SPoR – Positive, Constructive, Practical, Rational, Visual, Verbal, Social, Relational, Person-Centric, Respectful, Ethical and Real

These are all the qualities and moral values of SPoR and all those who enquire, learn and engage in SPoR quickly discover just how much its methods add value to the way people and organisations tackle risk.

SPoR is based on a very different worldview than Safety. The orientation of SPoR is based on a Phenomenological Existentialist Dialectic worldview and is radically different from the engineering/behaviourist/positivist worldview of Safety. The SPoR worldview has little interest in objects and frames the world with a view on subjects/persons.

The foundation of SPoR is situated in a moral philosophy that emerges out of this worldview and has very little time for any theory that demonises persons and brutalises persons in the name of a deontological ethic.

Most of the resources, philosophers, researchers and readings of SPoR are found nowhere in the Safety world globally (S1 or S2). And as a beginning in SPoR one would need to be familiar with the works of: Jung, Ellul, Ricoeur, Lotman, Derrida, Kierkegaard, Kristeva, Pierce, Merleau-Ponty-Ponty and the Frankfurt School (Eg. Fromm) and History of Mentalities (Eg. Bloch etc).

One can view the SPoR Body of Knowledge here: https://spor.com.au/downloads/posters/

The sheer fact that SPoR is represented semiotically is radically different from the worldview of safety that seeks power and control over others through behaviourism and content-knowing.

SPoR stands as radically ‘other’ than mechanical and STEM disciplines that tend to judge and devalue ways of knowing that are metaphysical, philosophical and faith-based. This is not intended to be oppositional but poses an equally valued worldview that could complement Safety if it was interested in learning, collaboration and conversation. None of this is possible for Safety as long as it shapes its worldview by the global ideology of safety – zero.

Zero is the archetype for intolerance, compliance, anti-learning, anti-listening and domination. There is no movement in zero, so there can be no learning until this foundation is eradicated. Zero exists in the denial of fallibility, vulnerability, mortality and human reality. The ideology is a delusion best exemplified in the global safety video ‘The Spirit of Zero’. The religious apocalyptic video represents all that is abhorrent about safety. The Spirit of Zero is all about the rejection of harm, learning, trial and error, the blessing fallibility and human ‘being’. It is the semiotic symbol for all SPoR stands in contra-distinction. This is why Safety has no ethic that considers the nature of personhood, care, helping and social being in what it presents.

If you are interested in learning about SPoR there is much available that is for free download and viewing. The Introductory modules and Due Diligence Modules are also for free download.

There are also two face to face workshops on offer this year in Europe and Australia.

• In Vienna from 26-30 June (https://safetyrisk.net/workshops-with-dr-long-vienna-austria-26-30-june-2023/) and

• Canberra 18-21 September 2023 (https://spor.com.au/september-canberra-workshop/).

These workshops will help you move away from: the engineering/behaviourism/positivism approach to safety, identifying with Safety and the myth of objectivity and, discover methods that actually work to humanise risk (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/it-works-a-new-approach-to-risk-and-safety/).