You have to love this one from Safety: Do Safety Slogans Still Serve a Purpose?

And you have to remember in safety, its most important to have no expertise in what you are writing about. And this piece is no exception.

The most important part of this story is to ensure you don’t define what a slogan is. You don’t define context or mention anything about the long history of slogans as the foundation for all propaganda (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/406288705_IDIOMS_AND_SLOGANS_IN_POSTER_LIKE_PROPAGANDA; https://dn720002.ca.archive.org/0/items/propaganda-edward-l.-bernays/Propaganda%20-%20Edward%20L.%20Bernays.pdf).

The most important discussion in a safety discussion on slogans is injury rates.

If you ever want to write a safety article to get that purchase into safety culture there is a clear recipe: start your article with discussion of injury rates or regulations.

When you want to write a propaganda piece like this one, the first thing one needs to do is hide assumptions and disguise motive. Then accept safety mythology without question such as all the assumptions about Safety 2.0 and, then state absolute mis-information as fact, eg:

‘Safety 2.0 is captured by human and organizational performance (HOP). Based on a series of principles, HOP doesn’t lend itself to slogans.’

The opposite is the case. All that is offered in so called safety 2.0 is slogans. Yet, this article repeats the nonsense that HOP’s 5 slogans are principles. The first principle of propaganda is mis-truth.

A principle is a fundamental and self-evident truth. None of the 5 slogans of HOP meet these criteria. The 5 slogans of HOP are marketing spin NOT principles. Indeed, the 5 HOP slogans hide principles and worldview which is of course, unethical.

Then more mis-information:

‘Safety 2.0 has not ushered in a new language of slogans because it is more in line with the thinking of Dr. W. Edwards Deming.’

The stuff put forward in this article is pure propaganda.

The only reason the writer thinks HOP has no slogans is because the writer has no expertise in ethics. Understanding the difference between a slogan and a principle is 101 for anyone interested in the morality of sloganeering or the ethics of indoctrination.

Then again, what you expect from an ISHN text?

You would expect safety propaganda and that’s what this is.

So, let’s start with the question at the start of this article: Do Safety Slogans Still Serve a Purpose?

 Of course, they do. The purpose of safety slogans is to hide the reality and complexity of risk. That is the purpose of all slogans. To project a simplistic idea to mask the reality and complexity of an issue.

I saw this on LinkedIn today about ASSP Santiago safety summit:

‘Advancing our profession requires more than exchanging ideas. It requires questioning assumptions, challenging conventional thinking, and creating space for meaningful dialogue across perspectives.’

Yes and pigs fly.