and risk.

There is no imagination that is ‘offline’ then put ‘online’ in work as done.

The truth is, the WAI/WAD dichotomy hides a philosophy of disembodiment and Cartesian duality. In reality, Imagination doesn’t work that way. In all work as done, the imagination is deeply integrated into everything. For example, people who work with their hands know that they work by ‘feeling into being’. This is common in all artistic and Poetic endeavour, such ‘work’ in imagination is primarily intuitive.

The brain is not like a computer that directs the body into action indeed, it’s the opposite. Human being is enactive. This is supported by extensive research in neuroscience (https://safetyrisk.net/essential-readings-neuroscience-and-the-whole-person/).

Similarly, when we Imagine things, consider hypotheticals, daydream and converse with others about imagined risk, we ‘work’ in this imaginative space. Most highly experienced people who work on risk assessments and consider possibilities bring all they know into imaginative conversations of what might be. Indeed, such imaginative thinking works well, apart from the busyness of work.

Yet in safety, there is now this concocted binary and moral hierarchy of one as better than the other – S2 is better than S1, WAD is better than WAI, fast is better than slow, no blame is better than blame, system error is better than human error.

And where and how does this binary truth emerge? From gurus, academic lords and elevated ‘thought leaders’ with no expertise in whatever binary concoction they have created for the market. But, when a product is to be sold, why should expertise matter? It doesn’t matter, the safety sponge will suck it all in as truth and repeat it as often as possible so it does become its own truth, a safety myth.

Now when one looks at the safety industry and the endless confusion and political sectarianism, wasn’t safety better off before all of these binary concoctions?