Envisioning Risk

Seeing, Vision and Meaning in Risk

Dr Robert Long
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Author: Long, Robert
Title: Envisioning Risk – Seeing, Vision and Meaning in Risk
ISBN: 978-0-646-827438-8
Subjects: Risk-taking (Psychology) Risk perception. Risk--Sociological aspects. Social choice.
Dewey Number: 302.12

Previous Books in the Series on Risk by Dr Long

Book 1 Book 2 Book 3 Book 4

Book 5 Book 6 Book 7 Book 8

Previous Books Can be Purchased here: https://www.humandymensions.com/shop/

Scotoma Press
10 Jens Place
Kambah ACT 2902
© Copyright 2020 by Robert Long.
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
ISBN 978-0-646-827438-8
Graphic design and layout by Justin Huehn.

iv Envisioning Risk
Contents
Foreword 1.....................................................................................................................................xiv
Foreword 2.....................................................................................................................................xvi
Contact Websites.........................................................................................................................xviii
Contact Phone and email............................................................................................................xviii
Intellectual Property....................................................................................................................xviii
Dedication...................................................................................................................................xviii
Introduction...................................................................................................................................xix
Note - How to Read This book....................................................................................................xxii
About the Book Logo...................................................................................................................xxii
Three Critical Themes Threaded Throughout This Book...............................................................xxii
A Note on Poetics.........................................................................................................................xxiii
The Capitalisation of Text, Bold and Italics at Heading 1...........................................................xxiii
A Visionary Lexicon ..................................................................................................................xxiiv
SECTION ONE – The Phenomenon of Vision........................................................................................ 1
Chapter 1 – Vision and Envisioning..................................................................................................... 3
Vision Doesn’t Start With The Eyes................................................................................................ 3
Indigenous Knowing....................................................................................................................... 9
A Brief History of The Soul, Self and Metaphysics....................................................................... 11
Save Our Souls in Movies and Music............................................................................................ 14
The Soul In Music......................................................................................................................... 15
Brain Dead.................................................................................................................................... 17
How is This Relevant to Envisioning?........................................................................................... 18
Interlude - Where Am I Coming From?....................................................................................... 19
What is Envisioning? Seeing the Semiosphere............................................................................. 22
The Imagination and Perception in Risk....................................................................................... 24
The Embodied Senses and the Sensemaking Body........................................................................ 26
Look With Your Heart and Not With Your Eyes......................................................................... 28
A Closing Note on Hermeneutics................................................................................................. 32
Transition...................................................................................................................................... 34
Chapter 2 – Perception and How We See........................................................................................... 35
Perception, Vision and Seeing....................................................................................................... 35
The Camera Metaphor.................................................................................................................. 41
A Necessary Review of One Brain Three Minds (1B3M)............................................................. 44
The Embodied Integrated-Ecological Human Being.................................................................... 45
Why Does 1B3M Matter to Envisioning?.................................................................................... 47
Perception, Vision and Flow.......................................................................................................... 48
The Devil is in The Detail.............................................................................................................. 49
Physical Seeing is Not Straight Forward?...................................................................................... 51

v
 Colour............................................................................................................................................ 57
How Much Can we See At a Glance?........................................................................................... 57
Vision as a Gestalt......................................................................................................................... 58
The Ocularcentrism of Risk........................................................................................................... 60
Magic and Misdirection................................................................................................................ 61
Transition...................................................................................................................................... 64
Chapter 3 – Visionary Imagination..................................................................................................... 65
Defining Vision and Envisioning.................................................................................................. 65
An Ethic of Hope.......................................................................................................................... 66
A Dialectic of Hope-Faith-Love-Justice....................................................................................... 70
Hope Gap...................................................................................................................................... 70
Is Just Culture Unjust?................................................................................................................... 71
A Rationale for Visionaries............................................................................................................ 73
Nelson Mandela............................................................................................................................ 73
Orthodoxy and Stasis..................................................................................................................... 74
Visonaries - Off the Beat and Track.............................................................................................. 75
Jacques Ellul (1912-1994)............................................................................................................. 76
Bosch (1450-1516)........................................................................................................................ 79
Kierkegaard (1813-1855) .............................................................................................................. 82
C.G. Jung (1875-1961).................................................................................................................. 83
Mary Douglas (1921-2007)........................................................................................................... 85
Louisa Lawson (1848-1920).......................................................................................................... 86
Marion Mahony Griffin................................................................................................................ 89
Elizabeth Moltmann-Wendel........................................................................................................ 93
Marcia Langton............................................................................................................................. 96
Transition...................................................................................................................................... 98
SECTION TWO – The Meaning of Vision............................................................................................. 99
Chapter 4 – Zero Vision.................................................................................................................... 101
Poor Vision - Sydney Trams........................................................................................................ 103
Criteria for Stiffling Vision.......................................................................................................... 104
Opposition to the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice Dialectic................................................................ 105
Technique...................................................................................................................................... 105
Power-Positivism-Ego................................................................................................................. 107
Zero Quashes Vision................................................................................................................... 110
Absolute Safety............................................................................................................................ 114
Orthodoxy-Conformity-Duty-Common Sense-Compliance..................................................... 117
Binary Opposition-Fundamentalisms.......................................................................................... 119
Perception Blindness.................................................................................................................... 121
Disembodied Alienation.............................................................................................................. 126

vi Envisioning Risk
 Embodied Vision......................................................................................................................... 127
Propaganda, Misinformation and Misdirection........................................................................... 130
The AIHS BoK on Ethics, Check Your Gut!.............................................................................. 135
Transition.................................................................................................................................... 138
Chapter 5 – The Dynamics of Vision................................................................................................ 139
Visions......................................................................................................................................... 139
Implicit Knowing......................................................................................................................... 142
Inked, Cartoonists as Visionaries................................................................................................. 142
Inked............................................................................................................................................ 144
Critical Elements of Photography............................................................................................... 151
Gestalt Preception....................................................................................................................... 154
Semiotic Analysis for Photography............................................................................................. 156
Banksy and Visions in Street Art................................................................................................. 160
Banksy as Visionary..................................................................................................................... 162
Transition.................................................................................................................................... 165
Chapter 6 – EnVisioning Semiotically.............................................................................................. 167
Introduction................................................................................................................................. 167
Semiotics and Semiosis ............................................................................................................... 167
Understanding Semiotic Dynamics............................................................................................. 172
Image-in-ation............................................................................................................................. 177
The Hermeneutics of Symbols..................................................................................................... 181
Metaphors We Live By................................................................................................................ 183
Understanding Semiotics - Signs, Symbols and Icons................................................................. 186
The Study of Semiotics................................................................................................................ 189
The Grammar of Risk.................................................................................................................. 193
How to use signs, symbols and text effectively in communicating about risk.............................. 194
Mapping the Semiosphere........................................................................................................... 194
Semiotic Analysis - Decoding The Semiosphere......................................................................... 196
Semiotic Analysis Structure......................................................................................................... 198
A Semiotic Analysis Process........................................................................................................ 198
The Iconography of Risk/Safety.................................................................................................. 199
Transition.................................................................................................................................... 201
SECTION THREE – The Practicality of Vision................................................................................... 203
Chapter 7 – What are You Trying to Say?......................................................................................... 205
Introduction................................................................................................................................. 205
Linguistics................................................................................................................................... 207
Speaking Your Mind.................................................................................................................... 209
The Mysterious Middle............................................................................................................... 211
Discourse Analysis....................................................................................................................... 212

vii
 Hermeneutics.............................................................................................................................. 213
A Special Note on Her-story....................................................................................................... 216
Language..................................................................................................................................... 216
The Power of Gesture.................................................................................................................. 218
Language Acquistion as Embodied............................................................................................. 219
Ritual........................................................................................................................................... 221
The Social Politics of Ritual......................................................................................................... 223
The Embodiment of Ritual.......................................................................................................... 229
Taboo - Language and Discourse................................................................................................ 230
Transition.................................................................................................................................... 232
Chapter 8 – EnVisionary Practice..................................................................................................... 233
The Certainty of Uncertainty....................................................................................................... 234
Mystery and Awe......................................................................................................................... 235
The Mysterious Unconscious....................................................................................................... 237
A Review of Heuristics................................................................................................................ 239
Our Mysterious Emotions........................................................................................................... 241
What Can Jung Tell Us?.............................................................................................................. 243
Dreams and Visions..................................................................................................................... 244
The Power of Poetics..................................................................................................................... 247
No Vision in More of the Same.................................................................................................. 249
Visualising Vision........................................................................................................................ 253
Concept Mapping as Envisioning............................................................................................... 255
A Practical Way of Envisioning................................................................................................... 256
iCue Listening............................................................................................................................. 256
iCue Coding................................................................................................................................ 259
Engagement Boarding................................................................................................................. 262
iConic Thinking........................................................................................................................... 262
Mandala Thinking....................................................................................................................... 262
Closing This Book....................................................................................................................... 264
I’ve Seen You............................................................................................................................... 266
Chapter 9 – References...................................................................................................................... 267
Further Research and Study........................................................................................................ 276
Risk Programs and Resources...................................................................................................... 276
Links ........................................................................................................................................... 276

viii Envisioning Risk

Figures
Figure 1. Dave Presenting in Full Flight..................................................................................................... 5
Figure 2. Dave Holland in Recovery........................................................................................................... 5
Figure 3. Dave Holland 2018...................................................................................................................... 7
Figure 4. Mark’s Painting............................................................................................................................ 9
Figure 5. Spirituality.................................................................................................................................. 10
Figure 6. Tommy Emmanuel’s Note.......................................................................................................... 16
Figure 7. The Emergence of the Social Psychology of Risk....................................................................... 20
Figure 8. The Phantom Hand.................................................................................................................... 26
Figure 9. Interaffectivity Tool.................................................................................................................... 27
Figure 10. Leaving Moorook .................................................................................................................... 30
Figure 11. Hermeneutic Framework. ........................................................................................................ 32
Figure 12. Birth Mark on Eye. ................................................................................................................. 35
Figure 13. Floaters in the Eye. .................................................................................................................. 36
Figure 14. Cause of Floaters...................................................................................................................... 36
Figure 15. Roman Aqueduct..................................................................................................................... 37
Figure 16. Head of Aqueduct.................................................................................................................... 37
Figure 17. Differing Perceptions................................................................................................................ 39
Figure 18. The Four Cards......................................................................................................................... 39
Figure 19. Comparing The Human Eye and Camera................................................................................ 41
Figure 20. Spotted Image.......................................................................................................................... 43
Figure 21. Spotted Image Solution............................................................................................................ 43
Figure 22. One Brain Three Minds........................................................................................................... 45
Figure 23. One Person Three Ways of Knowing/Deciding........................................................................ 47
Figure 24 Dolphins on Bottle Image......................................................................................................... 49
Figure 25. The Rejoicing People Image .................................................................................................... 49
Figure 26. Dolphins Solution.................................................................................................................... 49
Figure 27. Can You Read This?.................................................................................................................. 50
Figure 28. The Mechanics of The Eye........................................................................................................ 51
Figure 29. Eye-Brain-Body Relationship.................................................................................................. 51
Figure 30. Anantomy of Retinal Ganglion Cells....................................................................................... 52
Figure 31. The Hermann Grid................................................................................................................... 53
Figure 32. Müller-Lyer illusion 1.............................................................................................................. 54
Figure 33. Müller-Lyer illusion 2.............................................................................................................. 54
Figure 34. Depth of Field.......................................................................................................................... 54
Figure 35. Old Woman, Vase and Duck.................................................................................................... 54
Figure 36. Social Psychology of Risk (SPoR) ........................................................................................... 55
Figure 37. Shade and Light....................................................................................................................... 55
Figure 38. Light From Above.................................................................................................................... 55

Introduction ix
Figure 39. Domino Illusion....................................................................................................................... 55
Figure 40. Blind Spots............................................................................................................................... 56
Figure 41. Bigness..................................................................................................................................... 56
Figure 42. Orderness................................................................................................................................. 56
Figure 43. Same Colour Illusion 1............................................................................................................. 57
Figure 44. Same Colour Illusion 2............................................................................................................. 57
Figure 45. Rob at the 750.......................................................................................................................... 59
Figure 46. The Incredulity of Saint Thomas - Carravaggio........................................................................ 60
Figure 47. The Lonely Metropolitan......................................................................................................... 60
Figure 48. Clifford Warne......................................................................................................................... 61
Figure 49. Peter Wood............................................................................................................................... 62
Figure 50. Phil Bevan................................................................................................................................ 63
Figure 51. The Rainbow Emoji.................................................................................................................. 70
Figure 52. Beechworth Mental Asylum..................................................................................................... 74
Figure 53. Reasons for Committal............................................................................................................. 75
Figure 54. SPQR....................................................................................................................................... 77
Figure 55. Paul’s Travels............................................................................................................................. 78
Figure 56. The Last Judgement.................................................................................................................. 79
Figure 57. Blake on Job............................................................................................................................. 81
Figure 58. Jung.......................................................................................................................................... 84
Figure 59. Semiotics Mandala................................................................................................................... 85
Figure 60. The Dawn................................................................................................................................. 87
Figure 61. Louisa Lawson’s Memorial....................................................................................................... 89
Figure 62. Plan for Canberra City............................................................................................................. 90
Figure 63. Canberra Elevations................................................................................................................. 91
Figure 64. Canberra Environs................................................................................................................... 91
Figure 65. The Winged Bonnet................................................................................................................. 92
Figure 66. The Feminine in God............................................................................................................... 95
Figure 67. Indigenous Slavery................................................................................................................... 96
Figure 68. Because of Her We Can........................................................................................................... 98
Figure 69. Burning Tram......................................................................................................................... 103
Figure 70. Terminus................................................................................................................................. 104
Figure 71. Abendland.............................................................................................................................. 107
Figures 72. The Atom and Coffee Cup.................................................................................................... 108
Figure 73. Critical Political Questions ................................................................................................... 109
Figure 74. Dark Waters........................................................................................................................... 112
Figure 75. Rio Tinto Destroys Priceless Indigenous Archeology Site..................................................... 113
Figure 76. The Miracle Rescue................................................................................................................ 116
Figure 77, Drs Challen and Harris.......................................................................................................... 117

x Envisioning Risk
Figure 78. Institutionalisation of the Charisma....................................................................................... 118
Figure 79. Hazardman Winner............................................................................................................... 122
Figure 80. Hazardman Dolls................................................................................................................... 122
Figure 81. Female Images........................................................................................................................ 122
Figure 82. Safety Sofie............................................................................................................................. 123
Figure 83. Sex Sells.................................................................................................................................. 123
Figure 84. Sofie Kiss................................................................................................................................ 123
Figure 85. Mum’s for Safety.................................................................................................................... 124
Figure 86. Interconnectivity of Risk........................................................................................................ 129
Figure 87. Interaffectivity of Risk............................................................................................................ 129
Figure 88. Stage of 2017 Safety Congress............................................................................................... 131
Figure 89. We Believe.............................................................................................................................. 131
Figure 90. Religious Zero Pledge............................................................................................................ 132
Figure 91. Zero Succeeds........................................................................................................................ 133
Figure 92. Evangelical Zero..................................................................................................................... 134
Figure 93. Mapping Schools of Ethics.................................................................................................... 136
Figure 94. Muscle Kangaroo................................................................................................................... 144
Figure 95. Racism as Nationalism........................................................................................................... 145
Figure 96. The German Monster............................................................................................................. 145
Figure 97. The Witches Sabbath............................................................................................................. 147
Figure 98. Pollice Verso........................................................................................................................... 147
Figure 99. He Drew First........................................................................................................................ 147
Figure 100. Grenfell Tower..................................................................................................................... 148
Figure 101. Small Boy............................................................................................................................. 149
Figure 102. How Dare You!..................................................................................................................... 149
Figure 103. More..................................................................................................................................... 149
Figure 104. War on Terror....................................................................................................................... 150
Figure 105. Business................................................................................................................................ 150
Figure 106. The Phone............................................................................................................................ 150
Figure 107. Phones.................................................................................................................................. 151
Figure 108. Cuppacumbalong Graves..................................................................................................... 152
Figure 109. Cuppacumbalong Graves at a Distance................................................................................ 152
Figure 110. Raised Ground Area and Rock Wall.................................................................................... 152
Figure 111. Instead of Digging Down..................................................................................................... 153
Figure 112. The White Circle.................................................................................................................. 153
Figure 113. Buried to Social Standing..................................................................................................... 153
Figure 114. Walk Around........................................................................................................................ 154
Figure 115. Girl on Obilisk..................................................................................................................... 154
Figure 116. Fence.................................................................................................................................... 155

xi
Figure 117. Fortuna................................................................................................................................. 157
Figure 118. Interpretive text.................................................................................................................... 157
Figure 119. Mithras................................................................................................................................. 158
Figure 120. Comment on Mithras.......................................................................................................... 158
Figure 121. Graffiti Opera House........................................................................................................... 161
Figure 122. Graffiti Opera House Wall................................................................................................... 161
Figure 123. Street Art 1980..................................................................................................................... 161
Figure 124. Steet Art 1980...................................................................................................................... 161
Figure 125. Queen Victoria as a Lesbian................................................................................................. 163
Figure 126. Sofa Couch........................................................................................................................... 163
Figure 127. Son of a Migrant from Syria................................................................................................ 164
Figure 128. The Shredding...................................................................................................................... 164
Figure 129. Girl With Slingshot............................................................................................................. 165
Figure 130. Maori Totem........................................................................................................................ 169
Figure 131. Totem Corroboree................................................................................................................ 169
Figure 132. Gateway................................................................................................................................ 169
Figure 133. National Workers Memorial................................................................................................. 170
Figure 134. Memorial Poles.................................................................................................................... 170
Figure 135. Australia-USA Memorial..................................................................................................... 170
Figure 136. The Aboriginal Memorial, 1987–88..................................................................................... 171
Figure 137. Black Lives Matter............................................................................................................... 171
Figure 138. Bon Scott.............................................................................................................................. 172
Figure 139. Bon Scott Gates................................................................................................................... 172
Figure 140. Meri’s Illustration................................................................................................................. 173
Figure 141. Sidney Nolan’s Kelly............................................................................................................. 174
Figure 141. Kelly Armour....................................................................................................................... 174
Figure 142. Iconic Armour...................................................................................................................... 174
Figure 143. Kelly Statue.......................................................................................................................... 175
Figure 144. Ned Kelly’s Childhood Home.............................................................................................. 175
Figure 145. Kelly Garden Gnomes.......................................................................................................... 176
Figure 146. Kelly Letterboxes.................................................................................................................. 176
Figure 147. Semiotics Cabinet................................................................................................................ 176
Figure 148. Percival John Brookfield....................................................................................................... 177
Figure 149. Pro Hart Grave..................................................................................................................... 177
Figure 150. LOOK to your LEFT.......................................................................................................... 180
Figure 151. You Will Read This............................................................................................................... 180
Figure 152. Dad’s Conventions............................................................................................................... 181
Figure 153. Horsham Times................................................................................................................... 182
Figure 155. Bow-Tie............................................................................................................................... 184

xii Envisioning Risk

Figure 154. Messy Swiss Cheese............................................................................................................. 184
Figure 156. Causal Loop Map................................................................................................................. 185
Figure 157. Branches of Semiotics.......................................................................................................... 188
Figure 158. Where Does Semiotics Fit?.................................................................................................. 190
Figure 159. Hanson Burqa...................................................................................................................... 190
Figure 160. Hanson’s Tirade.................................................................................................................... 191
Figure 161. Safety Saves.......................................................................................................................... 192
Figure 162. Mapping the Semiosphere.................................................................................................... 195
Figure 163. Semiotic Analysis Framework.............................................................................................. 197
Figure 164. Safety Image Search............................................................................................................. 200
Figure 165. Chomsky’s Modes of Language Development..................................................................... 209
Figure 166. NeuroPsychology Concept Map........................................................................................... 210
Figure 167. Shanghai............................................................................................................................... 218
Figure 168. On The Bund........................................................................................................................ 219
Figure 169. School Free Play Area.......................................................................................................... 225
Figure 170. Semaphore (Visual Code).................................................................................................... 227
Figure 171. Morse Code.......................................................................................................................... 227
Figure 172. Braille................................................................................................................................... 227
Figure 173. National Museum of Australia............................................................................................. 228
Figure 174. Recording and Sorting Process............................................................................................. 231
Figure 175. Language Discourse............................................................................................................. 231
Figure 176. Four Horseman of the Apocalypse....................................................................................... 235
Figure 178. Heuristic-Biases................................................................................................................... 240
Figure 177. HB 327................................................................................................................................. 240
Figure 179. SPoR Social Influence Map.................................................................................................. 241
Figure 180. Seaside Lounge.................................................................................................................... 252
Figure 181. Bruce in Lounge................................................................................................................... 252
Figure 182. Occultic Anatomy................................................................................................................ 254
Figure 183. Holistic Ergonomics............................................................................................................. 255
Figure 184. iCue Matrix.......................................................................................................................... 257
Figure 185. Open Questions iCue........................................................................................................... 257
Figure 186. iCue Template...................................................................................................................... 259
Figure 187. iCue Recollection................................................................................................................. 260
Figure 188. iCue Conversation................................................................................................................ 260
Figure 189. Coded iCue Conversation.................................................................................................... 261
Figure 190. iConic Conversations........................................................................................................... 263
Figure 191. Star Mandala........................................................................................................................ 263
Figure 192. Wheel Mandala.................................................................................................................... 263
Figure 193. Quadrant Mandala............................................................................................................... 264
Figure 194. Three Legged Race............................................................................................................... 265

xiii
Foreword 1
I was honoured to be asked by Rob to write the Foreword to his ninth book in the series on the Social
Psychology of Risk (SPoR). When contemplating what to include in this foreword, I decided to share my
journey starting in 2016 when I was first introduced to SPoR compared to my understanding and mind-set I
have today.
My journey commenced when I met with a long standing friend, Michael Kruger in Austria in 2016. Michael
was keen to explain his change in focus to SPoR. He mentioned that in his role as SHE Manager he felt there
had to be a change in the way safety and risk were managed in his own company and he had started that change.
Michael went on to explain that as a result he started his Master’s studies in SPoR with Rob and had already
been to Australia several times to develop his knowledge.
I remember being heavily defensive during these discussions with Michael and made it clear that I believed
traditional ways of managing safety and risk were good. Strangely enough, the title of this book Envisioning
Risk fits my story quite well as I could not envisage anything different than the way things were. We ended one
meeting over a cup of coffee and Michael and I agreed to disagree, but Michael persisted.
Some months later I received a copy in the post of the Michael’s book It Takes Two to Tango. I realised that this
was part of Michael’s endless efforts to persuade me to change and consider SPoR. This was followed with an
invite from Rob to join an Introduction to SPoR training session that he was planning in Belgium in July 2018.
It was during the learning sessions, as well as informal discussions with Rob over dinners in Belgium, that I
realised that I had reached a fork in the road and the time had come to change the way I viewed the approach
to safety and risk. I must admit when I left Belgium at the end of the two days I was so confused and had more
questions than answers, however what I had heard made sense. As a result I took the decision to commence with
my studies in the Social Psychology of Risk.
Little did I realise that the journey I was embarking on, would open my eyes, and in many cases make me do
an about turn in many of my thoughts about how we tend to deal risk in my organisation. This resulted in me
continuously challenging myself, my heuristics and biases whilst at the same time developing my new vision on
how I understand and tackle safety and risk. After all, probably similar to most persons working in the risk and
safety field, none of my studies during the past thirty three years had focused on any of the issues that had been
taught and explained by SPoR. This would become more prevalent each time I attended another Module and in
many discussions.
As part of my Master’s study in SPoR, I eventually attended twelve modules with Rob over a period of two years
and read the all eight books. With each module I attended, each book I read and, many hours of discussion and
coaching over the phone and in during my visits to Australia, the puzzle started to come together. Now my view
on how we envision risk has changed dramatically.
As time progressed I found myself continuously thinking about aspects and the impact of Social Psychology
on us as human beings, at work and private lives. For example when walking through a park on the banks
of the Danube river in Vienna, I found myself consciously and unconsciously thinking about the Semiotics
(bioSemiotics) and considering the significance in the signs, symbols and my surroundings. I would have never
considered these of any importance previously.
When reflecting on the past two years wow, how wrong had I been back in 2016 when I defended what we do as
risk and safety practitioners and the lack of me ‘seeing the light’ and the vision to make a change. I now regret
not starting my journey earlier.
I have no doubt that as you read this book on envisioning risk you will further increase your understanding in
many aspects of SPoR including, dealing with our perceptions, the language we use and the role of Semiotics in
our conscious as well as unconscious Minds.

xiv Envisioning Risk

As with the first eight books, this book will surely challenge your thinking with regard to envisioning risk in your
role as a leader and as person working in the risk and safety field. It will provide guidance in setting your sights
in a new direction, on things that have a positive outcome, and developing a vision on the critical aspects that will
change the trajectory of what you do in the safety and risk field.
I have always like this quote by Mahatma Ghandi: You must be the change you want to see in the world.
We should be the change we wish to see in how we tackle risk and safety. If we know deep down that some
things we do are really not effective, then why are we hanging on to them? We need to move away from the
non-value adding activities and processes to those that focus on people and humanising how we tackle risk. Our
efforts should not be primarily focused on the physical aspects (workspace) but finding the balance with a more
person-centred approach to risk and safety that includes focusing on critical principles of engagement that you
will read about in this book. I commend this book to you and trust it enlivens your vision.

Brian Darlington
Group Head of Safety and Health.
Mondi Group

xv
Foreword 2
I have just received a second early Christmas gift, the manuscript of Rob Long’s newest book: Envisioning Risk.
The first gift was my latest negative Covid test result. What a year, filled with risk. How quickly did the personal
human stories of suffering, sadness, courage and resilience disappear behind endless statistics, politics, calculative
reasoning and accelerated digitalization.
What we all need now more than ever, is true visionary leadership and human compassion to bloom as “the lotus
flower does by depending on the disorder of the murky swamp”, to quote from Rob’s book. Personally I do not
believe our swamp related to the dehumanization of the workplace in pursuit of consequential safety kpi’s can
become more murky. If I had a dollar for every time I heard a board member remarking that the facts did not
correspond to the dark green safety kpi imagery, I would be writing this foreword on my yacht in the Bahamas.
I have lived in this murky swamp for most of my career. I trained as a lawyer and one of my first cases was
to defend a blue chip company CEO against prosecution related to a fatal incident within in the company
employing 40 000 people. Through more luck than experience on my part, he was found not guilty and my
reputation was established. Since the day we celebrated our “win”, I have been involved in literally thousands of
safety related incident investigations, inquiries and prosecutions.
Being an incurable entrepreneur I soon found a consultancy with an ultimate staff of 80 very enthusiastic, multi
disciplined, multi cultured employees to assist my growing client base internationally. We did so with “products”
and training to manage legal compliance and “safety”. My early reputation as a legal “fixer” persisted and I was
still asked to assist clients during safety related prosecutions.
My personal “aha” moment occurred when I had to deal with a case of someone being fatally crushed in a
huge hydraulic press. I remember the evening after spending the day on site interviewing his colleagues, I just
sat in my car not wanting to face my family. I felt physically sick and the various images of all the incidents
I have been involved in came flashing through my mind. The shattered remains of a young artisan blown up
with others in a furnace explosion identified by the wedding ring given to him a month before, the crying
children of an electrician electrocuted, the young boy who bravely testified seeing his grandfather being wrapped
around a revolving power take off shaft, and many more. The water was getting too murky and our emphasis on
compliance was not making any dent on the number maimed or killed. It only had meaning insofar as no one
was held responsible.
I decided to sell my consultancy and took a sabbatical by learning how to fly helicopters. For the first time in my
life I was now an operator of a highly complex piece of intricate machinery (cars do not count!) who depended
on an intricate network of designers, manufacturers, maintenance technicians, trainers, air traffic controllers,
fellow airspace users to avoid killing myself or my very brave passengers. I very soon realized that no regulation,
no law, no spreadsheet, no PowerPoint presentation was going to keep me safe. Human decision making was and
I made sure that after each service, the maintenance engineer was the first to fly the helicopter.
Unfortunately, two good friends, both of my erstwhile instructors, were killed in separate helicopter crashes flying
perfectly functional helicopters, both very experienced and both known to stick to procedures. Their decision
making prior to the incidents resulting in their and sadly, their passengers deaths. This was my second big “aha”
moment.
I then, rather late in my career, decided to try out corporate life and was offered a HSE related position for a
large Petrochemical concern in Europe in 2010 and the stage was set for me to meet Rob Long. As with all
corporates, there were safety related incidents and like all corporates there was a strong drive to reduce these
incidents. I recall analyzing each one of these incidents down to the finest details, pestering those involved
with endless questions related to why do people do what they do. “Behaviour” popped up time and time again.
Everyone assumed they knew everything worth knowing about behaviour however, thinking of the thousands
of incidents I have investigated as well of my two deceased helicopter pilot friends, I realized I knew next to

xvi Envisioning Risk

nothing. I did what everyone does when searching for answers, I googled and googled and then found this
somewhat controversial blog referencing the work and study programme offered by a certain Dr. Robert Long
on the Social Psychology of Risk. I read his blogs, checked out the course curriculum he presented through
an Australian University and decided, to embark on these studies. I ignored the fact that he is Australian as
historically there is this “thing” between South Africans and Australians.
I requested a grant from my employer and fortunately for me, the executive leadership consisted of very open,
innovative, mature senior leaders who were willing to listen to some maverick a few good rungs below on the
corporate ladder. I was send packing to Australia and so began my journey back in 2014 with Rob, my third
in capital font AHA moment. After completing my studies and introducing many innovative SPOR related
concepts within our company supported by many visits to Europe by Rob, I started to sense the blooming of a
lotus flower. All credit to my employer for allowing and encouraging the journey where humans take center place.
I was so enthusiastic and felt I could learn through constant reflection and debate. To this end I wrote my first
book: It Takes to Tango and debated with my friend Brian who is a well respected senior HSE leader working for
one of my first clients during my consultancy years. I remember with fondness the long, intense and somewhat
heated discussions we had on what the lotus flower should be, at least we agreed on what the murky swamp is.
Today, I am proud to say, we share the same vision!
I am currently in a privileged position introducing the vision we share with our friend and mentor Rob, to my
employer and again have found a receptive senior leadership. As I am writing my second book, Swiping Insanity
that discusses the almost crazy world of excessive calculative control we enter when we swipe our access cards to
access our workplaces, I silently thank Rob for his persistence in writing such informative books. He is allowing
us to see some clarity in the swamps we find ourselves in.

Michael Kruger
Vice President
Corporate HSE
Borouge

xvii
Contact Websites
Human Dymensions
Practical training programs and books on the Social Psychology of Risk and Risk Intelligence
https://www.humandymensions.com

The Centre for Leadership and Learning in Risk

Education and learning qualifications for Certificate, Diploma and Master in The Social Psychology of Risk
https://cllr.com.au/

The Social Psychology of Risk

Podcasts, learning, research downloads and RYSK association in The Social Psychology of Risk
https://spor.com.au

Contact Phone and email

Rob - +61 (0) 424547115;
email:
rob@humandymensions.com
rob@cllr.com.au
rob@spor.com.au
robertlong2@me.com

Intellectual Property
All ideas, diagrams, models, working tools and graphic work in this book are the Intellectual Property of
Dr Long. All tools in books by Dr Long are copyright and cannot be on-sold or used in a commercial setting
without explicit permission. Dr Long doesn’t give permission for his tools to be used commercially without
prior training in SPoR. Training in SPoR gives context to the tools and allows its proper use.

Dedication
This book is dedicated to Prof. J.C. Walker a great friend and colleague who supervised my PhD many years
ago and introduced me to the rigours of critical thinking, the soul of living and juggling the dialectic of life. At
the time of publication Jim was wrestling his own life in the grip of cancer. It is with much love and enduring
memory that I remember him in writing this book.

xviii Envisioning Risk

Introduction
This is a book about seeing: Physically, Psychologically, Teleologically, Socially, Mystically, Transcendently,
Imaginatively and Unconsciously and then applying such knowledge to the tackling of risk. What we see (and
understand) is neither straight forward, simple or objective and this affects the way we perceive the world, living
and risk. We see the world through our worldview, the paradigm that constructs meaning of what life means and
from this we understand being, our semiosis (purpose and meaning) and our visual perception.
This book is structured in three parts:
1. The Phenomenon Vision
2. The Meaning of Vision and,
3. The Practicality of Envisioning
We read and talk about visionaries and leaders with vision but what do they see and why are people inspired
by them? Why do we understand something as visionary and something else as non-visionary? Why are some
people able to envision (discern) the outcome of a risk and others not? How do they see something and others
not? What is the connection between insight, vision, perception, imagination, discernment, intuition, wisdom,
sagacity and risk? Surely if risk is about faith and trust in the face of uncertainty then one might want to
know why some people have better vision than others; physically, intuitively, metaphysically, prophetically and
poetically. These are some of the dimensions of vision that will be discussed in this book.
The Social Psychology of Risk (SPoR) seeks to offer the risk industry a new vision for understanding and
practicing the way it tackles risk. SPoR proposes a new way of envisioning risk juxtaposed to the methodology
of risk orthodoxy and Technique. Technique is the quest for the ‘one way’, for the perfect control and the greatest
efficiency. Technique is not technology. More on this later.
The choice of the word ‘envision’ for this book has special meaning, it conveys the concept of something in one’s
own mind (embodied in head, heart and gut being) and articulated to another. Envisioning is associated with
the transference of vision and involves: learning, dreaming, imagining, visualisation, discovery, discerning and
creating. The idea of envisioning is about much more than just looking and seeing. Envisioning is about more
than just physical perception and extends to a holistic way of knowing that extend beyond simple cognition.
Envisioning is about images in the Mind (read embodied person, not the brain), about possibilities and
foreseeing, sometimes things (socially, politically and ethically) that others don’t see.
Envisioning has strong links to the discourse of prophecy and ‘forth telling’ that is, stating the obvious and
declaring the trajectory of things. The history of ‘prophetic’ vision is associated not just with seers, soothsayers,
dreamers, radicals, pioneers, poets, storytellers and oracles but with anyone who can see beyond the ‘bloody
obvious’. The flip side of visionaries who are prophetic is their ability to articulate (tell forward) what is obvious
to them and the trajectory of what they see, to others. The use of the word ‘prophecy’ in this book has such a
meaning. Prophecy is not about foretelling the future but rather about forthtelling the ‘bloody obvious’.
We have this saying in Australia that: ‘Blind Freddy’ could tell you that was going to happen’ meaning, something
was so obvious as an outcome that it is surprising people didn’t see it. Blind Freddy is the close relative of
‘common sense’ which is neither common nor sense-able. Forthtelling or ‘telling forward’ is risky business because
it usually upsets vested interests, political powers and invokes denial in the face of reality. It’s like telling the
Mining Industry in 2020 that it has a limited life indeed, that it has no future and then being howelled down by
the coal lobby for speaking blasphemy. Telling forward is not about magic nor Nostradamus nor Tarot cards or
Astrology. Telling forward is the ability to read the signs of the times and articulate trajectories. Telling forward
future trends in risk will be discussed in the middle and final section of this book.
So what has envisioning to do with risk?

Introduction xix
Vision is synonymous with risk, no risk - no vision. Those with vision and visionaries don’t play life ‘safe’, there is
little vision in safety and compliance. If one sets one’s sights on safety and compliance as a rule of life then vision
has very little chance of emerging. Anyone who envisions presents a risk trajectory.
In previous books I have discussed the problem of ideology and the Discourse of zero, the demonizing of people
through the practices of the risk industry and, the need for discernment and wisdom in tackling risk. Zero is
most often packaged as ‘vision zero’ (http://visionzero.global/) as if one needs a vision for the absolute. Any quest
for the absolute can only result in brutalism and tyranny. Indeed, it is an argument of this book that everything
associated with the ideology of zero lacks vision and insight. The ideology of zero Discourse can only ever have
a trajectory of brutalism for fallible humans. In this sense, the trajectory of previous books attempted to be
prophetic ie. telling forward where such an ideology takes humans. Zero-risk bias offers no hope for fallible
humans. Zero-risk can only have a trajectory that takes from humans the vibrancy of being, living, learning,
imagination and envisioning.
In order to know what is visionary one needs to embrace much more than just materialist futurism or techno-
centric transhumanism. Something can only be visionary if it offers the betterment of humans, community and
society in all dimensions of human experience.
It is in dreaming, imagining, visualisation, discovery and creating that humans live and learn. Without dreams
and visions we cannot imagine who we are, our being or becoming. This is the thrust of envisioning. Envisioning
is more than just seeing or having vision. Envisioning is vision with Faith, Hope, Love and Justice in mind.
Envisioning is only visionary if it embraces the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice dialectic.
When we think of visionaries we think of people like Dr Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Sister Teresa
and Ghandi, people who understood what a humanised world of peace could look like.
Envisioning cannot be separated from an ethic of freedom. Humans are social beings, the i-thou reality of mutual
being can only be envisioned through an ethical dialectic. The power of i-thou is not in you and me but the
dialectic of the hyphen.
I have seen books where entrepreneurs are projected as visionaries because of the change they have wrought
but this is not visionary. Creating wealth and material accumulation has nothing to do with envisioning. So,
Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Tony Robbins don’t speak prophetically to me. A future where humans are slaves to
technology, consumption and social media is a future for loneliness and alienation.
It is also important to understand that envisioning is not about a longing for Utopia. Utopian dreaming in the
end generally sows seeds for self-destruction whether it ends in violent revolution, totalitarianism or absolute
intolerance. This is the ideological quest for zero, the utopian impulse for no harm at the expense of the richness
of fallibility and risk.
The Buddhists know that the eventual completeness of the lotus flower depends on the disorder of the murky
swamp, anti-fragility benefits from disorder. This is the paradox of maturation and learning. Unfortunately, one
person’s utopia is another’s dystopia.
Envisioning is understood in the richness of metaphor, symbol, sign and semiosis, the making of meaning and
purpose. Without a Poetic understanding of being and becoming, it is unlikely one is envisioning anything.
And so to the purpose of this book.
The world of risk is infused with the Semiotics of ‘Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics’ (STEM)
and the Empiricist and Positivist disciplines are deemed by the industry as the ONLY lens with which to
see the world. The STEM-only worldview ‘sees’ life through a profound ‘faith’ in Positivist, Behaviourist,
Empiricist, Scientist and Materialist ideologies and yet, such ‘faith’ is not discussed in STEM circles. The
dream of STEM-only within the risk industry is infused with the language of ‘zero’ and a fixation on injury, is
to reach infallibility as transhuman sometime in the future with the help of STEM. In the brave new world of

xx Envisioning Risk
STEM-only fallibility will be banished to history and risk will be no more. The demon injury and harm will be
conquered when absolute zero is ushered in. In faith, the belief in STEM-only ushers in Peter Pan’s Neverland.
The STEM-only worldview is the worldview of Technique (Ellul) and so for the purposes of this book the use of
the language of Technique will be interchangeable for this idea that there is one efficient and true way of tackling
risk.
Faith is a methodology for visualising. When someone says they have faith in something or someone they declare
they see something possible that others out of relationship cannot see. If I thank someone for having faith in
me I acknowledge the value of their trust in spite of possible doubts. This is how envisioning works, this is how
Love-Justice-Faith and Hope work. When we envision something we see more through imagination and faith
than through rational empiricist reasoning, such is the nature of Love. Often when there is simply no time for
evidence, weighing up facts or working cognitively through issues, we make a decision on what we envision to
be possible. This is what happens in all relationships. Without sufficient evidence for a decision, certainty or
knowledge of possibilities or the future, we make a commitment based on what we know at the time (which isn’t
much) and make a leap of faith. All leaps of faith are about fallible humans satisficing in the limits of time and
knowledge and the need to act.
Envisioning is about what is seen. What we see through The Social Psychology of Risk, (SPoR) is a semiosphere
of signs, symbols and subjects of significance. The symbol of marriage for example is a symbol of commitment in
Love, Trust, Faith and Hope. The ceremony itself is infused with dozens of symbols, rituals and signs to actualise
things that are unconscious and brings them into consciousness. I remember the lines ‘with this ring, i thee wed’.
What a strange custom and tradition, surely we wed through language and promise. Yet, we choose symbols,
rituals and metaphors to articulate and speak of what is too powerful to be articulated in descriptive language.
Sometimes, words are simply not enough to declare what we want to say. This is the power of Semiotics, symbols,
implicit knowing, metaphor and myths.
To understand the unconscious power of ritual, symbol, sign, Poetics, metaphor and discourse one has to
understand the meaning (semiosis) and significance of Semiotics.
Most of what is envisioned is symbolised-mythologised.
We seek semiotic expression when language is not enough. When our heart aches with love we seek a song or
poem, we look to flowers and gestures of love in rituals and customs. Our language too is made semiotic when we
seek metaphors for meaning as we ‘dance for joy’ and ‘shake with rage’ when rational words are insufficient to speak.
So, this is a book about envisioning wisdom, discernment and maturity in how we tackle risk. Risk is best coupled
with envisioning because risk is about making decisions in faith in the face of uncertainty. One cannot define risk
without some sense of envisioning. When we take a risk we simply don’t know the outcome. This is the challenge
of fallibility. As much as humans would like to know the future and predict outcomes, there can never be zero,
neither should there be.
As you progress through this book some of the applications to the risk industry and a lack of vision will be made
directly but in other places and, particularly if you have read previous books in the series, will be open to your
discernment and vision to draw parallels and insights. Such is the hermeneutic of vision.

Need To Read Previous Books

It is not my purpose in this note to sell books, this is part of the reason I give some books away for free, see here:
https://www.humandymensions.com/shop/ The purpose of this note is to explain that this series on risk has been
intentionally progressive and builds from one book to another, with the later books being more complex and
philosophical than earlier books.
Having said this means, this is not the book to start one’s journey in the Social Psychology of Risk (SPoR). I
would suggest the two earliest books for that: Risk Makes Sense and Real Risk. (Both are free online)

Introduction xxi
Note - How to Read This book
There is really no way to write about SPoR and the complex nature of Perception, Vision and Envisioning
without touching on critical philosophical and complex ideas. When it comes to how humans ‘see’ the world one
cannot avoid a discussion of worldviews. Similarly, one cannot avoid a discussion of theories of interpretation
(Hermeneutics) or the subjectivity of perception.
If one is fearful of big words or complex ideas then perhaps this book is not for you but I must say, there are some
great rewards in learning for those who persevere in learning new words, concepts and ideas and there is also a
lexicon at the start. If one doesn’t want to battle through a glossary then there is ample to learn in this book from
its stories, graphics and illustrations. Big words and complex language are not put forward just to be academic
but rather are essential for seeking to explain such a complex dare I say ‘Wicked’ topic, such as Envisioning Risk.
If the size of a word is a block then just jump over the word, note it and look it up later.
Unfortunately, life is neither simple, black and white, binary or easy. Often the things that upset us and make us
feel abused and used are hidden by a naivety that accepts the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle. However,
I’m sure that when it comes to our own health we seek out a professional doctor with extensive education who
can describe every part of your body in Latin. Such is the dilemma of understanding that a medical doctor
envisions our body differently than we do but it doesn’t deter us from trying to understand what they know, and
if the prognosis is severe, we quickly become medical researchers, motivated by self interest.

About the Book Logo

The three symbols on the cover and in the footer of this book serve to highlight the three key elsements required
to envision risk. The first symbol draws attention to the interaction between people and signs/symbols. It is only
through a semiotic sense of envisioning that signs/symbols make sense and their place in the semiosphere. The
second symbol reiforces the dialectical nature of human engagement and how Socialitie is experienced in the
‘we space’. The third symbol reminds us of the triarchic nature of all living and being. There is no ‘Fast and Slow’
without and inbetween, there is no black and white without a grey. So, in SPoR we come to envisioning from a
triarchic understanding of dialectic, experience and ‘meeting’.

Three Critical Themes Threaded Throughout This Book

There are three critical themes that run throughout this book, these are: Technique, Poetics and Encountering the
Unconscious. As you read this book there are numerous places where there are interludes, tangents and parallel
narratives. These serve the purpose of highlighting the three main themes of the book and drawing them into
the important dynamic of envisioning. Whilst Technique and its allies seek to quash vision, it is in Poetics and an
encounter with the unconscious that we are enlivened to envisioning.

A Note About Technique and Poetics

Throughout the book the language of Technique is used to denote the notion of a Positivist STEM-only
worldview. The idea of Technique comes from Ellul (The Technological Society) and means:
Technique is the totality of methods, rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage
of development) in every field of human activity. (The Technological Society p. xxvi)
Technique refers to any complex standardised means for obtaining a predetermined result that involves measuring
and using humans as a trade-off for that result. The Technical person is focussed on measurement and results and
so sets standardised devices in motion in order to find ‘the one best way’ for maximum performance. There is
nothing wrong with being technical, that’s not the same as the worldview of Technique. The opposite of Technique
is Poetics, all that is not measureable.

xxii Envisioning Risk

Technique transforms ends into means, people into objects, measurement into Measurement and determines that
persons and things only have value in their utility. In this utility efficiency is the primary value for those who have
the most power. A full discussion of Technique is in Chapter 4.

A Note on Poetics
The dialectical opposite of Technique is Poetics. Poetics is the archetype of all that is non-measureable without
utility and beyond the notion of ‘one way’ and efficiency. Poetics acts in dialectic with STEM and if taken
seriously can inform a Transdisciplinary approach to risk. Engaging in Poetics is not the rejection of STEM but
rather the complement and balancing of STEM. This dialectic between Technique and Poetics is emphasised
throughout the book by italics to denote their significance.

An Encounter With the Unconscious

The risk industry is a fortress of control and power. There is nothing more important to this industry than
naming a hazard and controlling it. Such a narrative is a classic suppressant for critical thinking, dialectic, the
acceptance of fallibility and an encounter with the unconscious. We have nothing to fear from the unconscious
after all, we are our unconscious but not conscious of it. Most of the time we don’t make a habit of making
the unconscious conscious, we simply get on with our lives as if our rational self is in control. Nothing could
be further from the truth. Unless the industry of risk learns to step out of its engineering straightjacket and
confronts the unconscious it is never likely to ever understand why people do what they do.

The Capitalisation of Text, Bold and Italics at Heading 1

One of the ways this book draws distinctions between language and concepts-as-Archetypes is by Capitalisation,
bold and italics text. In this way we can tell the difference between the ideology of Technique and simply enacting
a technique (method).
It is important to use such conventions to draw a difference between discussion about safety and risk and the
personified Archetype of Safety and Risk. In this way we can use language to deconstruct an ideology/worldview
and not the people ensconced in such a worldview.
In other places capitalisation is used to denote how ideologies such as Behaviourism take on a Life-Force
(Archetype) of their own. This idea of Personification and Archetypes emphasises a Poetic understanding of how
forces and ideologies influence social organising apart from the people in the organisation. In this way I have
sought write parts of the book Poetically.
So as you read this book I have sought to write it Poetically and Lyrically. So as you read the text try to remember
the purpose of the conventions adopted as part of this book. So to review as follows:
• Text in Bold: draws attention to aspects of discussion that are parts of a ‘gestalt’. In other words the parts
individually (in bold) don’t override the meaning of the whole.
• Text in Italics: draws attention to either titles of a book or more importantly critical principles and powers
that anchor to the thesis of this book primarily: Socialitie, Technique, Poetics, Mentalitie.
• Capitalised Text: denotes something that takes on a dynamic ethic and power in itself as an Archetype. Eg.
Behaviourism or Positivism as ideologies enact certain dispositions in organisations more than the collective
actions of persons in the organisation. This is how the Collective Unconscious works. Capitalisation can also
draw attention to proper nouns or intentional lack of capitalisation eg. god, to devalue Discourse.

In this regard it is critical in reading this book that one knows the difference between discourse and Discourse.
This is why a Visionary Lexicon has been provided.

Introduction xxiii
A Visionary Lexicon
The following terms used in this book may be new for some and so the following lexicon is offered for
understanding:

Affordance Mentalitie
How something invites behaviour by its design. The notion of Mentalitie comes from Annales History
and denotes the social mindset of a culture.
Apocalyptic
A catastrophic future. Metaphor
Language that seeks to explain by drawing attention to
Archetype
something else.
An archetype represents a way of being and a power
dynamic of all that is embodied in the energy or being Metaphysics
in such a way. We refer to ‘the Economy’, ‘the Market’ The affirmation that there is a reality beyond material
and ‘the Government’ in such a way. and matter.
Boundary Objects Mimesis
The interface between different social worlds and The process of copying and imitation.
worldviews
Mind
The human Mind and the Mind of the Universe are
Cognitive Dissonance NOT about the brain nor the functioning of decisions.
Identity trauma associated with change. The Mind encompasses how humans are embodied in
being and becoming in a world and Universe that has
Conversion its own bring and energy.
Shifting of identity and belonging from one worldview
to another. Mystery
The unknown.
Dialectic
The dialogue and discourse between two things, persons Paradox
or ideas. When two competing and valid positions in thought
are held in tension.
Discourse
Understanding the difference between discourse Personification
and Discourse is critical to SPoR. discourse is about Personification is a poetic mechanism for drawing
everyday language-in-use. attention to an archetype and how that archetype
enacts decisions and energy like a person.
Discourse
Discourse is about the power, ethics and social politics Poetics
embedded in language and discovered through The nature of all non-measureables in living.
Discourse Analysis. Positivism
Embodiment Is a philosophical system recognizing only that which
The inclusion of all aspects of personhood in the can be scientifically verified or which is capable of
physical nature of human being. logical or mathematical proof, and therefore rejects
Metaphysics.
Hermeneutics
The study of theories of interpretation. Prophetic
Forthtelling not foretelling the possible outcome of
Hope-Faith-Love-Justice dialectic trajectories.
This dynamic set of four Poetic archetypes are the
foundation for community and risk. Risk/risk
Risk as an archetype denotes forces and power within
an industry to enact trajectories without identity to
persons.

xxiv Envisioning Risk

Safety/safety
Safety as an archetype denotes forces and power within
an industry to enact trajectories without identity to
persons.
Semiotics
The study and meaning of signs and symbol systems.
Semiosis
Semiosis is the name for the construction of meaning
semiotically.
Semiosphere
The semiosphere is about all we know in the universe as
a semiotic entity.
Socialitie
Socialitie is the embodiment of all social knowing in
culture.
Subconscious
The pejorative nature of the unconscious.
Symbolism/Myth
In SPoR symbolism and myth are the flip side of the
same coin. A myth is not a fable but rather the believed
power of a symbol whether the myth attached to the
symbol, gesture or ritual is true or not.
Technique
The quest for efficiency and control through
measurement.
Transdisciplinary
Across all disciplines.
Unconscious
The process of mind not known to the person to
themselves in a conscious state.
Worldview
Philosophical understanding of the world.

Introduction xxv
Section one

SECTION
ONE
The Phenomenon of Vision
2 Envisioning Risk
CHAPTER 1
Vision and Envisioning 1
I have a dream today ... I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill
and mountain shall be made low. The rough places will be made plain, and the crooked
will be made straight. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it
together. This is our hope. - Rev Martin Luther King

Where there is no vision, the people perish. - Proverbs 29:18

Vision Doesn’t Start With The Eyes

It may seem curious to start off a book on the nature of vision and not commencing with discussion on
the human eye, perception and the mechanics of seeing - that will come later in the book. From the outset
it is important to think of a much broader, holistic and comprehensive way of seeing and the mystery of
consciousness-as-perception. Vision is not about how the eye works but rather how the Mind works and by
Mind I don’t mean brain.
Whilst it is possible to separate out a study of the human eye from the rest of the body this is unhelpful when
thinking about perception and vision. Even if we explore the mechanics of the five popular senses of sight, taste,
hearing, touch and smell we miss so much in understanding how persons understand, experience and perceive
their world.
Whilst many organisations have ‘vision statements’ they rarely involve any ‘vision’. People often speak of
‘visionaries’ and ‘visionary leadership’ but this rarely includes reference to an Ethic of Hope, Faith, Justice, Love
or Discerning or humanising a community. Often people projected as visionaries like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk etc
but are nothing more than inventors of objects that satisfy greed, consumption, materialism and Technique. We
should not be seduced into thinking that vision is about production or utility or about the eye as a lens.
So we will start the discussion of this book and think about other senses than the material and physical ways we
engage in knowing. We are going to start this book exploring the non-material envisioning. What Bronowski
calls The Visionary Eye.
Humans make sense of the world in an embodied way that is, they move through the world connected to all of it
and all of it connects to them. This is what Fuchs calls Interconnectivity and Interaffectivity (Ecology of the Brain).
All human senses work together in an integrated way and any reductive study of one sense alone takes meaning
and purpose away from another sense. Scientists believe we have more than 40 senses (https://bigthink.com/

Chapter 1: Vision and Envisioning 3

philip-perry/think-you-have-only-5-senses-its-actually-a-lot-more-than-that). And of course, this makes sense
to those who have a broad sense of perception and vision.
In a similar way, maintaining the metaphor of the human brain-as-a-computer or the human-eye-as-camera,
completely distorts the way humans as an embodied Mind move through the world. So, this book won’t start
with a study of the eye as the source of human vision nor the mechanics of perception.
In this chapter we are going to go for a meander through experiences and ways of knowing that are not material
or verifiable. It is through Poetic experiences that we learn to envision. We will explore: Near Death Experiences
(NDE), Deja Vu, Goosebumps, Indigenous Knowing, Metaphysics, Spirituality, the nature of Soul, Harry
Potter, Brain Death and their link to SPoR. We will explore from the foundations of SPoR to envisioning in
the Semiosphere, Imagination and Perception, Embodied Sensemaking, Epiphanies and a closing note on
Hermeneutics. Setting these up as a foundation for envisioning draws us away from the mechanics of seeing and
looking to sensing and knowing beyond the confines of Technique.
The mystery of touching and being touched and phenomenology of being is opened wide when one explores the
realities of many who have had out of body experiences. The stories are very similar and have been studied for
some time, with little explanation (see further; Long, J., and Perry, P., (2009) Evidence of the Afterlife, The Science of
Near Death Experiences. Harper-Collins, Melbourne). It is a mystery.
Near Death Experiences (NDE) is not something I know much about. As Gideon Lichfield (The Science of
Near Death Experiences, The Atlantic, April 2015) recounts:
Many of these stories relate the sensation of floating up and viewing the scene around one’s unconscious
body; spending time in a beautiful, otherworldly realm; meeting spiritual beings (some call them angels)
and a loving presence that some call God; encountering long- lost relatives or friends; recalling scenes
from one’s life; feeling a sense of connectedness to all creation as well as a sense of overwhelming,
transcendent love; and finally being called, reluctantly, away from the magical realm and back into one’s
own body. Many NDEs report that their experience did not feel like a dream or a hallucination but was,
as they often describe it, “more real than real life.” They are profoundly changed afterward, and tend to
have trouble fitting back into everyday life. Some embark on radical career shifts or leave their spouses.
I have two friends who talk about their NDE and recall their stories as follows to illustrate the issue. The purpose
of these stories is not to explain NDE but rather to demonstrate modes of vision and envisioning that are beyond
the Technique paradigm.

Dave Holland
There are many things about the story of Dave Holland that captivate and intrigue me. As I sit with
Dave at times and chat and drink, I look at him and can only think of the words ‘miracle’ and ‘mystery’.
Dave should be dead but isn’t.
I first met Dave in 2009 when doing work in SPoR for a building company Baulderstone. They had
decided to hold a ‘safety day’ and Dave Holland was the guest speaker. Dave got up and complete with
graphic slides told his story. During this 90 minute presentation several burley tough steelfixers at the
back of the room crashed to the floor and just fainted. Dave’s presentation was in itself traumatic (Figure
1. Dave Presenting in Full Flight).
You can’t get a more horrific story than Dave’s.
Dave was doing soil testing at Braeside housing estate for Chadwick Group Holdings Pty Ltd,
something he had done thousands of times before.

4 Envisioning Risk
 On 6 February in the morning
Figure 1. Dave Presenting in Full Flight
2004, Dave’s hair became tangled
in an unguarded drill rig. Working
alone, he tore himself free,
stripping his scalp from his skull
and snapping two vertebrae, then
managed to stagger 51 metres
to help. But he is convinced he
would have died — or been left
a ruin — if not for the efforts of
a group of ordinary people: the
worker who found him; the police
and ambulance officers who raced
him to hospital; the surgeons
who operated for 12 hours and
the nurses who cared for him for
months; the investigators who
fought to bring him justice; the trauma counsellor who helps him deal with nightmares and flashbacks.
There is a Carthartic experience in being able to share and receive his story.

It is difficult to comprehend the injuries Dave incurred. His hair didn’t get just caught in an auger at the
back of a truck but he was scalped from his shoulders removing all his hair and scalp exposing his brain
and tearing out his eye and breaking his neck. Why Dave did not die in the paddock at that moment is a
mystery.
Just as Dave’s injuries were quick his recovery has been slow, agonising and fruaght with complications
including massive stressors of PTSD, impossible sleep, emotional trauma and complications of
medications required to recover. Even when I met Dave for the first time 5 years after his accident he was
shaken from the event and reeling from the after affects of the trauma and ongoing treatment. His initial
treatment in ICU was 12 months.
I remember meeting Dave once for Dinner in the main street of St Kilda, just he and I talking about life
as the sun set. We just talked about living and spirtuality. Dave is a very committed Buddhist and was so
before his accident and finds the presence of Buddhism helpful in tackling life and risk.
I have decided not to show any of Figure 2. Dave Holland in Recovery
the images that Dave presents in his
story except one documenting his
road to recovery and showing how
gangreene had set into his injuries
(Figure 2. Dave Holland in Recovery)
and added to the extensive number
of complications he faced.
To give further gravity to the nature
of this incident, the following quote
from The Age ‘To Hell and Beyond’
27 May 2007 is helpful:
Three years on, sleep still
comes uneasily. His head
hits the pillow and he

Chapter 1: Vision and Envisioning 5

 flashes back: Caught up in the spinning and metallic screaming and the wet cracklepop sound of
tearing flesh. The coppery tang of blood. The thing dragging him closer. The fear and the pain.
When sleep does take him, so do the nightmares. His partner’s daughter, 11-year-old Xenia,
getting trapped and torn. Or his heeler-collie cross Pushkin being pulled apart. He watches
helpless, heart racing, as the parts somehow reassemble and the tortured dog sits there licking its
terrible wounds.
Daylight offers little rest. Too many sounds trigger the flashbacks: Each March the angry,
high-combustion howl of Grand Prix cars circling the park a couple of blocks behind his home;
ambulance and police sirens along Kerferd Road; construction work; the rattle and clatter of
trains; a car revving too close.
I remember putting in a hell-mission of strength. I heard another tear and my head could move a
little. I was still pushing, there was a loud tear and the whole scalp ripped from the back forward
and I was looking at the inside of my own face as it pulled away from my skull to the end of
my nose.
During the telling of his story Dave mentions his experience whilst on the operating table where he
clinically died several times. He says quite clearly that he was above himelf out of his body and could see
himself dead on the table.
Then by some mysterious twist of fortune he surged back into his body and even though unconscious and
under anaesthesia, knew he was back and present in his body. This was not a dream.
What I learned from Dave is about the reality of this experience. Who am I to tell him this was not real?
Who am I to tell him it didn’t happen? When I asked Dave’s permission to tell his story as an opening to
this book he stated in an email:
I have met a couple of people who have had the death experience on an operating table, and
they experience much suffering throughout their lives. Facing death, with no control, becomes
traumatic, and they live with the experience as it happened yesterday for the rest of their lives. So
the hospital rightly navigates you away.
Fortunately i felt only beauty, left with a picture of my celestial path, of great joy and peace,
provided of course i continue to keep my footprint light.
You know the elephant in the room for me right now is, Monday last week I fell from a ladder,
snapped my wrist almost in two, and took myself off to the Alfred (in a taxi as you do). As always,
in an almost dream state, it was reset, then I found myself rushed into surgery to put a plate and
screws. The very same place, I originally had the turn on the operating table, exactly the same table.
The same surgery, i attended 16 years ago, very little had changed (why change perfect). There I
sat, no fear, perception in slow motion, every smell, colour, body movement, colourful scull caps
no old style shower caps. No more matching slippers, looked much more comfortable. The surgery
on the second floor, not the basement, how come no lift. I can’t really vocalise, the information,
sometimes as quirky as the scull cap example. I can’t really put words to the experience, though
I’m sure I have plenty to still learn. I mean you asking about this experience, then me physically
reliving it, you’ve got to see a bigger intelligence at play.
I mention this (apart from the reality single finger typing is rather slow) I witnessed layers of
perception as I waited. Only two of us, waiting (virus has cleared the hospital as well as changing
the environment all adding to the experience), the guy next to me has a problem with his lung
replacements, I fix onto his Harley Davidson tattoos, I really need to kick smoking...

6 Envisioning Risk
 Anyway I know I always drift on tangents with you, please forgive my want to share that story.
I’ve almost kicked the morphine.
When Dave sits infront of me and recounts an experience that simply cannot be tackled by the
assumptions of Technique I become mezmerised by what this man has lived and died through. There is no
evidence other than his testimony. He states:
My first death experience happened on the accident site, The second I really have no memory
of it was in the first two weeks in intensive care. The third, I don’t talk much about it happened
about four months in. I passed on the operating table. It is extremely important to me, I have
never known an experience/information download like it. I came out of my body and watched as
they worked (large needle to the heart) as a golden gentle light like a spotlight over the scene. Its
not what I saw that is important, it is what I felt/learn’t/knowing its hard to explain, a beautiful
experience.
Science attempts to tackle the challenges of this issue but ends up in mystery (https://www.sciencedirect.
com/science/article/pii/B9780128009482000200). We simply don’t know.
One thing about Dave I would like
Figure 3. Dave Holland 2018
to say is, I could not find a more
caring, loving or compassionate man
who makes the moment of each day
he lives, serving others, caring for
the community. Dave was probably
like this before the accident but
there is nothing more sure than
this accident had amplified this
disposition one hundred fold.
This final picture in Dave’s
story (Figure 3. Dave Holland
2018) is of him at Sacred Heart
Mission St Kilda (https://
www.sacredheartmission.org/
news-media/our-blog/mission-
champion-dave-holland) where he
has volunteered for more than 15 years. Dave spends his time at the mission helping out and chatting to
vulnerable and fragile people about resilience, holistic being and recovery.

• You can read more of Dave’s story here: https://licensing-publishing.nine.com.au/archive/Dave-

Holland-who-suffered-severe-2F3XC5ID0C9B.html
• https://www.theage.com.au/national/scalping-victim-warns-of-perils-of-the-workplace-20070228-
ge4bhv.html
• You can read more on NDE here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/
the-science-of-near-death-experiences/386231/

Chapter 1: Vision and Envisioning 7

Keith Lewis
Another of my friends Keith Lewis who does mathematical work for me on the MiProfile Survey, tells of
an experience of NDE in Fullham Garden Adelaide in 1962 when he had a road accident. Keith recounts
how he stood on the corner looking at the car with his body in it as people rushed to help and distinctly
remembers staring from the corner looking at the accident and himself in the car, to then coming back
into his body and breathing again.

Reflection on Non-Technique Knowing

What these stories tell us is, there are ways of knowing and perceiving that we neither understand nor can
explain using ‘scientific method’. Call it a sixth sense, transcendent, spiritual or non-material, it is simply a
fact that we don’t know that much about extra-sensory perception or consciousness. What we do know is that
STEM-only approaches to knowledge and Technique offer little other than speculation about the unconscious
and often denial from a Technique approach to experience.
Much of what STEM-only knowing seeks to do in rationalising these mysteries of human experience is to
deconstruct them and take them out of mystery by its own binary reductionist faith in its own projections of
‘scientific method’. The trouble is, the assumptions of STEM-only knowledge don’t take us very far, most of
the time leading us to the conclusion that faith in science is better than faith in spirituality. If we want to know
more about how humans make visionary decisions then, one has to take an excursion into the nature of the
unconscious and the notion of ‘the soul’.
So why start this book with a story on the mysteries of NDE and extra-sensory perception?
Well, perception and vision are not just about the senses but rather must include, many senses we don’t
understand. You can research NDE further in Evidence of the Afterlife by Long and Perry (https://www.difa3iat.
com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Jeffrey_Long_Paul_Perry_Evidence_of_the_AfterliBookZZ.org_.pdf ).
If we want to better understand perception, imagination, vision and envisioning then perhaps this is the best
place to start. Throughout history it seems that visionaries and prophets, those who see and experience the
world differently and that move us, seem to emerge out of a Poetic encounter with life rather than a mechanical
understanding of life.
If we want to embrace the idea of vision and envisioning, this is the place to start.

Deja Vu
One of the odd experiences in life is the feeling or assurance that one has either experienced something
before or has been somewhere before. The phrase Deja Vu means ‘already seen’. Whilst Technique rejects
the idea of pre-cognition and prophecy, Poetic views do not.
I have had this feeling of deja vu a few times in my life as if a dream has started even though I am fully
conscious. Mysteriously I have recognised an object or place in which I have never seen before except
perhaps in a dream and in the moment, the dream and the experience seem to coincide.
Noone really knows the meaning of such experiences even if experienced psychedelically. In the case of
Crosby Stills Nash and Young (CSNY) and their hit song Deja Vu, Crosby cites the meaning of the song
in his Buddhist beliefs and life as cyclic. Crosby got the inspiration for the song when he went sailing for
the first time and mysteriously knew what to do. He states:
It’s as if I had done it before. I knew way more about it than I should have. I knew how to sail
a boat right away. Not an instinctive thing. It doesn’t make sense. I wasn’t thinking about that
specifically when I wrote the song. It just came, but in hindsight, the song was informed by those
experiences. I felt then and now that I have been here before. I don’t believe in God but I think
the Buddhists got it right - we do recycle.

8 Envisioning Risk
 Deja Vu is more than intuition although, we do feel at times that we have experienced something before
because we have embodied a general sense of something. In my case I have driven into a new town
and somehow knew where the toilets were in a back street. It was if I had been these before. On other
ocassions I have had a hunch about something without rational reason and in following the hunch have
found something to be as I had envisioned it.

Goosebumps
What a strange experience this uncontrolled generation of goosebumps. In a similar way to an
uncontrolled surge in tears or being overcome by an emotion, such is the nature of human embodied
existence.
Why should my whole body tingle and shiver in expectation of an experience? What amazing power of
the Mind to generate such a response. By Mind I don’t just mean brain, the concept of Mind denotes
the whole embodied person. Whilst these bumps are caused by a contraction of miniature muscles that
are attached to each hair it is their uncontrolability that is of most interest. Most of the time we get the
goosebumps and then realise we have them, demonstrating that goosebumps are generated unconsciously.
It is nearly impossible to induce goosebumps or control goosebumps by conscious thought. Just further
evidence that there are many things about human being that are not known to us, yet the phenomenon
is real. However, First Nations People have known about non-materialist ways of knowing in spirituality
for millenia.

Indigenous Knowing
When I was working in the ACT Government I was Manager of Youth, Community and Family
Support and as such was directly responsible to the Minister for Youth Affairs. One of the awkward roles
I had to undertake was responsibility for Indigenous Youth in the Territory (Canberra).
Whilst I have always been sympathetic with Indigenous issues I have no expertise in the area except
for teaching Indigenous History in University and Schools. Even so, as a non-Indigenous person, how
could I ever express the injustice and ‘feeling’ of injustice for
white colonization and the brutalism of the British Empire Figure 4. Mark’s Painting
(https://www.thetoptens.com/brutal-empires-history/)?
So, the first thing I did was gather about a group of
Indigenous leaders and listen. I appointed a number of
Indigenous young people and formed a committee from
people I had known from the Galilee days (see book One).
One of my most trusted friends was a local Indigenous man
Mark Huddleston who in many ways became the face and
translator for what we sought to do. When I left that work
Mark gave me one of his paintings which proudly adorns
my bedroom wall (Figure 4. Mark’s Painting).
In this role I learned very quickly about my whiteness and
about the error of many assumptions in engagement. Lots
of what we learn in the psychology of communication
simply doesn’t apply in Indigenous settings. I learned
about the factional groups and about regional politics
and in the end managed to develop some good programs
and outcomes based upon the piviledging of Indigenous
thinking, culture and strategies.

Chapter 1: Vision and Envisioning 9

 One of the most important lessons to learn in engaging with Indigenous people is that Technique doesn’t
make sense to the Indigenous Mind. Indeed, Technique is so alien to the thinking of all First Peoples
globally that it is understood as positively disadvantageous.
Vision in Indigenous cultures is coupled with waiting, listening and intuiting. For First Nations People
the philosophy of The Dreamtime governs engagement. The Dreamtime is the Aboriginal understanding
of the world, being and living. The Dreamtime is synonymous with the ‘spirit’ of the country and
emergence from ancient times. If you don’t understand Spirit then you probably won’t connect with
Indigenous culture. In First Nations Culture there is no vision without Dreamtime and Songlines.
We now have in Australia at all Government events, an Indigenous ‘Welcome To Country’ ceremony.
You can see here the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition of Australia warding off evil spirits
in this smoking ceremony (http://parlview.aph.gov.au/mediaPlayer.php?videoID=460562&operation_
mode=parlview#). More recently Indigenous approaches to health and healing that include
acknowledgement to Spirit has also been acknowledged (https://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/italian/
en/article/2017/07/05/aboriginal-healers-rise-thanks-indigenous-organisation-and-italian-researcher).
This poses a huge problem for Technique thinking that cannot allow a metaphysical understanding.
Evil spirits are not empirically demonstrable, neither does STEM-only thinking have the capability
to understand myth, faith, Semiotics, symbolism, superstition, religion and spirituality. The dilemma is
highlighted with regards to the stance of Australia’s Science Organisation CSIRO (Commonwealth
Science and Industrial Research Organisation). In CSIRO policy it seems that a bit of intellectual
schizophrenia is healthy and sensible (https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2012/01-02/smoking-out-evil-
spirits/). The policy
reinforces a patronising perception of First Nations People as quaint curio, picturesque Stone
Age relics lost in their own Dreamtime, a people divorced from the rest of a Nation that ought to
belong to everyone who lives in it.

Spirituality
Figure 5. Spirituality
The National Gallery of Australia (NGA) and
National Museum of Australia (NMA) have many
permanent exhibitions of Indigenous Art and Culture.
One of its prized exhibits and first in the entry of the
building is entitled ‘Spirituality’ and is accompanied by
totems from Northern Territory and other artefacts.
The exhibition on Indigenous Spirituality is explained
in Figure 5. Spirituality.

Dark Emu
The recent publication of Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe
(https://www.booktopia.com.au/dark-emu-bruce-
pascoe/book/9781921248016.html) completely
turns on its head much of the mythology created
by white conservative history that attributed the
‘hunter-gatherer’ tag to Australia’s First Nations
Peoples. Included in this new history is the validation
of Indigenous ways of knowing, much in rejection of
the paradigm of Technique and STEM. I recommend
Dark Emu for your library. Similarly, Blood on the
Wattle by Bruce Elder and The Australian Frontier

10 Envisioning Risk
 Wars 1788-1838 by John Connor are a necessary read to understand Indigenous history, culture and
spirituality.
For Indigenous peoples it is oral tradition, Poetics, art, story and dance that convey their spirituality and
Songlines to the land and their ancestery. ... and it was Enlightenment Science in its Imperial knowledge
that declared Australia Terra Nullius (uninhabited). I think one of the reasons why teachers struggle to
teach Indigenous Studies is because it requires the letting go of assumptions of Technique that dominate
the school curriculum (https://theconversation.com/i-spoke-about-dreamtime-i-ticked-a-box-teachers-
say-they-lack-confidence-to-teach-indigenous-perspectives-129064). This includes the ability to suspend
judgment and imagine as Indigenous peoples do well beyond the confines of the STEM Mentalitie.
It is from First Nations People knowledge and vision of The Dreamtime and Songlines that we can understand
ways of knowing beyond the materialist confines of STEM and the quest for Technique in Western society. There
is however a transition space that allows us to transcend the limits of Technique and STEM and this is in the
Soul of music. The soul in music is a Poetic experience that cannot be measured yet brings us to the embrace of
the unconscious and the Indigenous power of a Songline.

A Brief History of The Soul, Self and Metaphysics

Across all ancient civilzations there has been this fascination with what animates the human body and gives it
life and in various ways this was termed ‘the soul’ particularly given by Greek origins and culture. In this brief
historical discussion of the human fascination with animated life, consciousness and metaphysics, we capture this
enduring focus by humans on the non-materiality of human existence and non-existence. Whilst much of this
speculative interest has been generated by the mystery of the idea of an Afterlife, this interest is also generated
by experience that cannot be explained by either the material, behavioural or rational perspectives on being and
experience.
After this brief excursion we can then explore just how much vision, perception, imagination, dreaming and
creating come from this characterisation of the unconscious life as a source for meaning. Much of this discussion
also brings to the surface the human struggle for sources of the self and the making of identity.
The idea of a human ‘soul’ can be traced back 60,000 years or more to Indigenous Art of the Wandjinas
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wandjina) in the Kimberley. In this Indigenous Art there has always been this
presentation of what is physically inside humans and animals but also the spiritual aura and Spirit associated with
humans, usually depicted as associated with the head and Mind. In Indigenous mythology it is the ‘Kurdaitcha
Man’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdaitcha) who knows how to contact the souls of the dead.
Ka in Egypian mythology is representative of the life force or spirit. The Ancient Egyptians believed the soul had
three parts, the ka, the ba, and the akh. The ka and ba were spiritual entities that everyone possessed, but the akh
was an entity reserved for only the select few. Their beliefs were that the living were responsible to help the dead
journey into the Afterlife. In Egyptology Horus is of value to this discussion of soul particularly pertaining to the
Eye of Horus. The eye of Horus is the symbool for the publisher of this series of books in risk, Scotoma Press.
As one of the earliest dieties, it was the Eye of Horus that was associated with the idea of insight, vision and
protection particularly with a focus on preserving the Afterlife and warding off evil.
It seems clear that the Apostle Paul was referring to this Eye in Galatians 3:1 amidst the claims of many
mystery cults that existed at the time in the First Century. It is also of interest that Paul’s first letter to
the Galatians concerned the notion of perception, discernment, vision, envisioning and being seduced by
fundamentalist cultic ideology.
We can trace Greek thinking about the nature of the self as soul to Homer perhaps 800 BCE and later the
mystery cults mainly in Orpheus. It was under the influence of Orphism and perhaps Greek Shamanism, that
later thinkers began to develop the Psyche in more spiritual terms. Pythagoras and Empedocles seem to have

Chapter 1: Vision and Envisioning 11

shared, and what they encouraged in thinkers who would come later, a belief in a soul, or self, that existed prior to
the body, that could be induced to leave the body while the body remained alive, and that would outlast the body.
It was Aristotle who first moved from the idea of the soul as just the animation of life to declare that the soul
was the seat of reason, spirit and appetite. Later the Epicureans shifted this idea to all that occurs in the head and
made the soul very much a mental thing. It was the Epicureans who seemed to develop this idea of the rational
and non-rational human. In Plato’s interpretation, he reinterpreted traditional Greek magico-religious ideas
within a framework of a newly emerging rationalism.
Mithraism and Gnosticism were two of the most dominant mystery cults of the Roman World. Gnosticism
(meaning ’having knowledge’) takes its meaning from having ‘spiritual vision’ and continues to this day in a
range of cults and movements like Steinerism, Scientology and Anthroposophy. The nature of Gnosticism is
cosmological and juxtaposes the idea of a benevolent superpower god against the Demiurge who is associated
with the material world. Mithraism was extensive across the Roman World with well preserved sites in London
(https://www.londonmithraeum.com/) that demonstrate just how extensive this cult penetrated the known world.
With roots in Zorastrianism, the cult of Mithras enabled seven tiers of initiation and purification through ritual
through the mystic attributes of blood. Mithraism was considered a rival and competitor to Christianity and was
sometimes confused for it.
Then along came the Apsotle Paul. It was Paul who described the human as a ‘psychic body’ (soma psychikon
1 Corinthians 15:44). In Pauline anthropology much of his anthropoligical language is integrated and
interchangeable. This was radical and visionary for his day. Most interestingly his use of the words such as ‘inner’
and outer’ being related to his intermingling of nous (mind), noēma (thought, mind), psychē (vital self, life force,
life), syneidēsis (consciousness, conscience), pneuma (breath, spirit, life force). These, in turn, are closely associated
physiologically with the ‘heart’ (kardia) and the ‘innards’ (splanchna).
The real gift Paul brought to the discussion on soul was an holistic sense of how all are integrated and
interdependent. This kind of holistic integration in anthropology also resonates with the work of Fuchs, Ginot,
Damasio, Varela, Noe, Raaven and Thompson and those in the Embodiment Movement of perception that we
will discuss later in this book. Paul also used all his anthropological terms interchangeably with their counterparts
in Hebrew in heart, face, psychē and flesh. His use of these anthropological terms was often metaphorical,
metonymic, and with figurative meaning. This enabled Paul to envision a new ethic of being and becoming that
was unknown to the ancient world.
Perhaps the use of the word ‘heart’ is the most repeated word used to capture a sense of self, often referring
to the faculty of will, emotion, thoughts, desires, loyalty-belief, and affections. The heart is also used as the
seat and location for divine inspiration and spiritual endowment. The word ‘psyche’ in the New Testament is
usually interpreted as ‘soul’ and the word ‘pneuma’ as ‘spirit’ but again were used by Paul as distinct but also
interchangeable. Some argue that Paul’s integrations were from his education in the Stoics and Zeno in his
construction of the psyche.
It was Origen in the Second Century that came up with the idea of the ‘pool of souls’ and that all the souls in
History were made at creation and allocated to persons at birth and returned at death.
One of the founding philosophers of Christianity was Augustine who as a platonist and anti-Donatist really
brought to the fore the language of ‘the soul’. Augustine in his construction of Original Sin made the soul the seat
of divine and immortal existence. Whilst one can be physically dead one can lose one’s soul in sin. It was to be later
that the so called ‘Church Fathers’ sought to soften the focus on ‘spirit’ and were atrracted to the language of ‘soul’.
Then in an Ecumenical Council of Vienne in France in the year 1312, the idea of ‘soul’ became more prominent.
Descartes, Locke and the Enlightenment all speculated about the nature of the self and of substance but at no
time disposed of the divine or the metaphysical in their thinking of the soul or the nature of the human self.
These ideas were extremely consequential. Directly or indirectly, they seem to have powerfully influenced Plato
and, through Plato, various church fathers, including Augustine and, through Augustine, Christian theology and,

12 Envisioning Risk
through Christianity, the entire mindset of Western civilization, secular as well as religious. It is ironic, perhaps,
that ideas that eventually acquired such an impressive rational pedigree may have originated in the dark heart of
shamanism, with its commitment to magic and the Occult.
By the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, the view that the soul was divided and in conflict with itself
surfaced in the way of new thinkers, including Montaigne, Shaftesbury, and Rousseau, until in the Nineteenth
Century, first in Schopenhauer, then in Nietzsche, and then finally in Freud, the lower parts of the soul were
relegated to ‘the subconscious’. Please note the Subconscious is not the Unconscious. This is one of the main
points in the split between Freud and Jung. For Freud the Subconscious was understood a deficit human faculty
and for Jung the Unconscious was understood positively.
Even Charles Darwin did not dismiss the idea of a soul, spirit or an Afterlife but remained a sceptical theist till
the day he died. The real break from the notion of a soul/spirit as part of human identity was made by Freud
and Marx. Although Freud often spoke of the soul and the ‘inner’ man his words ‘die seele’ have often been
stranslated as ‘the mind’. By soul Freud meant psyche which takes in the id, ego and superego. Marx on the
other hand was a complete materialist and understood religion as a metaphysical delusion. For Marx all of the
language and discourse of a soul, Afterlife, spirit or consciouness is a delusional construct of social relations and
an outcome of nothing more than needs and drives of humans for meaning.
Jung on the other hand used the notion of a human soul in a traditional religious sense but also used it
interchageably with the notion of human Mind (meaning ‘Being’). For Jung the unconscious, mind and soul were
all expressions of psychic consciousness. In Memories,Dreams, Reflections he states (p.387):
If the human soul is anything, it must be of unimaginable complexity and diversity… I can only gaze
with wonder and awe at the depths and heights of our psychic nature. Its non-spatial universe conceals
an untold abundance of images which have accumulated over millions of years of living development
and become fixed in the organism. My consciousness is like an eye that penetrates to the most distant
spaces, yet it is the psychic non-ego that fills them with nonspatial images. And these images are not
pale shadows, but tremendously powerful psychic factors … Beside this picture I would like to place the
spectacle of the starry heavens at night, for the only equivalent of the universe within is the universe
without; and just as I reach this world through the medium of the body, so I reach that world through the
medium of soul.
Interestingly the language of ‘soul’ has decreased in time and the notion of ‘spirit’ has been normalised to speak
of the non-materiality of human being. The word ‘soul’ seems now more equated with a medieval understanding
of non-material being, romance and matters of the heart. Yet, still the notion of a soul is popular in music and
film making. We even have a genre of music called ‘soul music’ (often just called ‘Soul’) and ‘negro spirituals’, both
originating in African American oppression and seeking release from the limits of materialist capitalist slavery
and oppression as black poor race.
Ryle in debate against Cartesian duality in debating the ‘mind-body problem’ termed the concept of a human
mind/life/soul as ‘the ghost in the machine’. All of these expressions and language have in common a focus on
the non-material nature of human experience. Unfortunatley, the idea of a ‘mind’ has now become equated to the
human brain as neuroscience grapples with the same mind-body problem. This seems shaped by the brain-as-
computer metaphor and simplifies the mysterious characteristics of human embodiment.
Bertrand Russell and Richard Dawkins also stand out as Scientist/Positivists who had little to say about the
soul. As it was not a scientific idea nor part of a Positivistic, Materialistic and Objectivistic worldview, both
dismissed the idea of a soul/spirit as a religious delusion. In such a view the mechanics of the brain are equated to
consciousness.
Whilst all this speculative evolution in thought has waxed and waned over the millenia there remains a popular
view that there is both a human spirit, an Afterlife and an unconscious. In 2020 in the USA in the Trump
Presidency we have witenessed the dominance of the Religious Far Right in poliitics with Televangelists in the

Chapter 1: Vision and Envisioning 13

White House and the President’s ‘spiritual advisor’ Paula White claiming the White House as ‘Sacred Ground’
and exorcising the Devil (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w0kSkvusjI). During the Covid 19 Pandemic in
2020 the richest televangelist in the USA Kenneth Copeland (worth $300 million) openly exorcised and cast
judgment (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSIrQBGfUtw) on the virus as the Devil blowing the breath of
his God on the virus to banish it from existence (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbqbiX4xi_0). I’ll just leave
these reference with you as evidence that the 2020 political party in the USA endorsed the nature of spirits as
persons and deities.
This brief excursion into the history of the soul demonstrates that throughout History such has been a
preoccupation through the ages. There has never been a time when ‘the soul of the matter’ has ever been separated
from the notion of vision.
I have made it clear in other places and in previous books that my own worldview is a mix of existentialist,
phenomeological and Christian dialectic. I am attracted by the work of Ellul, Kiekegaard, Jung and Merleau-
Ponty on the nature of the human unconscious/spirit. This is not to say that this Mentalitie is THE way of
thinking in non-material identity of the human self but that I find these positions as compelling as any other of
the speculations I have discussed previously particularly, the faith and speculations of the Technique worldview.

Save Our Souls in Movies and Music

Of course, the notion of a soul/spirit dominates music and film making and demonstrates society’s continued
fascination with Metaphysics. Some of the most popular movies of all time being: All time Blockbusters like:
Star Wars, The Matrix, ET, Close Encounters of The Third Kind, Cocoon, Lord of The Rings, Indiana Jones, Avatar,
Alien, Inception, Indepedence Day, Terminator, The Exocist, Buffy, Twilight, X-Files, Game of Thrones and Harry Potter
all testify to the attraction of the transcendent and the love of binary black and white thinking.
It is from Ricoeur that we learn that myth/symbol mediate the fundamental challenges of life. No
religion can completely express the ultimate awe of the infallible, it must use symbols/myth to point to
the transcendent. Religion links what ‘is’ with what we want to be and in film we see symbolic expressions
of the inner unconscious drama of the human psyche.
We see in so many of these movies the hero cycle at work through the symbolism and myths of good/
evil, light/darkness and fallible/infallible. It is in the mythology of the archetype of innocence that movies
seem to find their greatest investment. When the weak hero risking all finds meaning, purpose and purity
in rising above the wicked in triumph we can rest assured in safety.
We can recall moments and symbols from movies as iconic representations of archetypical themes. I will
never forget the first time I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark and in the closing scene where the Nazis opened
the Ark. I can recall how the angels from the Ark emerged and burnt everyone watching except for
Indiana and Marion, who had not transgessed the holiness of the Ark but had kept pure and innocent
of evil. As the angels fused the electrical equipment and burned holes in the powerless soldiers standing
looking on, the heads of the main protagonists of evil Dr Belloq and the SS tyrant Deitrich melted and
explode in the presence of the wrath of God.
As one of the most popular film series of all time, the Indiana Jones movies invoke many religious symbols and
myth, drawing on archetypical motifs of innocence, evil, loss, betrayal, greed, corruption, defilement, adventure,
discovery, risk and safety. For Ricoeur fault and blame can only be properly described through mediating agency
such a metaphor and symbol. In Raiders of the Lost Ark through myth supernatural realities are made natural
realities and the film validates an ontological existence to the orthodox concepts of Christian theology.
It is interesting how religious images, symbols and myths have been made increasingly more relevant in Western
society through popular culture and are more powerfully presented than ever before. This is what Ricoeur calls
‘the exegesis of the symbol’.

14 Envisioning Risk
The application of religious mythology, semantics and symbol to Indiana Jones authenticates the philosophical
symbolism of orthodox Christian theology particularly, Original Sin and Penal Substitutionary Atonement.
Ricoeur highlights the fact that such a hermeneutic (theory of interpretation) brings the power of myth and
symbol to the unconscious, and discloses knowledge and philosophy through emedded symbols and myth.
It is through the myth/symbol that we feel the locus of evil. Ricoeur states (Fallible Man, 1965. p. xliii):
The exegesis of these symbols prepares the myths for insertion into man’s knowledge of himself. In this
way a symbolics of evil is an initial step toward bringing myths nearer to philosophic discourse ... this
study is centred on the theme of fallibility: the consitutional weakness that makes fallibility possible.
In this way Ricoeur considered myth and symbol to be both outside of God and humans in origin yet present in
both in symbolic effect. The way symbol/myth affect humans is evidence of the human inability to truly know
oneself, this is most present in the drive for infallibility.

The Soul In Music

One doesn’t have to search very hard to find the same fascinations with the soul in History as the search for soul
in Music, Art and Movies. In the top 500 songs of all time (https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/500-
greatest-songs-of-all-time-151127/) we find endless reference to spirit, transendence, Afterlife, soul and the
unconscious. Most of these references to soul and spirit in music are connected to the ability to see and envision
something others can’t see. To demonstrate this let’s explore the top 10 songs of all time judged by sales and
length of time in the charts (source Rolling Stone). These Top Ten are as follows with some selected lyrics:

1. Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen 4. Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen

Is this the real life I’ll love you with all the madness in my Soul
Is this just Fantasy? Someday girl I don’t know when
Caught in a landslide We’re gunna get to that place we really want to go
No escape from reality and who’ll walk in the sun
Open your eyes but till then tramps like us
look up to the skies and see Baby we where born to Run

2. Like a Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan 5. Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin

You used to be so amused There’s a feeling I get
and Napolean in rags, When I look to the west
and the language that he used And my spirit is crying for leaving
go to him now he calls ya In my thoughts I have seen
you can’t refuse Rings of smoke through the trees
when you ain’t got nothing, And the voices of those who stand looking
you got nothing to lose.
6. Hotel California - Eagles
3. Hey Jude - Beatles There she stood in the doorway
Hey Jude, don’t make it bad I heard the mission bell
Take a sad song and make it better And I was thinkin’ to myself
Remember to let her into your heart ‘This could be heaven or this could be hell
Then you can start to make it better Then she lit up a candle
And she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor
I thought I heard them say

Chapter 1: Vision and Envisioning 15

7. Imagine - John Lennon 9. November Rain - Guns and Roses
Imagine there’s no heaven Nothin’ lasts forever
It’s easy if you try And we both know hearts can change
No hell below us And it’s hard to hold a candle
Above us, only sky In the cold November rain

8. Sympathy for the Devil - The Rolling Stones
Please allow me to introduce myself
I’m a man of wealth and taste
I’ve been around for a long long year
Stole many a man’s soul and Faith
10. More Than a Feeling - Boston
Its more than a feeling, when I hear that old song
they used to play (more than a feeling)
I begin dreaming (more than a feeling)
till I see Marianne walk away
I see my Marianne walkin away

As we research every single song in the top ten in History and

Figure 6. Tommy Emmanuel’s Note
then top 500 there is always reference to transcedence and
vison for humanity in fallibility, love, soul, spirit and non-
material experience. Moreso, the evidence is overwhelming
that inspiration, imagination, creativity, discovery, insight and
vision come from this non-material source. This foloowing
example from Tommy Emmanuel’s social media site is
indicative. See Figure 6. Tommy Emmanuels’s Note.
So, SPoR is interested in Poetics and matters of the soul
(captured in the study of linguistics, semantics, language,
Semiotics, the unconscious and literature) and mimetics (the
enactment of imitation) because they help envisioning. When
one is interested in the nature of the unconscious and how
humans make decisions one moves away from Technique to
knowledge that explores broader approaches to being and
experience and it is from such Poetic explorations that one
envisions different ways of knowing that humanise, affirm and
confirm the ecology of life, community, Socialitie and an Ethic
of Risk.

Harry Potter
It is no wonder that the highest selling book of all
time is Harry Potter. Sales of the book exceed 500
million copies worldwide. So what is the appeal of
three children entering schooling at Hogwarts School
of Witchcraft and Wizardry? Why has this fantasy
story become THE book of all time? Why has the hero myth and hero’s journey yet again captured the
imagination of a world that longs for the transcendent? Why is the website https://www.wizardingworld.
com/ one of the most heavily trafficked sites in the world?
The story of Harry Potter captures and names all of the Archetypes we experience in life. Many of the
characters serve as ‘types’ that resonate with us about good and evil, suffering and pain and, truth and
justice. It is not just the effective characterisation and plot that attract people but the anchoring to eternal
myths, metaphors and symbols that are the foundation of human identity. This anchoring to eternal

16 Envisioning Risk
 myths and symbols is critical for its success. It is when myths and symbols resonate with our own that we
are drawn to narratives because they also tell our story.
We all have a Lord Voldermort in our lives and empathise with the Muggles and the downcast. We
all seek a mediator who speaks truth to power for us and in the end brings that truth to victory for us.
Even though the Fundamentalists have damned Harry Potter as evil and anti-Christian (https://www.
smh.com.au/entertainment/books/harry-potter-banned-by-christian-school-20120824-24q7i.html) it
continues to serve as a vision of how Justice, Hope. Love and Faith ought to be. Such is the power of the
symbology of the story.
However, Harry Potter is more than a book, its adaptation into movies has made $10 billion (https://
www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Harry-Potter#tab=summary)
The movies and books satisfy a fundamental human thirst for the supernatural, the transcendent and the
non-materiality of being. We all look at Harry and wonder where he gets his vision, how come he is the
chosen one, how come he is more discerning? Why is Harry the Prophet?

Brain Dead
There are those that suppose that humans and their identity can be all posited in the brain ( Jasanoff, A., (2018)
The Biological Mind. Basic Books, New York) including the mythology that a brain could work on its own if
outside the body supplied with fluids, oxygen and blood. Of course, there is no evidence for such mythology but
the supposition serves to stimulate the powers of Technique and the quest for immutibility.
Everything supposed by Jasanoff is couched in the language of faith in his book. He calls this the ‘mystique’ of
the brain. Jasanoff ’s book is based on the mythology of the brain-as-computer metaphor even though all the
evidence about humans as embodied is not discussed.
Of course, Technique doesn’t need evidence to solve the mind-body problem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Mind%E2%80%93body_problem) which of course is where the real challenges of the STEM-only approach
to knowledge fall over. When STEM turns into Technique all of the problems of science put forward by Kuhn,
Feyerbend and Laktos years ago are laid bare. See further:
• Laktos, I., and Musgrave, A., (1970), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Cambridge University Press.
Cambridge.
• Feyerbend, P., (1975) Against Method. Verso. London.
• Kuhn, T., (2012) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press, New York.
• Kuhn, T., (2000) The Road Since Structure. University of Chicago Press, New York.
• Law, J., (2004) After Method, mess in social science research. Rourledge. London.
STEM becomes Technique under the drive of Positivism. Positivism privileges information interpreted through
reason and logic and is the most common worldview in the discipline of General Science. Positivism is based on
Empiricism which means it only accepts knowledge from sensory experience. Positivism like many philosophies
was constructed in opposition to another philosophy. In this case Positivism was constructed by Auguste Comte
(1798–1857) in opposition to Metaphysics, non-materialist philosophies and Philosophy itself. Positivism
anchors to the scientific method and rejects non-material theory. Positivism seeks to free itself from value-laden
thinking in the quest for objectivism. Of course, this is a contradiction because the quest to divorce oneself from
values is a value.
The Positivist focus is on objects and the rejection of non-materialist understandings of the world. If something
is not ‘observable’ then Positivism must reject it, including psychology. There are a range of positivisms that have
emerged since Comte but most share this foundation in objectivism, metrics, numerics and observable evidence.

Chapter 1: Vision and Envisioning 17

The Frankfurt School which was founded by Fromm and Habermas later rejected the assumptions of Positivism
and founded the philosophy of Critical Theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School). Since the
development of Critical Theory a host of post-modern philosophies have emerged that critique the Positivist
assertion of Logical Realism and objectivity. Postmodernist and Poststructuralist philosophies are two emerging
philosophies from Critical Theory. SPoR has evolved from these traditions.
It is intersting watching the risk industry in recent times gravitate to the seductions and promises of neuroscience
and neurotechnology, seeking out the certainties of the computer-as-brain ideology in the quest for certainty.
Indeed, the Positivist rejection of philosophy itself makes the risk industry more exposed to Metaphysical
trade-offs as it seeks numerical absolutes. The risk industry is now more immersed in Metaphysics than one could
imagine. In the search for zero that magical number, Risk now drifts into religious language and metaphors of
super-heroes and faith/belief (https://safetyrisk.net/safety-for-true-believers/; https://safetyrisk.net/safety-as-
faith-healing/; https://safetyrisk.net/no-evidence-for-the-religion-of-zero/). Because Safety-Risk is not equipped
with philosophical thinking including An Ethic of Risk, it now accidentally falls into a religious worldview in its
quest for secular absolutes. This is evident in AASP (https://safety.assp.org/education/general-sessions/) and XXI
World Congress on Safety 2017 (https://www.safety2017singapore.com/) conferences.
This brings us to Jasnoff ’s idea that the brain is the centre of human identity. When any part of the body dies
it affects the brain, when the brain ‘dies’ the person is said to be in a vegetative state. Even though an embodied
person can be kept alive on a machine it is a matter of time before the loved ones will need to decide if and when
the machine needs to be turned off. This is strongly linked to the family’s collective Hope-Faith-Love-Justice.
The idea that a brain is a person has been smashed by researchers who have tried to keep animal
brains alive outside of the animal’s body (https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/04/25/240742/
researchers-are-keeping-pig-brains-alive-outside-the-body/).
It turns out that brains can be kept alive outside of a body and with cells intact but of course no consciousness.
All a brain is outside of the body is a living organ but consciousness and unconsciousness must be embodied.
There is no science to demonstrate that any organ can survive for long outside of the body. It’s well known that
a comatose brain can be kept alive for at least decades. That is the case with brain-dead people whose families
elect to keep them attached to ventilating machines. All of this poses huge ethical problems about defining
personhood, especially if one’s worldview is reductionist like Jasanoff.

How is This Relevant to Envisioning?

It seems that in all cultures and civilizations that inspiration, perception and vision are anchored to the soul,
the unconscious or non-material transcendent aspects of human ‘being’. If we want to understand the nature of
visions, dreaming and imagination we can also learn much from a study of psychedelics.
Whilst psychedelics can teach us a great deal about the unconscious they are also part of destructive social
relationships associated with addiction. For the moment I’d like to suspend discussion of addictions and just
centre on what can be learned from psychedelics. The power and dynamics of psychedelic experience is discussed
extensively by Hill (2013) in Confrontation with the Unconscious, Jungian Depth Psychology and Psychedelic
Experience. Muswell Hill Press, London.
One of the truisms of the Music, Dance, Poetry and Arts scene is the commonality of psychadelics in
accessing the unconscious. A study of 19th Century literature and art reveals that opium influenced
the creative and imaginative spirit of many thinkers, philosophers, poets, musicians and artists (https://
www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/representations-of-drugs-in-19th-century-literature;
https://www.worldcrunch.com/culture-society/under-the-influence-tracing-a-long-twisted-history-of-
artists-and-their-drugs). Much of the creative and imaginative work of the likes of: Dickens, Coleridge,
Browning, Van Gogh, Warhol, Pollock, Led Zepplin, The Beatles and Rolling Stones was drug induced

18 Envisioning Risk
 by accessing the unconscious. You don’t need to have more than a few milligrams of a psychedelic drug in
the body to generate visions, dreams, hallucinations and creative ideas.
There are some of course who have visions, dreams and an imagination that don’t require psychotic drugs to enact
the imagination and creativity. There is no record of either Jung or Blake having taken drugs to induce dreams
or visions.
Whilst I can’t comment on the music scene today, it was clear in the 1970s that much of the creative spirit
in music came not from the conscious mind but the unconscious mind (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Drug_use_in_music).
It is interesting in STEM literature that there is very little interest in the nature of consciousness, the
unconscious or the Collective Unconscious. The assumption is that risk is all about Technique. Human decision
making is therefore all about right programming, efficient systems and resilience engineering. The use of the
computer, camera or other mechanical interface metaphors dominate STEM thinking and help anchor this
worldview to a mechnaistic interpretation of experience.
Everytime I undertake workshops in tackling risk I introduce the nature of human decision making through
the One Brain Three Minds concept (https://vimeo.com/156926212; https://vimeo.com/106770292). Yet is
seems Technique has no interest in the Wayward Mind and complacency. Claxton’s work (The Wayward Mind,
Hare Brain Tortoise Mind and Intelligence in the Flesh) ought to be mandated reading for any person wishing to
understand human judgement and decision making.
In literature William Blake is the professor of the Wayward Mind. At the age of 9 years he was already
seeing visions of angels and demons. His art and poetry is a kaleidoscope that explains human methods
of dehumanizing itself. He was born in 1757 and witnessed the best and worst of the industrial
revolution in England. His poetics testifies to his vision/prophetics for humanizing his society and
the battle of good against evil and, the problem of innocence and naivety. Much of his work is freely
downloadable:
• http://triggs.djvu.org/djvu-editions.com/BLAKE/SONGS/Download.pdf
• http://www.93beast.fea.st/files/section2/blake/The%20Works%20of%20William%20Blake.pdf
• http://erdman.blakearchive.org/
• http://www.mindserpent.com/library/blake/the_prophetic_books_of_william_blake.pdf
It’s amazing that the STEM-only view in the risk industry is bedeviled by the Wayward Mind, the unconscious and
the issue of complacency but has no interest in the challenges of understanding consciousness in relation to risk.
When I was a teacher in High School and Lecturer in University in Literature/English it was
enlightening to teach what we can learn from the classics likes of Blake, Shakespeare, Dickens and T.S.
Elliot. Whilst we don’t have to experience visions like Blake, or take psychededelics like the Beatles, it
would be good if just a skerrick of the risk industry showed some interest in creativity, discovery, learning,
inspiration and imagination.

Interlude - Where Am I Coming From?

One cannot articulate anything relationally-socially through text-alone. The only way to really convey something
that is social and relational is to use Semiotics, symbols, signs, graphics and metaphor. Indeed, Semiotics is one of
the most critical of transitions in the evolution of SPoR.
The evolution of Social Psychology of Risk is represented graphically at Figure 7. The Emergence of the Social
Psychology of Risk. This graphic maps the territory concerning the development of the Social Psychology of
Risk from its roots in The Frankfurt School and the birth of Cultural Theory. The representative map provides

Chapter 1: Vision and Envisioning 19

links showing an evolution from post-Marxist thinking through to Semiotics, Critical Theory, Cultural Theory,
Ethnography and Social Psychology. In this way the tradition and discipline of Social Psychology can be
explained in relation to its roots and in contradistinction to associated Human Sciences and Positivist Science.
This semiotic map also shows related disciplines and associated theorists such as: Soren Kierkegaard, Erich
Fromm, Jacques Ellul and Carl Jung who are not named on the map but have roots through Existentialist
thinking, Theology, Critical Theory, Cultural Theory, Sociology and Psychology.
The language of ‘evolution’, ‘emergence’ and ‘organics’ are critical for understanding the nature of Discourse in
Social Psychology and foundations for a Social Psychology of Risk.

Figure 7. The Emergence of the Social Psychology of Risk.

The evolutionary map of the emergence of SPoR is situated amongst a range of historical developments that
indicate association and contradistinction. Although the boxes on the map start at Marx is could just as easily
start at the philosophy of Hegel although, connections with Hegelian Philosophy in SPoR are quite remote even
on the notion of dialectic. Hegel proposed that truth is found in synthesis between dialectical opposites whereas
SPoR does not. Indeed, SPoR argues that there is no synthesis between opposites (binaries and polar) but rather
a continual hyphen-conversation that remains in motion. This does not mean that SPoR is incoherent rather, it is
consistent within itself.
There are some interesting relationships on the map that indicate what kinds of disciplines emerged from
post-Marxist thinking namely: Feminism, Post-Feminism, Post-Modernism, Post-Structuralism. It is no surprise
that the Post-Structuralists and Post-Modernists align well with various schools in Semiotics (sign systems) and
Semiology (meaning in sign systems). These transitions helped form a new school of History and Historiography
emerging out of France, Annales History (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annales_school). Annals History and
many French philosophers (Piaget, Ricoeur, Marcel, Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, Derrida, Lyotard, Baudrillard,

20 Envisioning Risk
Lacan, Girard, Bourdieu, Deleuze, Ellul etc) are critical for the emergence of Social Psychology and SPoR.
The work of many of these philosophers informed the development of Critical Theory, Cultural Theory and
Ethnography - the essentials that lead to the foundation of Social Psychology as a Discipline following World
War Two. The influence of these philosophers on the foundations of SPoR is critical.
Many texts in Social Psychology like to trace the roots of Social Psychology back to the work of Triplett as the
first experiment in Social Psychology in 1898. Others trace the roots of Social Psychology back to the work of
Kurt Lewin in 1933 but much of this early work was more about Applied and Organisational Psychology. This
early work bears little resemblance to the modern idea of Social Psychology more identified with the pioneering
work of: Milgram (Obedience to Authority), Zimbardo (The Stanford Prison Experiment), Darley and Latne
(Genovese Effect), Ashe (Group Think), Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswick, Levinson and Stanford (The Authoritarian
Personality) and Festinger (Cognitive Dissonance).
Much of the early experiments in Social Psychology are documented in Experiments with People by Abelson, Frey
and Gregg (2004). The growth and development in the modern movement in Social Psychology is anchored to
research into the Nazi phenomenon and the Holocaust. In particular, seeking to explain why the Nazis could
systematically exterminate the Jews and others.
The Society for Personality and Social Psychology was founded in 1974. The Society of Australasian Social
Psychologists was not founded till 1995.

First Contact with Social Psychology

I was first introduced to the notion of Social Psychology through my study for teaching in 1971. The
text Social Psychology of Teaching by Morrison and McIntyre (1972) was a foundational text in my second
year at Bedford Park Teacher’s College in South Australia. Bedford Park was a radical Teacher’s College
aligned with Flinders University and was later to become a College of Advanced Education (CAE) and
then University under the Dawkins review of Higher Education.
Bedford Park had a number of radical post-Marxists on staff and a sharp edge in critical thinking. My
very first tutorial was with Dean Ashenden (later to become founder of the Good University Guide) and
the opening tute was on determinism and free will. Many of my orthodox foundations were shaken in
that first year.
I remember Art with Tom Gleghorn and English Literature with Mem Fox, both radical in the way
they challenged old paradigms. I studied Gestalt Psychology, Transactional Analysis and a host of
New Thinking in Education, Psychology and Sociology at the time. You can read a brief History of
these changes by the excellent Education historian Alan Barcan (http://erpjournal.net/wp-content/
uploads/2012/07/ERPV37-2.-Barcan-A.-2010.-Public-Schools-in-Australia-from-the-late-1970s-to-
the-late-1980s.pdf ). Similarly, Bambach presents an effective overview of the times: http://ro.ecu.edu.au/
cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1030&context=ajte.
It was the early 1970s the South Australian and Australian Governments both had radical leaders open
to post-Marxist thinking namely: Don Dunstan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Dunstan) and
Gough Whitlam (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gough_Whitlam). It was also a period of major social
upheaval with the Moratorium Movement (https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/
vietnam-moratoriums) against the Vietnam War and a fresh music scene full of protest, hippies,
psychadelics, free love and critical thinking.
So, as you read through the book and particularly in the Chapter on Visionaries it needs to be remembered that
the SPoR worldview drives much of the discussion.

Chapter 1: Vision and Envisioning 21

What is Envisioning? Seeing the Semiosphere
There’s something special about seeing beyond ordinary everyday things and being. The whole sensation of
images of the future or deja vu coming into thought is a mystery. It’s like the thought already exists in the
unconscious and the image triggers a resonance with ideas past. Sometimes it hard to work out what is a dream
and what is real. The surreal thesis of The Matrix sometimes feels right. Of course envisioning is not a fiction.
We know about the biology of the eye and the psychology of perception but we know very little about what
Bronowski called The Visionary Eye. What Schumacher calls ‘the eye of the Heart’ (A Guide for the Perplexed).
Unless we are prepared to encounter how people construct meaning and how people understand trajectories, we
will not be likely to envision very much.
I am much more interested in the ‘prophetic imagination’ than just seeing what is already there. I am much more
interested in seeing what is behind, beyond and in things, than ‘the bleeding obvious’. I am much more interested
in the meaning and purpose of things and beings, than just the mechanics of looking. If we want to understand
why people do what they do, we need to explore not what we know, but what we don’t know.
Many people look but don’t see and many can’t see but search for sight and never find it.
Envisioning in risk is interested in the intersection between seeing, perceiving, imagination and meaning and
how these connect with risk taking, acts of faith and the challenges of uncertainty. This is what is known as
Semiosis that is, the construction of meaning and purpose through seeing in symbols, myths and signs. The study
of Semiosis is about wanting to know how humans make meaning of their experience in the Semiosphere. The
idea of the Semiosphere is from Lotman (Universe of the Mind) and frames the way we see the world through the
presence of signs, symbols, myths and metaphors.
One cannot study Semiosis unless one takes an active interest in the human unconscious. When one thinks of
the mind’s eye, one thinks beyond the materialist, empiricist and cognitivist constructs of the brain as grey matter
to the power of the imagination beyond meat and bone. It is from the mind’s eye that the genius of composers,
artists, musicians, dancers, poets, novelists, dramatists, architects, theologians, storytellers, moviemakers and
mystics present. This is where we find the prophets, seers and visionaries.
It is from Semiotics and Poetics that we can see beyond the human condition and imagine the eternal. The
concept of the eternal is not about time everlasting but rather the quality of how we live, looking into the future.
This is what it means to capture what is ‘awesome’ in eternal life. It is in Poetics that we experience the ecstasies
of the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice dialectic. In Poetics we can best understand the paradox of motivations and
perceptions in risk and what makes people do what they do.
We live in a social and visual world. We make meaning of life socially and visually through visual and textual
language and Discourse. We learn how to live and learn through this social and visual world known as the
‘Semiosphere’. We understand the Semiosphere through the visual, spacial and textual environment as a Semiotic
whole, integrated and as the Collective Unconscious. We enter into the Semiosphere not as a brain but as an
embodied person.
All we say, do, believe and imagine is present in the Semiosphere, we just have to be able to look for it and see it,
envision it and discern it. However, dipping into the Semiosphere is risky, there is no material or scientific matter
there, even though sometimes what is imagined is revealed in things material. When we enter any space with the
imagination we leave the material behind and go deep into the mind’s eye where the unconscious intersects with
living, being and meaning. It is here that we sometimes get a glimpse of the prophetic, to forthtell this meaning
to others. This is what is meant by the prophetic imagination (Bruggermann). Envisioning in risk is not magic, it
just explains trajectories to people who cannot see it. This is usually the case with people immersed in Technique.
The prophetic imagination is enlivened by symbols and myth. In symbols and myth there is little control, little
definition and an open future. (it is important to note from Ricoeur (The Symbolism of Evil) that myth and symbol
are the flip side of the same coin).

22 Envisioning Risk
The quest of Technique to command and control everything is an expression of futility by the STEM-only
paradigm to manage uncertainty. All so called ‘Scientific’ models, graphs and symbols require interpretation,
a Hermeneutic of attributed meaning. STEM-only attributions to symbols and models seek to sustain
connections to certainty when there is none. Examples of such STEM-only attribution are evident in popular
models of risk management such as the risk matrix, pyramidic ratios and bow tie management. Rather than
define risk and associated uncertainty such models-as-symbols open up more problems than they solve. It is the
prophetic imagination that deconstructs such models and attributions to reveal the emperor wears no clothes and
how such risk models often dehumanise persons.
At the heart of the prophetic imagination is the dynamic of Critical Theory, a disposition that asks questions
of all discourse such as: Where is the power? Whom does the power serve? Who are the alienated? What is
the trajectory of embedded power? Who are the powerless? How does Power speak to the disadvantaged?
And, to whom does Justice speak? The prophetic imagination is a political and ethical voice that is not afraid
to call out the ‘will to power’. The prophetic imagination can see the tyranny of absolutes and absolutism in the
fundamentalisms of zero tolerance, legalism and compliance cultures. The enemy of the human imagination is
absolute compliance.

The Bee and The Dance

It has been known for two hundred years that when a bee which has found a source of honey (nectar)
returns home, it makes a violent agitated movement which in time is taken up by the whole hive. The
beekeepers who first noticed this in the eighteenth century supposed it to express a primitive emotion.
They believed that the bee comes home in a state of excitement, and that it simply communicates this
excitement to the other bees in the hive.
However, they were wrong; the communication between bees is more precise and more remarkable than
mere excitement. It has now been shown by the delicate studies of Karl von Frisch and others that the
bee that comes home laden with nectar talks to the other bees in the hive in quite specific symbols. The
returning bee does a round dance, shaped like a flattened figure of eight, and other bees take up this
dance and begin to follow the leader along its figure of eight.
This figure of eight has two exact messages for the bees that follow it. The direction in which the main
line of the figure points tells the bees in the hive where to go for the source of the nectar that they smell
on the leader. And the speed at which the figure is run tells the bees how far away the source of honey is.
I apologize for telling this story so briefly and so roughly, because those who already know it will know it
more fully, and those who do not know it will scarcely believe it. Yet the story is true and, in its essence,
is as simple as this. The-dance of the bees is a complete instruction by which one bee tells the others in
what direction to fly and how far to fly.
The bees that take up the dance learn the instruction by actually following the movements of the first bee
in the dance - that is, by going through the same steps as if they themselves had brought the message.
The Dance is a metaphor to explain the dialectic of life and learning. Life and learning are not about
a quest to be static and safe but rather the quest for movement and maturation. There is no learning
without movement and no movement without risk. The dance is a symbol for freedom in movement
just as jazz is a symbol for freedom in music. It is not without form and void but rather there is structure
and function within the freedom to dance and play.
To ‘ad lib’ is the gift of creativity, invention, imagination and innovation. There is no life in stasis, no living in
safety just comfort in no-change. The life that embraces imagination, creativity, invention and innovation is the
life that envisions joy in play and meaning and purpose in risk. There is nothing to fear from the dance nor the
embrace of ambiguity and contradiction associated with being in the dance.

Chapter 1: Vision and Envisioning 23

In risk, stasis and constancy of substance are raised above the diachronic aspects of movement and change over
time. In stasis, time is denied meaning against the love of stasis and structure. The fear of movement and freedom
in fallibility opens up the movements of choice with determinism. In the quest for stasis the power and attraction
to risk must be denied. In risk something might go wrong, the fallible might make mistakes and mistakes are
deemed demonic. In stasis all is safe. In stasis we achieve zero. At absolute zero nothing moves, all is safe. At
absolute stasis there is no movement or learning. In stasis there is no fallibility and no life. In zero there is no
vision and nothing can be seen.

The Imagination and Perception in Risk

There is little discussion in the risk industry about Imagination or Wisdom. This is because Technique ‘belittles’
the activity and significance of Wisdom and Imagination in its Discourse. Without Imagination and Wisdom
one’s visual perception then becomes shaped by myths of objectivism and Technique. It is understandable that
such thinking should seek to eradicate fear through fear. Imagination and Wisdom cannot be ‘controlled’ nor
‘measured’. Nothing is more threatening to the cult of zero than a lack of control and measurement. It is a strange
paradox that this industry of risk consumed with compliance and zero, should be so evasive about the essentials
of Imagination and Wisdom when considering risk.
If you want to evaluate a profession you need to analyse what it is noisy about and what its silences are.
The foundation of all risk and uncertainty is bound up in two simple questions: what-if ? If-then? One cannot
engage in these questions without invoking the Imagination and Wisdom. Yet Technique doesn’t seek to engage
in these questions but rather enjoys the questions: what-is? why-then? These questions naturally lead the risk
industry into a culture of interrogation and blame.
At the root of the word ‘imagination’ is the notion of ‘image’, invoking a semiotic understanding of creating
something symbolic, sign-ificant or meaningful (semiosis). This is where we get the concept of imagery and
vision. All memory, dreams and perception involve imagery however, not all images are imaginations neither is all
seeing vision.
Of course, imagination takes us into the domain of the real and unreal. I can imagine what it’s like to fall off
a cliff, I can even physically jump in a dream from that imagination yet it isn’t physically real. However, the
symbolism/myth of the dream is real to me, hence I jump as if it is real experientially. The recurrence of such a
dream is also meaningful as a symbol/myth of a fear of heights and dying. We devalue our dreaming to our own
mis-education.
Imagination also takes us into its necessity in learning, creativity, innovation and discovery. There is no learning
without Imagination and no Wisdom without risk. This is why there is no such thing as ‘machine learning’,
machines cannot imagine, dream or be wise. Machines have no unconscious or imagination, the repartition
of algorithms is not learning. Without embodiment there is no learning. So, don’t look to Alexa or Siri for
Wisdom or Imagination. To speak of visual perception without thinking about Imagination and Wisdom is to
exclude the very foundations of what it means to be human.
One of the joys of imagination is to flee the current constraints one finds oneself in. Whilst I can be physically
present in a boring task I can unconsciously imagine and day dream (lucid dream) in another bodily state whilst
undertaking a high risk task. Both unconscious and conscious states coexists in dialectic in most tasks that are
repetitive and routine/habitual. This is captured in the principle of One Brain and Three Minds (https://vimeo.
com/156926212). In this way humans demonstrate the coexistence of the conscious-unconscious dialectic in
being. Humans find it hard to be fully conscious for very long, we don’t realize we have ‘drifted off ’ until we jolt
‘back in’. Most of the time humans are physically in the world but mentally/mindfully ‘out of it’, without any
reference to medication.

24 Envisioning Risk
Envisioning, What to Do
Imagination and dreaming share much in common and are associated together in the Wisdom Literature
( Joel2:28, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1476993X17743116). Imagination allows us to
re-shape what is real and think of what-isn’t but could-be. These are triggered by the faith questions: what-if ?
If-then?
In the depth of Imagination we embrace Poetics (song, dance, drama, art and music etc) that allow us to ‘see’
the world differently. This ‘seeing’ is not so much physical but is perceptual and this knowing is visionary. In
the depths of Imagination we can experience the could-be’s and might-be’s, even things that shouldn’t-be.
We sometimes play with moral dilemmas and ethical tensions in our imaginations. Imagination embodies the
tendency to flee the world but also to shape it. How are we able to manage this paradox?
1. The first step in managing the paradox of Imagination is not to deny it nor, to deny the reality of lucid
dreaming. The idea that humans sit or stand at a task hours on end in ‘concentrated consciousness’ is simply
fanciful.
2. The second thing we need to do is not be silent about the Imagination and Wisdom. We need to ‘tune down’
the noise on zero, metrics, numerics, science and behaviourism and ‘tune up’ our discussions on Imagination,
Wisdom and Transcendence.
3. The third thing we need to consider is what constrains Imagination? If thinking about risk relies on
imagining what might happen, then surely it ought to be something we need to exercise and practice. One
thing is for sure, checklist thinking and dumb down thinking don’t foster a lively and helpful imagination.
4. The forth (not fourth) thing we need to consider is leaning more about play. Why is it that we encourage
children to learn so much through play and then suppress such an approach to learning after the age of
12? There is something strangely prophetic about the nature of play, it strengthens discovery, exploration
and seeing things differently. Often when things go wrong people express this inability to imagine such an
outcome. We would do well to think and play more like children at times.
5. The fifth thing we need to do is embrace the works of Jung, the champion of the imagination. A reading of
Jung is a good starting point for exploring dreams, visions and self-discovery. If the world of risk considered
for a second the meaning of the Collective Unconscious it might get a much better idea of how to tackle the
difficult issues we face in considering culture similarly, Lotman’s Semiophere.
6. The sixth consideration ought to be the ability to visualize. Visualisation is a critical aspect of all risk analysis
and brings the unreal into the real, invoking possibilities and transitions. The safety industry would be far
better for dumping the useless coloured risk matrix that constrains Imagination and spending more time
discussing shared imaginings through an Engagement Board (https://vimeo.com/390609359). Inquiry
through interconnecting imagination across Workspace, Headspace and Groupspace is something all my
clients have found much more practical and helpful than traditional orthodox risk management processes.
7. Of course, when we embrace a Transdisciplinary approach to risk we develop a new language and discourse.
This is what Ricoeur calls the ‘Hermeneutics of Imagination’. Whilst Ricoeur is very heavy reading we can
understand his critical point. Ricoeur makes clear that society remains captivated by Cartesian reductionist
approaches to knowledge often linked to the myth of objectivism.
8. An eighth factor associated with Imagination and Wisdom is the true meaning of Education. Training is
not Education and replication of Technique is not Education. In Education one needs to step away from the
reproduction of ‘safe’ knowledge and the regurgitation and replication of compliances.
9. The next step in tackling the paradox of Imagination is sharing. An Imagination bottled up is not much use,
but an Imagination shared opens up possibilities and learning however, sharing imaginations is a risk. We don’t
share what we imagine with someone who we don’t trust, who holds a punitive framework anchored to zero.
No, in such a culture we keep what we imagine to ourselves closing off any opportunity to learning socially.

Chapter 1: Vision and Envisioning 25

10. The final (but not the last) thing we need to consider are the elements of Fantasy and Hope embedded in
the risk to imagine. One of the central aspects of Imagination is its dynamic in facilitating Hope and Justice.
When in the depths of a lockdown, when the liveliness of ‘being’ is shut, when stasis seems all there is, when
‘marking time’ facilitates depression – we have our Imagination however feeble or poorly exorcised. We
realize this Hope and Promise of Justice in the Imaginations of musicians and poets during times of slavery
and oppression. We symbolize Hope ‘By the Rivers of Babylon’ (Psalm 137) and ‘Sweet Chariot’ (https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Thz1zDAytzU) or ‘The Times They Are A Changing’ (https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=K8pB9ULvK4w).

The Embodied Senses and the Sensemaking Body

The sense of affordance is the unconscious matching of being to object. We learn affordances in society and
through ergonomics so that objects ‘afford’ a certain use and behaviour. For example. a chair affords the action of
sitting. Most affordances are unconscious and learned, they invite a person to enact behaviours in relationship to
the meaning and purpose of an object. For example, one can also stand on a chair but this is not the homology
associated with how we learn culturally about chairs. We make objects like buckets, bowls and containers so
we can carry things. We learn very early about holding, pointing, grabbing, pushing, pulling, passing, throwing,
kicking and as Fuchs (Ecology of the Brain) states:
Embodiment does not come as an external addition to perception, but, rather, it is constituitive of it.
Then as children we learn to connect these actions to language and then quickly learn to adapt them as metaphor
into embodied and lived speech.
We make sense of our world and what to do with our bodies through affordances. We do this through heuristics
(learned micro-rules) so we can enact quickly without thinking. We make many of these affordances and commit
them to muscle memory so that daily ordinary repetitive actions can be automatic. In this way we embody our
senses, how we ‘read’ the environment and how we sensemake with our bodies. Most often we ‘feel’ our way
into action.

The Phantom Limb Experiment Figure 8. The Phantom Hand

A simple way of demonstrating the
embodiment of sensations, learning
and sensemaking is the Phantom Limb
Experiment (https://www.sciencedaily.
com/releases/2019/02/190221145630.
htm).
We know that amputees can feel a limb
that is not present but we can also create
a perception that our limb is attached to a
space when it is not.
In the rubber hand illusion one hides
the hand of a person behind a partition
(illustrated in Figure 8. The Phamtom Hand)
and beside that cloth is placed a rubber
hand. In the experiment the dummy hand
is stroked simultaneously as the real hand. The participant however can only see the dummy hand being
stroked but feels the sensation of the stroking on their real hand.
In time the participant feels an attachment to the dummy hand and transfers that feeling to what
they see as if it belongs to their own body. What is interesting at the end of this experiment is that

26 Envisioning Risk
 the experimenter surprises the person and brings out a hammer and hits the dummy hand and the
participant jumps as if their real hand is being hit.
If feelings were not embodied then there would be no psychological attachment to the dummy hand. The
experiment is discussed here: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-phantom-hand-2008-05/
One of the skills of the human is to embody Figure 9. Interaffectivity Tool
instruments into action, as if the instrument has
senses in it. This is how humans can make objects
an extension of their body like a hammer, a pencil
or an excavator. Despite the fact that the object
has no nerve endings or feeling, humans ‘feel’
the instrument as an extension of their hands or
in the case of an excavator their whole body can
‘sense’ position with great accuracy. When we walk
with the assistance of a walking cane, we feel the
edge of the cane as it touches the surface of the
path. We can even sense the smoothness or rough
surface of the path as if the end of the cane has
feeling in it.
In this way we ‘feel’ ourselves into perception,
into vision. We don’t need to brain process
like a computer to tell us what to do. We see
what something affords and shape our body
to it in accordance with cultural learning.
This is the foundation of Interaffectivity and
Intercorporeality. We use the Interaffectivity Tool
in training to convey this dynamic. See Figure 9.
Interaffectivity Tool.
When humans embody their senses and sensemake with their bodies, then others, the environment and
affordances enact action through resonances with the body not the brain. In this way the body ‘thinks’ through
affordance learned through routine, heuristics, habit and enculturated norms. This makes humans extremely fast
and automatic when operating in the world.
So envisioning is communicated in many ways as vision resonates with others. In this way vision is often caught
not taught.
This form of automaticity (Mind 3 enaction) is known as Autopoesis that acts and is acted upon in an ecological
way. When we envision human enactment ecologically and intercorporeally we move away from the fixation on
Technique and systems and humanise risk through a person-centred ethic.
Perception then doesn’t work like a computer where representational information is viewed as if on a movie
screen, taken into the brain and processed for decision. The embodiment of learning through resonance and
body memory is so integrated that all humans feel their way into action. Most of what we enact in daily life is
unconscious and determined by interaffectivity and intercorporeality. If anything, the brain is a resonance organ
not a computing organ and it’s innerconnectivity with the heart, gut and body through all senses means that
much of human perception is felt not computed.
When we capture the awesomeness of human embodiment and its mystery we move away from brain-centred
approaches to cognition and enactment and understand ways of envisioning of the Heart.

Chapter 1: Vision and Envisioning 27

Look With Your Heart and Not With Your Eyes
In one of the most emotional scenes in the musical Love Never Dies, Christine sings to her son Gustave about
perception/vision as knowing. And it is this advice that lingers with Gustave to the crucial moment when he is
told that the Phantom is his real father. She sings:
Love’s a curious thing
It often comes disguised
Look at love the wrong way
It goes un-recognized
So look with your heart
And not with your eyes
A heart understands
A heart never lies
So much of what we focus on in perception is on the rational and behavioural in Technique, the fixation of
STEM-only thinking. Yet, when it comes to the mysteries of love, relationships and trust, there is no evidence
that is enough to make for certainty. There is no certainty in love only faith.
We symbolize in the language of the heart and the gut, another way of knowing that cannot command any
sense of measurement, certainty or matter. When Christine sings this song we know exactly what she means.
Bronowski called this The Visionary Eye, Merleau-Ponty called it The Mind’s Eye, the Egyptians called it the Eye
of Horus, Pallasmaa called it The Eyes of the Skin, Paul called it the ‘psyche’, ‘nous’, ‘faith’ and ‘kartia’, Enns calls
it The Thinking Eye, The Seeing Brain, Fuchs calls it ‘embodied rationality’ and, Jung called it the Unconscious. Paul
tells us that when one believes something one ‘walks by faith not by sight’ (2 Cor 5:7). All of the above agree that
there is a way of knowing and vison that is transcendent, non-rational and beyond the constraints of Technique.
If we are going to discuss the phenomenon of perception, vision and envisoning we have to consider ways of
‘seeing’ that don’t just hold to materialist understandings of the world. Even then we know that the eyes are easy
to fool. So much of what we see is culturally and socially ‘constructed’ (see Hoffman Visual Intelligence, How We
Create What We See). If we are to learn anything about visual perception is that physical vision is not reliable. See:
• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228021894_Visual_Perception
• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330215545_Psychology_of_Visual_Perception
• https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(11)00030-3.pdf
• https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0301006618824879
This all brings a challenge for people in the risk industry particularly because of how the industry is anchored to
engineering and Technique Discourse.
Yet absurdly, the fixation by the global risk industry on zero is nothing more than a belief system, an ideology
that has no evidence, makes no sense and is something one is invoked to just believe (https://www.ishn.com/
articles/106817-how-to-achieve-zero-first-you-must-believe-its-possible; https://myosh.com/blog/2020/01/21/
why-zero-harm-is-not-a-reality/).
One of the first things this faith in zero asks you to do, is to believe the impossible (that humans are infallible).
All of the language and discourse around the global mantra of zero is about the rejection of science and then it
advocates answers to the challenges of risk in science and engineering? What an amazing quandary this industry
has put itself in. Indeed, the symbol of a phantom seems most suitable. We will later discuss how the framing of
zero ideology quashes vision.

28 Envisioning Risk
Epiphany
The idea of epiphany is often attached to religious ideas of realisation and conversion. However, in common
use it tends to convey a moment of unique perception even transcendent realisation beyond explanation. It is in
moments of epiphany that we often see things with new meaning or something dawns on us of great insight.
It essentially is a feeling word not a word associated with a rational process. Indeed, most often we have these
realisations because of an encounter with someone or some experience that confronts us with a decision. We
don’t get an epiphany through grinding rational process but they appear as if to demand a leap of faith. Such
experiences are often a shock and a disturbing confrontation to the senses.
It was the novelist James Joyce who used the notion of epiphany in a secular sense as a kind of spiritual
realisation. In our discussion earlier on psychedelics, music and movies there are many recollections from
composers and artists about epiphanies that lead to imaginative creation and composition.

You’ve Got a Friend

One of the greatest songs of all time is You’ve Got a Friend by Carol King and James Taylor. You’ve Got
a Friend won Grammy Awards both for Taylor (Best Male Pop Vocal Performance) and King (Song of
the Year). Dozens of other artists have recorded the song over the years, including Dusty Springfield,
Michael Jackson, Anne Murray and Donny Hathaway. It was released as a single in 1971 reaching
number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 competing against hits by the Roling Stones, Bee Gees, George
Harrison, Paul McCartney, The Jackson 5, The Carpenters, The Doors, Chicago, Cat Stevens, Bread and
others. King’s album Tapestry would go on to become one of the highest selling albums of all time.
King has stated that
... the song was as close to pure inspiration as I’ve ever experienced. The song wrote itself. It was
written by something outside myself, through me.
This is envisioning.

Big Moves Big Change

Often transitions and conversions in life involve epiphanies and/or profound realisations that involve
transcendent confrontations, cataclysmic change, embodied enactments or significant turbulence. Such changes
seem larger than life and because they involve others and social context weigh heavily on the decision making
process. We often look back in hindsight on such changes and justify our choices as some rationalisation but
most often these moments are pretty much a ‘leap of faith’. There have been such moments in my life and will
recount two such moments as a consequence of vision.

Leaving Moorook
My wife, two children and I were living comfortably on a 30 hectare block of land overlooking the
Murray River at the edge of the small community of Moorook when we decided to move to Sydney.
You can see a picture of our home and property in Figure 10. Leaving Moorook. We had moved there in
1977 from Lucindale South Australia where we had been School Teachers at an Area School. It was at
Moorook and the small township of Barmera where our first two children were born.
The move to Moorook from Lucindale was a logical one, it brought us closer to my wife’s family who
lived nearby in Renmark and my brother Graham and his family in Berri. The Lucindale experience
was significant as our first school out of University and it was there we honed our skills as teachers and
experienced life in a small farming community for 3 years. It was at Lucindale in my first year out from
Uni in 1974 that I boarded on a Soldier Settlement property and then married in 1975 and my wife and
I lived for 2 years on a Murray Grey Stud ‘Clover Ridge’, driving the longest school bus run and living in

Chapter 1: Vision and Envisioning 29

 shearers quarters. In many ways teachers at Lucindale were viewed as ‘blow ins’ as few stayed at the Area
School for very long and tended to seek teaching employment in a less remote location.
As ‘bonded’ teachers we had accepted government payment to study for education qualifications and once
completed either accepted appointment location or had to pay back the bond. How remarkable to be
paid to study and now look back on that time fondly as my own children have to pay enormous amounts
of money under the ‘user pays’ ideology of HECS fees. All of my children have had to pay to study
and then pay back the government for the expenses of that study back when they receive an income.
The experience of my wife and I was the opposite. Under the bonded scheme the South Australian
Government was able to guarantee teachers employment to remote areas and remote area teaching
positions to be filled with ease. Once a teacher had completed their 3 year bond they could then apply for
movement to a place of choice, in our case the Riverland.
One of the benefits of living on Clover Ridge a 20,000 hectare property was, receiving free
accommodation, free milk, free meat and eggs and other benefits of living remotely. As the driver of the
longest school bus run (90 minutes morning and afternoon) I was actually on a higher salary than the
school principal. In those two years my wife and I saved up and this enabled us to buy our property at
Moorook and to build our first home. This part of the story is intended to convey the anchoring and
attachments we had to the Moorook property and our first home. You can’t understand leaving without
a solid resonance with the feeling of
anchoring. Figure 10. Leaving Moorook
Moorook was a great time. I was a teacher
at a neaby school, we had brought our
motorbikes with us from Lucindale and
rode them on our property, my brother
was a Social Worker and lived nearby and
we skied together of an afternoon and
weekends. We formed a singing group with
my brother and his wife and performed
locally and interstate. In 1979 my brother
left his job as a regional Social Worker
stationed at Berri and entered Theological
College in Sydney. For Graham this was
a huge move for him and family although
it took his wife much closer to her family
who were based in Epping NSW. It was from here I observed and took interest in what my brother was
learning and was attracted to his journey.
In 1981 we visited Graham and his family in Sydney and stayed with them for a week just to catch up
and it was during that time that I had an epiphany that I too wanted to study Theology. This would mean
a few things: resigning from teaching, selling and moving home, separating from in-laws and embarking
into the unknown with little source of income to study. For my wife in particular, the challenge of this
epiphany was cataclysmic.
The point of this story is intended to convey the nature of epiphany, anchoring and relation to leaps of faith. We
all make such changes and leaps of faith in our lives and only later rationalise the choice or reasoning but the
reality at the time is more about passion and realisation that moves us somewhere. Often this occurs because of a
relationship to persons of influence, in this case my brother. At the time we have no idea what the change means
but we make it anyway despite evidence to the contrary that might say you are crazy to move but, all movement
is learning and this was certainly the case in leaving Moorook.

30 Envisioning Risk
 So we went to Sydney in 1982 and I graduated in 1986 with a degree in Theology, Master’s In Education
and Diploma in Ministry. The story of what happened next involves another epiphany.
It was during that time that I met more people that gave new realisation and further influences that led
to further change and more movement.
The Theological College I went to was a Conservative Evangelical college but it was integrated into the
Sydney College of Divinity (SCD) and the SCD was the awarding authority. It was through the SCD
that I was able to study at other colleges across all denominations such as Ethics with the Catholic and
Uniting Colleges, Systematic Theology with the Baptist College and and at the same time studying of
an evening at Sydney University a Master’s in Education with Dr W.E. Andersen and J. C. Walker. My
Master’s thesis was on Radical Christianity and its implications for Education.
It was during this time I also met Dr Robert Banks and through these relationships studied much non-
conservative theologies and ideas in Education and Learning.

Move to Canberra
It was through an encounter with Dr Robert Banks and in reading all his books that I also picked up on
the works of Jacques Ellul, Jurgen Moltmann, Walter Bruggemann, Guy Claxton, Ken Robinson and
other scholars who influenced the next move from Sydney to Canberra.
Robert Banks lived in Canberra and in my final year of theological studies I visited him and we went
on a ‘socratic walk’ around Mt Ainslie where I was looking for answers and all Robert did was reflect
back with more questions and less ‘fixes’. A socratic walk is like a semiotic walk, one spends more time
envisioning than talking.
Later that day I sat in a park and pondered all the pros and cons of not journeying into a full time role in
clergy but rather going back to teaching and informally studying with Robert and maybe contemplating
a PhD. So after a phone call with my wife something happened in that park but it became clear that this
should be the next move.
So, now with four children (2 boys and 2 girls) we made the move to Canberra in late 1986. We have
lived there since then.
Canberra is a very progressive city, the Capital of Australia and the centre of the Federal Government. It
was here that I took a position in a school and at the same time expanded my studies and connections at
the University of Canberra. Whilst at the school I met Craig Ashhurst, now Dr Craig Ashhurst and he
too was to be highly influential in my following moves not in location but in vision.
After an enjoyable few years back in schooling I decided to do a PhD with my Supervisor Prof. J.C.
Walker the Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Canberra and Dean of all Deans of
Education in Australia. Jim is one of very few Australians noted in the World Book of Philosophers for
his philosophy of Pragmatist Materialism. Jim was at Sydney University with Bill Andersen at the time I
was doing my Masters and is author of the famous neo-marxist critique of education,culture and learning
Louts and Legends.
I graduated with my PhD in 1995 and after some work in University took the opportunity to start the
Galilee Alternative School for High Needs (At-Risk) Young People. This was not so much a decision
by epiphany but rather a unique opportunity to found a school where I could adapt all of my education
ideas regarding Alternative Education. In Galilee I was able to put into practice the principles of Social
Psychology in a school. I named this methodology the PLEASE Program and this was documented in
my first book Risk Makes Sense.

Chapter 1: Vision and Envisioning 31

Again, the point of this story is to highlight the way realisations and envisioning work, move and are enacted.
After time we even remember these changes as less traumatic and stressful than they were at the time and we
make sense of these changes in the light of experiences that follow.

A Closing Note on Hermeneutics

The way we interpret text and language is critical to SPoR. The study of language, Discourse (the power in
language) and semantics is foundational to SPoR and in this regard one should start with Ricoeur, P., (1974) The
Conflict of Interpretations, Essays on Hermeneutics. Northwestern University Press. Evanston.
No text is neutral, neither is any checklist, form, process, narrative or survey. All text carries the bias, worldview,
politic, ethic and culture of the designer.
Unfortunately, many people rarely declare their ethic, methodology, bias or worldview in what they present
indeed, in the risk industry you rarely see any forms or processes that inform one of the methodology of the
form. Most often people think surveys, checklists and forms are objective, which of course they are not. Yet, the
myth of objectivity is alive and well in the risk sector that seems to have very little time for critical thinking.
More often the risk industry puts an emphasis on duty, compliance and blind following regardless of whether the
procedure, law or regulation is a poor one.
The method of hermeneutics is captured well by Boell and Cecez-Kecmanovic (http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/
viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.646.8920&rep=rep1&type=pdf ) represented graphically at Figure 11. Hermeneutic
Framework. Whilst this model shows how we process ideas and text it still doesn’t show what worldview,
assumptions and biases preceed this process.

Figure 11. Hermeneutic Framework.

32 Envisioning Risk
This is the challenge worldviews and is the challenge of the unknown unknowns. How can I know another
worldview, when all I know is my own? Can there be a different view of the world other than the lens I use
to see it? Could it be that another worldview that is antithetical to my own, could have just as valid a claim to
knowledge? How can I know another worldview without experiencing it?
All these questions challenge the future of the risk industry whose worldview is principally locked into
STEM-only and Technique. This is easily demonstrated by analysis of any of the Bodies of Knowledge in risk.
People most often misunderstand my stand against Positivism and STEM. Being critical of STEM-only
thinking doesn’t mean that I hate STEM rather, it’s just that non-STEM knowing doesn’t fit the way STEM
defines knowledge. Therefore, any assertion of faith, intuition or embodied knowing is made invalid by Positivism
and is rejected. This never used to be so, it is now asserted by Scientism/Positivism that faith and reason are
opposed to each other in binary opposition. This is fascinating because one can’t talk about certainty in human
fallible knowing without discussing ‘leaps of faith’ in risk.
The key to understanding one’s interpretation (hermeneutic) is to articulate one’s own worldview, what is known
as an ontology, a reason for being. Unfortunately, many in the risk industry cannot articulate such an ontology
which is why people are easily swayed by fads and attracted to mechanistic and behaviourist interpretations of
experience. These are not the hermeneutic of this book.
The Social Psychology of Risk (SPoR) priviledges an Existential Dialectic and understands the phenomenon of
being through such a lens. SPoR understands myth and symbol as the reverse side of the same thing which is
why many myths that exist as believed realities are symbolised. This doesn’t mean myths are not true indeed, the
symbol makes them true for the believer. Symbols are connected to myth by faith.
So as you progress through the book and you come to something you disagree with, it is likely to be a difference
in worldviews at the core rather than the concept within itself.

Questions to Consider
1. Have you ever had an epiphany? What was it about and who was it related to?
2. How do you look back on that epiphany and what do you make of it?
3. What do you think about Dave Holland’s story and his NDE and out of body experience? Have you
experienced anything like this? Have you experienced Deja Vu?
4. What things do you think are visionary?
5. Who would you call a visionary?
6. What qualities do you think are required for someone to be called a visionary?
7. Do you think these people have a unique way of perceiving?
8. Can perception and discernment be learned?
9. What do you do to cultivate your poetic side of life?
10. Do you journal or log your insights, imaginations, epiphanies and dreams?

Chapter 1: Vision and Envisioning 33

Transition
So we come to the end of this chapter setting the scene for a view of vision beyond the obvious, material and
physical sense of vision. This is a view that understands decision making beyond the idea of cognitve sorting of
perceptions by the brain. A fully embodied sense of decision making and vision needs to take into account many
non-physical symbologies and myths that incorporate the mysteries of the Mind, Spirit, Soul and the visionary eye.
The best way to understand how these work in our society is to study the Semiotics of the unconscious. One
doesn’t find such an exploration of vision in STEM. An holistic way of envisioning is more anchored to Poetics
and is a part of what captures people in discussion of visionaries in Chapter 3. If we want to better understand
vision, visionaries, envisioning and discerning then an exploration of Poetics in vision will be helpful.
We will come back to non-physical thinking about vision, perception and knowing later in the book but for the
moment having set that foundation let’s now launch into the physicality of seeing and vision in chapter two.

34 Envisioning Risk
CHAPTER 2
Perception and How We See
There is no coherence - Daniel Kahneman - www.edge.org
2
For a team to build a transcoherence capability requires a means of dealing with the sense
of incoherence that comes from collisions of worlds. - Craig Ashhurst. PhD Thesis 2020

Human beings are driven toward consistency and coherence in their perception, thinking,
feeling, behavior, and social relationships - Peter Coleman The Five Percent: Finding
Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflicts

Perception, Vision and Seeing

I Spy With My Lttle Eye
Figure 12. Birth Mark on Eye.
The human eye is fascinating. We accept
our physical vision as given unless blind
and most often take it for granted. It is
often only when our vision is threatened
that we become aware of the beauty and
mystery of this wonderful human body
part. I had such a shock of awareness in
August 2012 when I was challenged by
pains in my eye. I was in Perth at the time
and on a speaking engagement when I
experienced significant pain in my eye.
Having taken panadol to cope, I went to
sleep but next morning the pain was still
there. So off I went to emergency at Perth
Hospital and eventually got to see an eye
specialist. After a bank of tests that were inconslusive I was referred to the Canberra Eye Hospital back
home for a more thorough examination. So, on my return made an appointment and after a number of
examinations it eventuated that the eye soreness was related to sugar in my diet and a birth defect that I
was completely unaware of until the specialist took some photos of inside my eye. (See Figure 12. Birth
Mark on Eye.)

Chapter 2: Perception and How We See 35

 I guess if you haven’t had such a photo taken you wouldn’t know what goes on. The doctor puts a special
liquid into the eye that completely dilates the pupil and then a special camera is placed against the eye
that looks deeply into it and a photo is taken. It was as a result of this process that I learned I had been
born with a defect on my eye, fortunatley not on my optic nerve but to the side. So, here I was at the
age of 58 learning something new that I have carried all of my life. In many ways this is how all fallible
humans carry genetic defects that lay dormant. Zero indeed!
During the process of examination I
Figure 13. Floaters in the Eye.
learned that my specialist had spent 16
years full time studying the human eye in
Europe. What I learned from her was that
there is so much we don’t know about such
a fundamental human faculty as vision and
how the eye works.
As a result of the tests I received some
special glasses and made a change in sugar
intake. The pains still come and go but at
least I know the connection to the pain
and what to do about it.
At the time of writing this book I now
have a degree of macular degeneration
and ‘floaters’ in my right eye, none of which can be seen or observed by anyone other than myself. This is
often the nature of forms of harm we can neither see nor measure.
If I close my left eye, my world looks like Figure 13. Floaters in the Eye. My physical vision is now
compromised as well from aging and so the prognosis is gradual degeneration over time.
The cause of floaters is varied but whatever the Figure 14. Cause of Floaters.
cause (Aging, Trauma, Vitreous hemmorhage
(diabetic retinopathy, retinal tear or retinal vascular
occlusion/anomaly), Uveitis and Endophthalmitis
leads to filtered vision see (Figure 14. Cause of
Floaters). When both eyes are open one gets used
to the floaters and in time the left eye compensates
for the floaters and one’s vision tends to see them
less, unless one concentrates on their presence.
There are no magic drops or solutions
for floaters, this is the way it is. It’s like
complaining about harm and bodily
degeneration. Natural entropy is the reality
of living, there is no zero harm and such
delusional language can only lead one
away from resilience and the adaptability
required to cope with reality of harm.
The purpose of this story is not to extract sympathy but rather to make a point that much harm is hidden and
not subject to counting, the global psychosis of the safety industry. Much about being human is learning to live
with disability, fallibility, human vulnerability, harm and other dispositions that limit visual perception. This is the
concern of this chapter.

36 Envisioning Risk
So much of human frailty, fallibility, harm and vulnerability is not ‘seen’ nor measured. As a society we tend
to weigh physical and visible disability over disabilities that are not seen. This is why mental health and other
hidden issues are such a challenge for the risk industry.
Under the global mantra of zero harm (http://visionzero.global/) the focus is on what can be counted, not what
counts (what is significant - what can be envisioned). Under the delusion of zero the focus is on what can be seen
not the extensive harm that is unseen. Such is the nonsense of the zero vision ideology.

A Thorn in My Flesh
The idea of a ‘thorn in my flesh’ comes from Figure 15. Roman Aqueduct
the Apostle Paul. This metaphor carries
several meanings relevant to the idea of
vision. Paul often wrote his letters to
scattered small communities across the
ancient world because members of these
small groups of followers couldn’t see
things. Indeed, the Apostle Paul himself
serves as a symbol for vision having been
blinded on the road to Damascus, and
taking on a new vision for the very people
he was persecuting. What a conversion.
Noone knows what Paul’s ‘thorn in the
flesh’ was, maybe he had damaged eyesight
which is why some of his leters were
dictated.
Understanding something of the world
of the first century is important for Figure 16. Head of Aqueduct
understanding the perception of Paul. Paul
was a highly educated Jew but also a Roman
citizen and so had amazing access to travel
across the Roman Empire, and everything
about Paul and his mission and vision
was conditioned by this Empire, SPQR -
Senātus Populusque Rōmānus. The best way
to understand the activities and writings of
Paul is through the eyes of Empire.
It is difficult for us to imagine the all
pervasive power of the Roman Empire.
When I was in Spain I got a sense of this
wherever I travelled. To stand dwafed by
the aqueduct in Sergovia is an experience
I will never forget. This structure built
simply to transport water to the Roman
Garrison demonstrates the power and
beauty of this terrible Empire. See the
picture at Figure 15. Roman Aqueduct.

Chapter 2: Perception and How We See 37

Here is this structure with no mortar standing 2000 years later erected to obtain water by gravity feed to a
garrison. The head of the aqueduct delivered water via a 100mm groove in the rock at the end pictured at Figure
16. Head of Aqueduct.
Everywhere you travel in Europe you will see the brand SPQR, a reminder that the politics of Empire
infused all culture and society.
At its height in the first century the Roman Army had 250,000 soldiers split in 24 legions. If a legion was
directed to a region that was non-compliant it could completely decimate that region including the death
of every animal, man, woman and child. The Roman Empire was to be feared and its polictical power
absolute.
The domiance of the Empire extended to everything including religious observance and the Roman cult
ie. the Emperor was declared a god. Other religions were dominant throughout the Empire particularly
the cult of Mithras that was often confused with Christianity because of its obsession with blood,
sacrifice and worship. Amidst these cults were practices of ritual prostitution (Aphrodite) and sex temples
as was common in the city of Corinth where a small home church existed that Paul visited several times
and to whom he wrote several letters (most scholars agree that there are four letters mixed together in
the current corpus of the 2 books of Corinthians). It is important in understanding Paul that one has
some background in the dialectic between politics and cults in the first century world and this should be
paramount in a hermeneutic in reading Paul.
One of the reasons Paul wrote to the home church at Corinth was because some members were
practicing incest which was acceptable in other cults in the city and a practice they had brought into their
home church. As much as we might find this difficult to understand it was also considered in the context
something to be proud of indeed, to boast about. Another reason Paul wrote to the church in Corinth
was because of The Collection for the poor. Understanding The Collection as a political, ethical and
semiotic act is also critical for understanding Paul.
It is in the context that Paul writes to the Corinthians about his weakness, lack of boasting and his ‘thorn
in the flesh’. Noone knows what this ‘thorn in the flesh’ might have been except we do know that this
disability kept Paul humble. It is through this humility that Paul perceived the world. Any awareness of
disability helps ‘frame’ the way one ‘sees’ the world. When one knows just how fragile and fallible human
‘being’ is, then any pretence of perfection and superiority falls away.
The beginning in breaking from the cult of zero that dominates the risk industry is to accept the reality of
fallibility (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/fallibility-risk-living-uncertainty/) and develop
a discourse that accommodates this reality in how one ‘sees’ the world. This is the beginning of developing
and envisioning risk.
Understanding the thorns in our flesh makes for the beginning of learning. In my case not just because of the
imperfections in my physical sight but also imperfections in my body as a fallible human. It is only the delusional
can speak the words ‘zero harm’.
This brings us to the challenges of seeing, vision and perception and the differences and depedencies between
each. So without getting too caught up in the mechanics of the eye or visula perception, let’s start with a general
discussion of perception to begin with.

Foundations of Perception and Imagination in Risk

In many ways humans see what they want to see, there is no such thing as objective perception. Hoffman (1998)
is a good place to start in investigating the Psychology and Philosophy of Preception. The problem of perception
is simplisticly captured in the following cartoon. It is one of the truisisms of human perceptive subjectivity that
two humans can look at the same thing and see something differnt. See Figure 17. Differing Perceptions.

38 Envisioning Risk
The modern study of the Psychology of Perception
Figure 17. Differing Perceptions
really started with the work of Bruner, Postman
and Goodman in the 1940s (https://psychclassics.
yorku.ca/Bruner/Cards/). Bruner and Postman
showed through tachistoscopic exposure (https://
www.thefreedictionary.com/tachistoscopic) that
humans don’t see the world as it is but rather filter
all they see through: experience, culture, societal
dynamics, knowledge, family history, environment
and a host of social influences that provide cues
in how to interpret visual images. Perception is
‘learned’.
One of the early experiments of Bruner and
Postman demonstrated how humans are ‘atuned’ to
seeing things as their culture dictates. From the age
of 3 months all children learn to ‘read’ emotions
from facial expression and the accompanying Figure 18. The Four Cards
‘feeling’ associated with that emotion (see Fuchs,
Raaven etc). Bruner’s card experiment used
ordinary playing cards with some cards that were
‘tricked’.
The main finding of this Bruner experiment
and a host of other similar experiments with
objects, human faces and emotions is, that the
human recognition threshold for incongruity is
significantly higher than normal according to
cultural definition. We recognise incongruity in
Figure 18. The Four Cards. One can only determine
the incongruity if one is familiar with the culture
and conventions of playing cards. So, if one hasn’t
been enculturated with the rules of playing cards
one cannot see the incongruity.
When I started my first education degree in 1970, J.S. Bruner was foundational in understanding child and
adolescent development and how perception is learned. It was Bruner (1957) who demonstrated that children
learn visually according to context and that perceptual readiness varies from child to child according to social
reality (https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1958-04908-001). Bruner and Goodman (https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/
Bruner/Value/) demonstrated that value, language and need (cultural foundations) also shape perception with
their coin and many other experiments.
What all this work by Bruner and others demonstrates is that visual perception is also embodied that is,
our perception is condition by how we ‘feel’ just as much as the physicality of the object itself (https://
consciouslifenews.com/conditioning-belief-perceptual-filters/11100887/#).

The Epping Driveway

When I was a child I remember our driveway in Epping in Sydney being so steep and scary. I remember
it as a long driveway with two channels of concrete and grass down the middle. As kids we would race
down it into the garage and struggle to put the brakes on before hitting the wall, that’s when Dad’s car
wasn’t in there.

Chapter 2: Perception and How We See 39

 Apart from the space for the car there wasn’t much else that could fit in the garage. Dad wasn’t a
handyman and so there were no shelves or racks of tools etc, the garage was pretty much just a square box
made of wood frame and fibro sheet.
I remember the thrill of racing towards the shed wall counting on the heel of my shoe or a rubber brake
to prevent an impact. Back then the risk seemed larger than life.
Some years later I was able to visit the house I lived in 40 years ago only to discover just how mild the
slope of the driveway was. The back yard we thought was so huge was much smaller and the garage was
still a box with the same swinging wooden doors.
This is not just how children see the world but how we all see the world. Our eyes may act as a lens but
all we perceive is filtered and interpreted through time, place and space. When our context changes often
we see things we never saw before or we correct our memories of impressions that simply don’t make
sense anymore.
Bruner showed that the factors that motivate us also condition what we see. Similarly, Bruner explained why
people underestimate and overestimate everything from distance, value, time and experiences (https://journals.
sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022022116661243). There are a plethora of experiments that show that even
criminal prejudice is shaped by colour, dress and language in court! (Balcetis and Lassiter (2010) Social Psychology
of Visual Perception and Bruner, (2002) Making Stories: Law, literature, life; Bruner and Amsterdam (2000)
Minding the Law; and Gibson, (1979) The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception)
One of the fascinating biases of the STEM-only view of risk is the naïve belief that perception is both objective
and veridical (ie. representational of the real). This is simply not so. In some of my workshops (https://www.
humandymensions.com/services-and-programs/mirisc-workshop/; https://www.humandymensions.com/
services-and-programs/culture-program/) we undertake experiments demonstrating just how much everything in
visual and mindful (embodied) perception is interpreted.
If we have a group of 16 people in the training room we get 16 variations to such simple questions as, ‘how long
would it take to drive to Newcastle?’ ‘How much does a wheelbarrow of sand weigh?’ ‘How long would it take to
push that barrow up and back a building site?’
When I ask ambiguous and paradoxical questions the variations in answers are so broad one would wonder
if the people in the workshop live in the same world. This aspect of perception distortion is known as the
Einstellung Effect (https://tammylenski.com/einstellung-effect-in-problem-solving/; https://exploringyourmind.
com/einstellung-effect/). Human reality is mostly constructed hence in Social Psychology we use the label
‘Constructivism’ to explain the subjectivity of experience and perception.
When it comes to text, perception variation and interpretation (hermeneutics) is even more pronounced. People
wonder why there is one religious document but 1000 denominations or one god and 1000 religions!
In the risk industry, people are profoundly mis-educated about the objectivity of text namely, the WHS Act,
Regulation, Standards and Risk Assessments (SWMS). The opposite is the case, the WHS Act and Regulation
are profoundly subjective and this is why the STEM-only worldview struggles so much with the way the Law is
interpreted and the way justice is administered in risk (https://vimeo.com/162493843).
This is a sad indictment of an industry that is yet to have an element of ethics or critical thinking in its
curriculum (https://safetyrisk.net/isnt-it-time-we-reformed-the-whs-curriculum/). Both Ethics and Critical
Thinking are essential for the development of professionalism. This is why I undertook a series of videos, podcasts
and books with Greg Smith to demonstrate just how far out of skew the risk industry is in the way it understands
law. (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/risky-conversations/; https://spor.com.au/podcasts/risky-
conversations-talking-book/; https://vimeo.com/showcase/3938199).
So, does this mean there is no reality? Of course not, except to say that much of what we assume to be real is
interpreted as it fits our worldview which means, some things are real for us (myth) but there is certainly no

40 Envisioning Risk
common sense or common sensemaking process! The best way to understand how worldviews are constructed is
to travel the world and experience just how much perceptions of reality vary across cultures. Or better still, travel
around your city (eg. Sydney) and move between Lakemba, Kings Cross and Vaucluse. Hang around the entrance
to the Wayside Chapel Kings Cross (https://www.waysidechapel.org.au/) for a few minutes and ‘feel’ how people
understand risk! It doesn’t take long to work out that a street person or homeless person doesn’t see the world of
risk like you!
Hence the importance to learn a person’s ‘worldview’ should be part of any education and learning in risk. This
is the foundational work of an Ethic of Risk and Transdisciplinarity. Variation in worldview is often why people
are so challenged with different envisioning because the necessity for feeling comfort and safety precedes the
capability to learn.
It is much easier according to a culture of safety or perception of safety to demonize enemies (and visionaries) so
one doesn’t have to be confronted with alternative perceptions/visions. There are many programs out there in the
risk industry that ensure that nothing changes, regardless of how they are branded.

Newsletter and Perception

When I write my quaterly Newsletters (https://spor.com.au/downloads/newsletter-archive/) I usually
include a competition about perception as a way of reinforcing the fundamentals of perception to the
perception of risk. Trying to find a cat in a field is not much different from discerning risk on site. The
psychology of perception ought to be foundational thinking for everyone in the risk industry and it might
help moderate conflict and debate in a more healthy way.
Once one has studied the psychology of perception then the next step is to undertake the challenge of
imagination, the essential for all risk assessment and incident investigations. If your incident investigation
program doesn’t understand both perception and imagination its probably of little value.
So by now you have looked at the cards on the previous page and have seen the trick, how long did it take? Why?

The Camera Metaphor Figure 19. Comparing The Human Eye

Humans scramble for a metaphor when and Camera
they seek to create meaning in language.
It is a strange truism that we seek indirect
language and, subjective word pictures
that lack clear definition, when we want to
express ourselves. Unfortunatley we go to
metaphors sometimes that are unhelpful
and profoundly misleading. This is the
case when we compare the human mind
(embodied) to a computer, as if the human
is simply a brain-on-a-body. Similarly, it
is completely eroneous to use the camera
metaphor to apply to the human eye, as in
Figure 19. Comparing the Camera and the
Human Eye.
We live by myths and metaphors and some of the
myths and metaphors we use in risk are unhelpful.
We construct guiding principles that we live by
(myths-symbols) and express those myth-symbols
in metaphors we use to explain what we believe.

Chapter 2: Perception and How We See 41

These metaphors (Lakhoff and Johnson) then become the way we ‘frame’ and ‘anchor’ our worldview/story about
what we think is true. We use myths and metaphors as a lens (filter) through which we see the world. This is why
perception is constructed (Hoffman – Visual Intelligence) not objective. Two such myths are the eye-as-camera
and brain-as-computer metaphors.
If we use the computer metaphor to understand human personhood (Mind) we end up with a model of the
brain-as-a-computer myth and miss the mystery and complexity of embodiment. This then enables a small
jump in faith to launch into the nonsense of ‘machine learning’, when we know machines can’t ‘learn’. Without
imagination, discovery, the unconscious, emotions, feelings, heart-gut knowing, dreaming and Poetics, there is no
real learning. The repetition of algorithms is not learning and data is not knowledge.
Similarly, the attraction to the metaphor of the eye-as-camera to explain perception is nonsensical. Such a
comparison draws one into the mechanics myth as if the human eye is just an object that absorbs images.
The idea that the human eye absorbs images as they appear is smashed by all the research into human visual
perception. There is simply no comparison between the workings of a camera and the human eye despite vain
efforts to draw such a comparison. Such a comparison is more wishful attribution than reality and demonstrates
more about the binary assumptions of the person projecting such a comparison.
The camera never lies, because the camera doesn’t have to tell what it sees – but our visual system does.
A photograph gives the illusion that a thing is being captured but its about what something looks like
when it is photographed, not how it is experienced.
(Snowden, Thompson and Troscianko – Basic Vision, An Introduction to Our Visual Perception, p.3).
Even if one thinks mechanically the human retina is nothing like a camera lens. Your average camera might have
24 megapixels, your eye has about 130 million megapixels. Of those about 6 million are devoted to interpreting
things as coloured and the rest just see black and white (Enns, The Thinking Eye, The Seeing Brain). The central
part of our visual field The Macula has more pixels per square mm that the best camera in the world, approx.
150,000 pixels per 1mm. But even to talk about the human eye as a lens is misleading.
Our visual system comprises more than a lens and an optic nerve, everything about the human eye is
interconnected with the human body and brain. The computers and microchips attached to a camera are pathetic
compared to the way the visual system works for a human, especially as the human brain doesn’t work anything
like a computer.
A camera doesn’t have an unconscious but a human eye does (the lateral geniculate nucleus). The eye has an
unconscious that compares images between both eyes, assembles and selects parts (automatically) it deems
significant into 3D images and then sends them to the brain and body for interpreting, discerning and enacting.
At the same time the unconscious in the embodied human also sends signals to the eye moving the eyeball so the
macula can focus on something of deemed significance and eliminate a focus on something else. These signals can
be determined by bodily emotions and feelings unknown to the eye. The unconscious also rejects much incoming
bandwidth sending only a small fraction of data to the brain. This interconnectivity and interaffectivity (Fuchs)
is automatic in human perception/vision. In this way we also know that we perceive things through our skin!
(Pallasma). That is, we see things through what we feel. The skin to heart system is also a part of vision.
Most of the time humans are not conscious of what they are seeing. At the moment as you read this text you
are in a conscious mode (Mind 1 - https://vimeo.com/156926212) that consciously focuses your mind to send
information from your central vision only, so you can read this text and move your eyes from left to right as
culturally determined. The moment you stop reading and without moving your eyes you pick up and see things
in peripheral view that you couldn’t see a few seconds ago. But the moment you move your peripheral vision to
consciously see beyond the text, you can no longer read.
In many ways the human eye is nothing like a video camera. Our eyes are able to look around a scene and
dynamically adjust based on subject matter, whereas cameras capture a single still image in multiple frames
depending on where the camera is pointed. Our eyes can compensate as we focus on regions of varying

42 Envisioning Risk
brightness, and can look around to encompass a broader angle of view, or can alternately focus on objects at a
variety of distances.
You can’t separate the eye from the Mind (embodied person). This is why our eyes ‘interpret’ our reality and
can be easily ‘fooled’ into seeing things that are not there or that are not present (real). This is where the Social
Psychology of Perception needs to be understood (Balcetis and Lassiter). Most of what we see is socially
constructed. Our unconscious is socially motivated and what we see is contextually-culturally regulated. This is
evidenced by the Einstellung Effect (https://safetyrisk.net/incident-investigations-and-the-einstellung-effect/).
ALL vision is Social Psychologically determined, there is no neutral objective sense of vision.
There are so many ways to demonstrate that a human eye is not like a camera and we do this often in our
Introduction to the Social Psychology of Risk (SPoR) Module (https://cllr.com.au/product/an-introduction-to-
the-social-psychology-of-risk-unit-1-free-online-module/ -currently being offered free on line). This is why I
always include optical illusions in the CLLR
quarterly newsletter (https://spor.com.au/ Figure 20. Spotted Image
downloads/newsletter-archive/). Every optical
illusion we see demonstrates that visual perception
is a matter of interpretation, what Ricouer
describes as ‘hermeneutical vision’. This is how we
are ‘taught’ to read.
In the SPoR workshop we often show the image of
spots (Figure 20. Spotted Image)
When you first look at this image one only sees a
bunch of dots and blotches. When we are told
what to see, we can then see it. Can you see the
Dalmatian dog? Can you see the number 74?
Surely, a dog or a number is there or it isn’t? After
all, if vision is neutral and objective like a camera
Figure 21. Spotted Image Solution
then such images must be objective and not
contextually interpreted. The following (Figure 21.
Spotted Image Solution) allows you to see the dog
amongst the dots:
Now to find the 74?
We should resist metaphors such as eye-as-camera
and computer-as-brain because they don’t help us
understand risk or perception or how to envision
risk. The naïve binary approach to understanding
perception and vision that is common to risk
Discourse only leads to constructing incident
investigations to match false perceptions to meet
assumptions.
If you want to understand visual perception then dumping the binary Mentalitie and simplistic metaphors
is essential. In particular, get rid of the naïve metaphor that the human eye is a camera. There should be no
disconnect between vision, visual system, personhood, Mind, the unconscious and enculturation. Furthermore,
our culture constructs myths and symbols that we create to interpret what we see and our Collective Unconscious
constructs the myths we find favourable to our worldview.

Chapter 2: Perception and How We See 43

A Necessary Review of One Brain Three Minds (1B3M)
A significant level of understanding in this Chapter relies on a thorough knowledge of SPoR and the 1B3M
concept including, an understanding of how knowledge, thinking and decision making is embodied.
SPoR is founded on the methodology of dialectic, the dialogue between i-thou. This triarchic philosophy (i -
thou) symbolises relationship in constant existential movement, and nothing like the Hegelian dialectic that finds
a synthesis in conflict between thesis and anti-thesis. In other words, all oppositions and paradox are in unending
movement (learning) and hold true to context, social moment and historical place/space (Mentalitie).
We know that when we get stressed and anxious, our heart races, when we feel overwhelmed we get ‘butterflies in
our gut’ and the same with some sensations such as excessive guilt and fear, we get physically sick, we get an ache
in the gut. It is not uncommon for people who are not coping physically to go to the toilet or soil themselves, to
cry uncontrollably or to have high blood pressure. These sensations may come partly from the brain yet they are
triggered and communicated indepedently by the endocrine, nervous and immune systems. Under acute stress
the body shuts down, and most importantly the sensations are felt in the heart and gut.
In order to convey the embodied nature of decision making I use three brain images as Minds across the semiotic
of a speedometer. As much as every model has flaws and weaknesses, this model allows an understanding of
how the human embodied Mind envisions. This triarchic model seeks to explain both the automaticity of
human decision making and also the slow rational mode of decision making and thinking. In many ways this
corresponds to Damasio’s model articulated well in: Damasio, A., (1994) Descartes Error, Emotion, Reason, and the
Human Brain. Penguin, New York. and Damasio, A., (1999) - The Feeling of What happens, Body and Emotion in
the Making of Consciousness. Harvest Books, Orlando.
The following explains the model in text.

Mind 1.
In Mind 1. we make slow rational decisions like completeing a paperbased checklist or form. If we do a ‘tick and
flick’ on the same checklist then we do that in Mind 2. or Mind 3.
Mind 1. is that process of slow thinking that requires methodical, systematic and rational thinking.

Mind 2
Mind 2. is about heuristical thinking ie. thinking that relies of ‘learned shorcuts’ and practiced habits. This kind
of decision making is essential for humans to be fast and efficient. This is decision making based on patterns,
trial and error and habits that become infused into our thinking through experience and are triggered by either
perception, experience or memory. Much of this type of decision making doesn’t involve rational choice or
analytical thinking. It is quick and efficient. The best place to read on this are Gigerenzer and Plous:
Gigerenzer, G., Todd, P., and the ABC Research Group. (1999) Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart. Oxford.
London.
Giggerenzer, G., (2000) Adaptive Thinking, Rationality in the Real World. Oxford. London.
Gigerenzer, G., (2002) Calculated Risks, How to Know When Numbers Decieve You. Simon and Schuster. New York.
Gigerenzer, G., (2007) Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious. Viking, New York.
Gigerenzer, G., (2008) Rationality For Mortals, How People Cope with Uncertainty. Oxford. London.
Gigerenzer, G., (2014) Risk Savvy, How to make Good Decisions. Viking. New York.
Plous, S., (1993) The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making. McGraw Hill, New York.

44 Envisioning Risk
Mind 3 Figure 22. One Brain Three Minds
Mind 3. thinking is about total automaticity,
what Damasio states as non-conscious decision
making. In this state one is unaware of the process
of deciding, thinking or rational processing. This
is often referred to as ‘gut thinking’ or intuitional
thinking but is commonly understood as ‘auto
pilot’ or ‘gut’ thinking.
The best to read on this is:
Bargh, J. A., (ed.) (2007) Social Psychology and the
Unconscious: Automaticity of Higher Mental Processes.
Psychology Press, New York.
Hassin, R., Uleman, J., and Bargh, J., (2005) The New Unconscious. Oxford University Press, London.
This is represented semiotically in the 1B3Minds graphic: Figure 22. One Brain Three Minds.

The Embodied Integrated-Ecological Human Being

One of the greatest impediments to an envisioned understanding of risk is how popular worldviews define the
human person and culture. The idea that the fallible human is divided between a body and a brain completely
distorts all strategy in risk just as the camera metaphor misrepresents the working of the human eye.
The problem of consciousness and of knowing in risk can never be properly tackled as long as the human mind
and life, brain and body, environment and inner self, are conceptualized in such a way that they exclude each
other. As long as the risk industry remains anchored to Behaviourist/Cognitivist paradigms popular in the
STEM-only approach, all solutions and strategy will fail to respond holistically to humans as socially embodied
persons.
The traditional response in the risk industry to the problem of harm and injury has always been focused as a
brain-environment problem. Whilst the industry has worked over history in shaping a safer environment, it still
doesn’t understand how embodied fallible humans respond to that environment. This is most pronounced in the
safety-in-design curriculum.
The focus on human judgment and decision making in risk training has always found its locus in the brain and
systems. Indeed, in the language of the industry ‘the brain’ and ‘mind’ are used interchangeably as if they are
the same thing. And so, the language of risk is primarily mechanistic focused on the brain as an interpreter and
representer of systems. By confusing and integrating the language of brain and mind, the industry misses the
opportunity to understand how decision making is embodied and so understands thinking as cognition.
If one understands humans as embodied then consciousness doesn’t stop at the skin. This is why SPoR studies the
emotions and affectivity.
Moreso, the discovery of canonical neurons in the premotor cortex in the 1990s helps us understand our own
agency in the world and how we ‘feel’ part of it. Our environment ‘thinks’ and ‘feels’ just as much as we do
(Bateson).
The model of the brain as a computer ‘driving’ the body, is simply not supported by the evidence. The idea
and approach of ‘reprogramming’ the brain has little chance of making much difference to the practice of
tackling risk.

Chapter 2: Perception and How We See 45

The brain does not create the Mind. If humans are ‘embodied’ then the brain is not the organ of creation or
instigation but rather a relational organ that ‘mediates’ our living in the world. As Claxton (2015, Intelligence in
the Flesh) notes:
the brain does not issue commands but rather hosts conversations.

What Are The Implications of Human Embodiment for Tackling Risk?

1. Risk must be viewed much more as a socially enacted process, where all factors not just process, human and
Technique are viewed as interconnected and ecological.
2. The idea of complacency (The Wayward Mind) must not be viewed as just a brain problem. If the Mind is an
integrated whole then everything should have significance in tackling risk.
3. If humans are not conscious of many things but ‘repress’ aspects of themselves even to themselves, then social
presence must be given much more importance in knowing oneself in context and in tackling risk.
4. As social and ecological communicators all symbols and language should be given much greater significance
in the risk industry including current messaging and symbols that ignore the unconscious.
5. Moreso, issues of Mind, psychological health, resilience and well-being must be viewed as a social challenge
not an individual challenge. We have to stop viewing resilience as ‘pulling oneself up by the bootlaces’ but
resilience as the holistic and ecological challenge.
6. Much more interest needs to be shown from Transdisciplinary approaches to tackling risk. This means
that such interests as Anthropology, Social Psychology, Education and Learning, Pastoral Care, Ethics and
Semiotics should be included in the curriculum.
7. An awareness of what is unconscious should therefore become of interest including interest in the human
and ‘Collective Unconscious’.
8. The mechanistic and dehumanizing trajectory of excessive systems and excessive objectifying should stop, and
a new vision for risk should be countenanced as an ecological process.
9. Training should therefore shift from a training room focus to an embodied process in situ, where implicit
knowledge receives greater value and heuristics are taken seriously.
10. If leadership is about vision then the current focus on meaningless data, language and symbology must be
dropped and a new narrative created in how tackling risk is practiced.
To take up any of these challenges will require a real sense of vision and change. Whilst lots of language about
‘disruption’ and ‘vision’ is used in the risk sector there is still yet to be any conversation about the need for a
fundamental paradigm (ideological) shift in how decision making is to be understood and envisioned.

Mirror Neurons
Vittorio Gallese (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vittorio_Gallese) discovered that we all have ‘mirror
neurons’ and that our internal organs are set off by neurochemical reactions that generate sympathy,
empathy and identification. This was most demonstrated recently with the picture of young Alan Kurdi
dead on a Turkish beach (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Alan_Kurdi young boy dead on the
beach). The outpouring of empathy across the world demonstrates how ‘social resonance’ works.
Our bodies are in a continual state of resonance and reverberation with all that is around us and these are not
‘inputs’ and ‘outputs’. The computer metaphor applied to human being is the delusion of the STEM-only curse.
Sorry to disappoint the risk industry but humans are organical not mechanical.
All effective communication depends on ‘body coupling’, that is, the ability to read and connect with others.
We unconsciously learn to ‘read’ others emotions, body language and expressions and our body resonates

46 Envisioning Risk
with our perceptions, without brain direction. Life-Mind is much more like a social dance than a binary
computer program.
When we read any book on the unconscious, Mind, Neuropsychology or Neurophysiology one cannot avoid
the use of metaphor in trying to make the incomprehensible comprehendable. It is simply a fact of human
discourse and communication that The Rule of Metaphor (Ricoeur) is foundational to all human thinking and
communication. If any of the disciplines shared anything in common it is the use of metaphor. This is also
why a study of Semiotics is essential to the Social Psychology of Risk. This is why in SPoR much is explained
graphically and semiotically as a visual discourse to convey meaning (semiosis).
Humans are much more than a biological animal which is why scholars and philosophers have struggled through
the ages to explain ‘the self ’ and consciousness. There is simply no way to go into the brain and find the place of
consciousness because humans are both embodied individually and socially. This is symbolised in Figure 23. One
Person, Three Ways of Knowing/Deciding.

Why Does 1B3M Matter Figure 23. One Person Three Ways of Knowing/Deciding
to Envisioning?
One’s methodology (philosophy),
anthropology (understanding of humans)
and ontology (theory of being) are
essential for how one understands the
paradox of risk. If one comes to human
‘being’ from a computational, behavioural,
binary or cognitivist ideology (Technique)
then the pathway of metrics, mechanics,
objects, fundamentalist and regulatory
capture are the trajectory for method.
All these methodologies lead to a
dehumanising ethic and a fixation on
objects rather than humanising people in
the process of tackling risk.
If on the other hand one understands
humans as social beings and as embodied
then method will be very different. The
focus is then on higher-order goals such
as: trust, relationship, community, ethics,
care, helping, understanding, mutuality
and respect. The issue of goal setting, motivation and perception will be discussed later in the book.
SPoR is interested in Poetics and Mimetics as essential to envisioning risk. When one is interested in the nature
of the unconscious and how humans make decisions one moves away from Positivist/Empiricist approaches to
knowledge and looks at a broader approach to vision understanding human decision making.

Beyond Consciousness
One of the truisms of the music, dance, poetry and arts scene is the commonality of psychedelics
and accessing the unconscious (Hill, S., (2013) Confrontation with the Unconscious, Jungian Depth
Psychology and Psychedelic Experience. Muswell Hill Press. London). A study of 19th Century
literature and art reveals that opium influenced the creative and imaginative spirit of many thinkers,
philosophers, poets, musicians and artists (https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/

Chapter 2: Perception and How We See 47

 representations-of-drugs-in-19th-century-literature; https://www.worldcrunch.com/culture-society/
under-the-influence-tracing-a-long-twisted-history-of-artists-and-their-drugs). Much of the creative
and imaginative work of the likes of: Dickens, Coleridge, Browning, Van Gogh, Warhol, Pollock, Led
Zepplin, The Beatles and Rolling Stones were drug induced by accessing the unconscious. And BTW,
you don’t have to have more than a few milligrams in the body to generate visions, dreams, hallucinations
and creative ideas.
There are some of course who have visions, dreams and an imagination that doesn’t require psychotic
drugs to enact the imagination and creativity. There is no record of either Jung or Blake having taken
drugs to induce dreams or visions.
Now before I venture too much further let me say that this discussion does not advocate the taking of
psychedelics. What I do want to point out is that even the slightest chemical imbalance in the body can trigger
the unconscious to see things beyond conscious control, and lead to practical outworking of decisions and
judgments. This is critical knowledge when confronting the massive challenges of mental health in the workplace.
It is interesting that throughout history that visionaries, prophets and seers were considered weird and crazy, but
worthy of attention. People knew that the prophet saw things they couldn’t see.
Whilst I can’t comment on the music scene today, it was clear in the 1970s that much of the creative spirit
in music came not from the conscious mind but the unconscious mind (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Drug_use_in_music).
Everytime I undertake workshops in tackling risk I introduce the nature of human decision making through
the One Brain Three Minds concept (https://vimeo.com/156926212; https://vimeo.com/106770292). Unless
the risk industry tackles the issue of consciousness it will never understand the nature of The Wayward Mind and
complacency. Further see Claxton’s work:
• Claxton, G., (1990) The Heart of Buddhism, Practical Wisdom for an Agitated Society. Aquarian. London.
• Claxton, G., (1997) Hare Brain Tortoise Mind, How Intelliegence Increases When You Think Less. Ecco Press.
London.
• Claxton, G., (2005) The Wayward Mind, An Intimate History of the Unconscious. Abacus. London.
• Claxton, G., (2016) Intelligence in the Flesh. Yale University Press, New York.
Claxton’s work ought to be mandated reading for any risk curriculum.

Perception, Vision and Flow

Accordion to scientific studies,

90% of all people don’t realise,

that I replaced the beginning

of this sentence with an

Instrument.

They have my symphony.

Now that you have read the six lines above you didn’t realise that the starting word was a musical instrument. This
demonstrates the way we have been taught to read. In order to be fast and efficient in reading we don’t read text
in Mind 1, we make rapid assumptions about shapes, symbols and text-as-image to to make meaning in what we

48 Envisioning Risk
see. Most of the time we read things heuristically
Figure 24 Dolphins on Bottle Image
not in detail. We also see things through how we
have been enculturated ie. we learn to compose
things heuristically rather than be slowed down by
detail. We use our experience and memory to make
sense of things. This is the case with the Dolphins
in Figure 24. Dolphins on Bottle Image and Figure
25. The Rejoicing People Image. In both these images
it depends on our life experience to what we see.
If we see sexual images that is because we have
been enculturated to see such when indeed, if one
didn’t use a sexual lens to see both images one
would see 9 dolphins on the face of the bottle (See
Figure 26. Dolphins Solution) and on the Rejoicing
Image 6 characters waving their arms and palm
leaves like was the case for Jesus walking into
Jerusalem (Matthew 21:1–11, Mark 11:1–11, Luke
19:28–44, and John 12:12–19).
These images demonstrate how we tend to
see what we want to see, that perception is Figure 25. The Rejoicing People Image
enculturated and constructed. Once you see the
dolphins and rejoicing people, you can’t not see
them and then find it difficult to reverse your
perception.

The Devil is in The Detail

If you ever wanted proof that people don’t read
detail just try conducting lectures, webinars or
courses on line and communicate through email.
Very few people read email or text fully, slowly Figure 26. Dolphins Solution
or in detail. Of all the industries the most poor
at detail is the risk industry. It seems that this
industry that is so excessive about compliance in
text, checklists, forms, reports, data, documentation
and written regulation has been taught over time
to read nothing properly. This is the heuristic of
‘tick and flick’. There is so much about fallible
perception in eye sight that is bewildering. By
the time you purchase this book it will have gone
through many hands in editting yet there will still
be errors we miss.

Covid-19 Online Communication

In the middle of the Coronavirus crisis
2020 I was conducting four free courses
online with over 130 people participating
these were: a book reading group, advanced

Chapter 2: Perception and How We See 49

 Semiotics group, a writing skills group and the Introduction to SPoR module. All of the communications
in email detailed: times, log on, readings, links, dates, format, homework, video links and meeting criteria.
The bulk of attendees were from the risk industry although there were some from HR, Education,
Nursing, Community, Legal and Government professions. Since I started the process during the
Covid-19 crisis it was common to have 25% of the risk people request something because they didn’t read
the email instructions. What does this say about an industry consumed with paperwork?
Here we are with an industry consumed with the mythology of Zero (https://safetyrisk.net/
zero-is-meaningless/) and the regulation of activity through paperwork and many don’t read detail.
What fascinating implications for this absurd belief that paperwork keeps you safe, when it doesn’t
(https://vimeo.com/162034157). Even if you were to read most documents they only make you
Papersafe (https://www.amazon.com.au/Paper-Safe-triumph-bureaucracy-management-ebook/dp/
B07HVRZY8C).
The same applies for blogs. Many people who respond to my blogs and writings rarely read things slowly
or methodically. As best most read the headline, scan the page and respond with what our agenda is,
not in dialogue with what has been written. Linkedin groups seem to be classic evidence for how much
people in the risk industry don’t read.
Of course the idiom ‘The Devil is in the Detail’ infers that something evil lurks in a hidden place, a tough lesson
for those involved in Contract Law or Insurance. A classic example is when one purchases a mobile phone and a
carrier service. Often all we want is the phone, we can see the phone and hold the phone and … here just sign on
the dotted line. All goes well until the first hiccup then one finds that a special clause absolves the carrier of all
responsibility and fault.
An interesting aside to this idiom is also the semiotic of the devil himself (usually male). Even though
few would countenance the idea of a literal devil we all have been enculturated to accept the common
metaphor of the horned devil with (https://
www.nationalgeographic.com/history/ Figure 27. Can You Read This?
magazine/2018/09-10/history-devil-medieval-art-
middle-ages/) a fork, pointed tail, lizard features
and nasty fangs (https://www.history.com/topics/
folklore/history-of-the-devil). A sure prime for
the innocent (Safety Achetype) who expect evil
to look evil when Evil mostly masquerades as
good. There is nothing more evil that claiming
care through zero and then discovering that zero
was the ideology that got you sacked. Perhaps the
Devil isn’t in the detail but in Zero.
The idea that we read heuristically is reinforced
by many of the reading challenges that adorn the
Internet with jumbled text for example, Figure 27.
Can You Read This. This demonstrates how we are
taught to read by shape and heuristically, all we
need is the same shape with the first and last letter
to be the same, our perception composes the rest.

50 Envisioning Risk
Physical Seeing is Not Straight Forward?
Although we experience physical sight as simple Figure 28. The Mechanics of The Eye
and straight forward, it isn’t. When one investigates
the eye-brain-body continuum the complexity and
mystery of sight becomes unfathomable. Our eyes
receive sensory input through the cornea and the
iris is a circular muscle that expands and contracts
automatically (Mind 3) according to the ammount
of light it receives. Inside the iris is a lens that
unlike a camera, can change its shape so as to focus
on one thing in attention. The lens focuses light
to the back of the eye through liquid called the
vitreous humour onto the retina, which is covered
in an array of cones and rods (receptors) and finally
the optic nerve takes the information received
and sends it to the brain and body (see Figure 28.
The Mechanics of The Eye). However, to think of Figure 29. Eye-Brain-Body Relationship
this process as simple input and output completly
misses the mystery and integration of the process.
The information received by the eye travels to
specific places in the brain at the back of the
head (see Figure 29. Eye-Brain-Body Relationship)
via the optic nerve (compacted with a million
neurons-axons). On route to the brain half of the
axons take a detour through the optic chiasma.
Fibres representing the left half of the retina
are sent to the right side of the head and fibers
representing the right half of the retina are sent
to the left region of the head. In this way the
images that come into the eye are upside down
and mirror reversed. The left half of the brain
representing right and left visual field are not
even connected to each other. The information
passes through the mid-part of the brain where
information processing become binocular and aids
eye-hand-body coordination.
The place of the optic nerve on the retina creates a blind spot (scotoma) because it has no photoreceptors and
therefore no vision. We will discuss various forms of blindness in Chapter Four.
The photoreceptors (cones and rods) vary in shape and purpose. Whilst rods are basically the same, cones come
in three sorts and help create the sense of colour through certain wavelengths. Rods respond best to dim light
and are highly sensitive to light. The sensitivity of the rods to light take some time to respond and so when we
go from bright light to dark light and vice versa we can’t see well until the rods adjust. The fovea is a tiny pit
in the retina that spreads aside to let light travel to the cones and this space provides the clears vision of all in
the macula (the central area of the retina). The macula is about 5.5mm wide and is subdivided into the umbo,
foveola, foveal avascular zone, fovea, parafovea, and perifovea areas. You can see my macula on the graphic of my
eye defect at the start of this chapter. I was so close to being born blind.

Chapter 2: Perception and How We See 51

There is much more to the functioning of the eyes and integration with brain-body that we simply have no
place in this book to explore. The automaticity of how we ‘focus’ on something, understand depth, size and
colour, develop 3 dimensional perception, understand images in spacial vision, peripheral vision and understand
attention and neglect are best researched elsewhere.
There is so much scientifc information about the nature of vision and the human eye it would be crazy to
replicate it and to do so would not be necessary for the purpose of this book. There are however some intersting
aspects of physical vision that need to be discussed to help add to the mystery of how we see. If you wish to read
in detail about the physical nature of seeing, I have found the following helpful:
• Enns, J., (2004) The Thinking Eye, The Seeing Brain, Explorations in Visual Cognition. Nortons. New York.
• Hoffman, D., (2000) Visual Intelligence, How We Create What We See. Nortons. New York.
• Snowden, R., Thompson, P., and Trosciano, T., (2006) Basic Vision, An Introduction to Visual Perception.
Oxford. London.

Retinal Ganglion Cells

The more one delves into the way the human eyes work, the more complex and intricate things get. When I went
to see the eye specialist in 2012 she had a number of degrees on her wall all in study in the human eye including
an MD and 2 PhDs in Opthamology, also from Europe and USA as well as studies in Australia. How could
someone do that much study in the way the human eye works?
Well, I thought the best way to answer that question was to do a simple search for information about Retinal
Ganglion Cells. These are the first cells in the retina that respond to stimulation/activation. So I looked up and
opened the first article I could find and it was this: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/
ganglion-cell
So in this minute area at the back of the eye in a
Figure 30. Anantomy of Retinal Ganglion Cells
small section of the retina we have these cells that
interact with other cells in a very complex way way
before any data is sent to the brain or crosses over
the optic chiasm and travels to this small section
at the back of the brain. In this small part of the
retina where the rods of the eye open up a small
pit so that light can fall onto the cones, these cells
are activated to create signals that transfer data
through the optic nerve to the brain. The following
extract from the article from Science Direct seeks
to explain how these cells work as demonstrated in
the Figure 30. Anatomy of Retinal Ganglion Cells.
The purpose of this exercise is to read the text that accompanies the graphic, just to get a sample of the way the
Retinal Ganglion Cells work before they interact with the cones and rods before data is sent down the optic
nerve to the brain and body. If you can make sense of this easily then you are better than I. All of this is just a
micro-sample of the incredible way our eyes receive and carry data. When we look at what the brain-body does
with this data is again difficult to comprehend.
In mammals, the rods and cones differ in their connections with horizontal cells and contact different
sets of bipolar cells. (a) Cone pathways: In the outer plexiform layer (OPL), cones (C) provide input to
ON and OFF cone bipolar cells (BP) and horizontal cells (HC) in the inner nuclear layer (INL). In the
inner plexiform layer (IPL), bipolar cells make excitatory, ribbon synapses onto ON and OFF ganglion
cells (GC) (GCL, ganglion cell layer; OFL, optic fiber layer). The bipolar cells also synapse on amacrine

52 Envisioning Risk
 cells (AC), which make inhibitory synapses back onto bipolar cells and forward onto amacrine cells and
ganglion cells. (b) Rod pathways: Rods (R) provide input to rod bipolar cells (RBP), which synapse onto
bistratified AII amacrine cells and A17 amacrine cells. A17 cells make inhibitory, feedback synapses onto
rod bipolar cells. AII amacrine cells relay the rod signal to OFF ganglion cells via inhibitory synapses
onto OFF cone bipolar cells and to ON ganglion cells via gap junctions with ON cone bipolar cells. Rods
also make gap junctions with cones.

Learning Through Illusions

One of the best ways to learn about how the eye-brain-mind/body works is to explore what happens in illusions.
Even putting aside most of the culturally determined aspects of perception, there are some fundamental lessons
to be learned from how we perceive our world. Whilst we could explore the way cones and rods work, how
luminance enters the eye, how cells interact and what kind of data is sent to the brain-body this ends up leading
to quite a mechanical approach to vision and tends to miss the holistic picture.
It is through some of these illusions that we learn how human vision is oriented and enculturated. Perhaps the
place to start is with illusions associated with edges.

Edges Figure 31. The Hermann Grid

We learn through the Hermann Grid (Figure 31.
The Hermann Grid) that our eyes and brain have a
certain orientation to edges. The receptive fields in
our ganglion cells tell us that there is a grey patch
at the intersection of each square in the pattern
but no such grey field between the walls of each
square. The phototopic cone shaped cells in our
fovea seeks to exaggerate edges when we are in
full light. If in dull light the rods take over and the
grey sensation sensed between the four corners
disappear.
German physiologist Ludimar Hermann (1838-
1914) discovered this illusion while he was reading
a physics text in which the figures were printed in
a matrix-like arrangement.
Philosophers of perception sometimes distinguish between three kinds of perceptual experience:
• perception of the world
• illusion
• hallucination
In this case we have a simple illusion between the way light falls onto the cones in the retina and the way cones
‘interpret’ that light because of their shape and neuronal circuits. The grey spots we see are not real nor physical
but rather an artefact of the human visual system. However, they do seem ‘real’ to us just as myths are real to us.
Scientists have posited that the ganglion cells operate in a kind of ON and OFF mechanism so that, certain
edges are inhibited and other edges are amplified. In the Hermann Grid the ganglion cells are inhibited bewteen
the walls of each square. When excited by the light between the four edges the cones send more data to the brain
convincing us that there is a grey spot between the four edges.

Chapter 2: Perception and How We See 53

Space Figure 32. Müller-Lyer illusion 1
The Müller-Lyer illusion (Figure 32. Müller-Lyer
Illusion 1) compares how two lines appear to each
other with an attachment on the end of each line
and asks the question, which internal line is the
longest? The answer is of course the lines are the
same as is demonstrated by Figure 33. Müller-
Lyer Illusion 2. In the Müller-Lyer illusion, the
visual system seeks depth cues, which are usually
associated with 3D scenes, and our visual system
incorrectly decides it is a 3D drawing.

It is interesting when undertaking research that Figure 33. Müller-Lyer illusion 2

the experts disagree about the cause of this illusion
and that several theories exists. Some think that
the total length of the lines override the vision for
the internal line, others think the 3D explanation
makes more sense. What we do learn most of all
through illusions is that data that falls into the
eyes is both interpreted by the mechanisms of
the eye and also the enculturation of the human
eg. experiments with Indigenous people about
the Müller-Lyer illusion show that they do NOT
interpret the lines in this way and that perhaps
cultural acceptance of some shapes as normative
Figure 34. Depth of Field
affect interpretation.
The same illusion is present in scenes that propose
a depth of field such as in Figure 34. Depth of
Field. In this illusion we ask which couple is the
largest, those at the ticket window or those leaving
through the door? The result is that they are the
same, but this is not how they appear to us. In
this case we ‘learn’ that objects that are presented
further away are of the same size even though
they are further away and so there is a trick in the
question. In many ways we are taught to interpret
size according to perspective and so if something is
further away may be technically the same size but
‘looks’ smaller.
Figure 35. Old Woman, Vase and Duck
Multistable Images
Multistable perception (or bistable perception)
is a perceptual phenomenon in which an
observer experiences an unpredictable sequence
of spontaneous subjective changes. Three classic
examples are at Figure 35. Old Woman, Vase and
Duck. Even the labelling of these figures ‘suggests’
three ways to look at them but in each shape is

54 Envisioning Risk
nested another interpretation. In figure A, one can
Figure 36. Social Psychology of Risk (SPoR)
also see a young woman, figure B two silhouettes
facing each other and in C. a rabbit facing to the
right of the page.
I use this illusion in the icon representing the
Social Psychology of Risk (SPoR) at Figure 36.
Our visual system constantly engages in the
inferential process of constructing a meaningful
and coherent interpretation of the visual world
based on retinal images, a process mostly
unconscious to the observer. Much of what occurs
in perception of bistable images is a matter of
the perception of edges, light, focus and a range
of cultural norms that seek dominant shapes as Figure 37. Shade and Light
indictors of interpretation.
Compared with simple perception devoid of
ambiguities, bistable perception requires higher-
order brain-body regions and dramatically
enhanced top-down and bottom-up influences in
the brain. Similarly, we ‘interpret’ objects as attached
to surfaces as determined by shade, light and line
as in Figure 37. Shade and Light. The way the three
spheres are presented to us gives the idea that the
first sphere is attached to the surface and the others
are floating above the surface. Mostly for cultural Figure 38. Light From Above
reasons we tend to interpret that light shines ‘from
above’ (Figure 38. Light From Above) just as we learn
that most surfaces are concave not convex as in the
classic Domino Illusion (Figure 39).
All optical illusions work on the way line, edges,
shade, light and cultural norms trigger expectation
and interpretation of the visual world. What we
should know by now is that physical vision is not
just a matter of how images and light fall into the
eye as if an objective process. Even the circuitary
of the eye creates certain biases before they are
Figure 39. Domino Illusion
interpreted by the brain-body. The way the fovea,
retina and optic nerve are positioned by their
structure create blind spots. simply illustrated
by the classic experiment of closing the right
eye whilst looking at Figure 40. Blind Spots and
finding that when viewed with only the left eye
that the right cross disappears. We will discuss
psychological and ‘envisional blindspots’ later in
the book.
This illustrates the essential binocularity of the eyes
as a coordinated enacted system.

Chapter 2: Perception and How We See 55

 Figure 40. Blind Spots

Perception as Enculturated Figure 41. Bigness

Depending on what culture you are situated we
are taught to perceive things in a certain order. We
are taught through metaphor that up is good and
down is bad. Similarly we are taught to read from
left to right because right handedness is dominant
in our society. Israelis read from right to left. We
experience this at Figure 41. Bigness and Figure 42
Orderness.
We are also taught through metaphor and also
by size itself (because it falls on the retina in a
prominant way), that big is prominent and small is
insignificant. This is why we misread Bigness and
Orderness. Lakoff and Johnson in Metaphors We
Live By demonstrate how metaphors teach us how Figure 42. Orderness
to ‘read’ our world.
It also demonstrates how humans glance quickly
at something and use heuristics to read. Then, once
we realise we have made a mistake we go back in
Mind 1 and re-reading the piece and visualise the
mistake. We will discuss the issue of glancing and
speed of sight soon in this chapter.

56 Envisioning Risk
Colour Figure 43. Same Colour Illusion 1
When it comes to the interpretation of colour
things get even more complex. Have a look at
Figure 43. Same Colour Illusion 1. What we see
is a set of squares of different shade - dark and
grey but in fact they are the same as illustrated by
Figure 44. Same Colour Illusion 2.
This is called the Adelson’s Illusion (https://
www.brainhq.com/brain-resources/brain-teasers/
adelsons-same-color-illusion) and demonstrates
how our perception is confused by ambigous 2D
and 3D shapes and also by the way light, shade
and line are portrayed.
What we see in colour is interpreted by the cones
in the fovea. Depending on the resonance of light
wavelengths we interpret certain wavelengths Figure 44. Same Colour Illusion 2
as coloured. There is in fact no color in the
external world; it is created by neural programs
and projected onto the outer world we see. It is
intimately linked to the perception of form where
color facilitates detecting borders of objects. It
depends on the combination of cones and the
wavelength of light falling on them and, their
interaction with the circuitry of the ganglion cells
in the retina whether certain wave lengths are
interpreted in colour.
One of the best illustrations of how we can be
decieved by shape, shade, line and reflection is the
Kokichi Sugihara illusion seen here: https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=oWfFco7K9v8

How Much Can we See At a Glance?

When it comes to movement and speed, the visual system is incredibly limited. This is why humans develop
heuristics, habits and automatic actions that don’t require the arduous process of rational cognition to get things
done. In SPoR we think of these decisions as located in Mind 1. Even then we commit various actions and
responses to the mind-body and actions triggered by affordances.
When we study perception in SPoR we do many activities that demonstrate the human weaknesses in memory
and change blindness. Sometimes we undertake simple memory exercises in a classroom where 8 known objects
are set out on a table and a participant has to turn away and remember them. Most people can only remember 7
objects and without some system of memory such as mneumonics, rhymes or rhythms, this is about the limit in
human short term memory.
Experiments show through simple flicking exercises at 100 ms intervals that the human eye can only pick up
about four changes at any one time. This is known as ‘change blindness’ and is sometimes named perjoratively
as ‘selective attention’. The truth is there is no choice or selectivity about the matter. It’s all about the speed at
which signals hit the eye, be transferred to the brain-body and be enacted upon rationally. Norrtranders (The User

Chapter 2: Perception and How We See 57

Illusion) estimates that the fastest humans can process rapid change is at about 40 megabits a second. Yet when in
Mind 3 in fully automatic we can process things at 40 million megabits a second.

Selective Attention
Often in SPoR training in perception, vision, observation and conversation we show the work of the Visual
Cognition Laboratory (http://viscog.beckman.illinois.edu/media/ig.html). By now we have all seen the famous
basketball experiment (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo). The experiment usually starts by
‘priming’ participants to concentrate on counting the number of passes. Once the video is stopped people give
their response, without exception people do not see a person dressed in a gorilla suit walk through the middle of
the scene, waves his arms and do a ‘moon walk’ off. There are many experiments like this:
• The Door Study- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWSxSQsspiQ
• The Person Change - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkrrVozZR2c
• The Colour Changing Card - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3iPrBrGSJM
• Scene switching - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bh_9XFzbWV8
The fact is humans are designed in such a way that cognition at speed is limited. This is an important realisation
in training about risk as most people tend to believe that their observations and perceptions are limitless,
objective and reliable.
The purpose of studying this in training on risk is to drive people away from perception mythology, vision naivety
and toward relflective interactions with people at work in conversations and shared observations. Once this point
has been reached in training we then usually progress to skill development in observation, conversation, effective
questioning and effective listening, none of which seems to be a feature in training in the risk industry.

Vision as a Gestalt
The way we see the world, walk in it and perecive it is complete. Human vision is embodied as an interconnected,
interaffected and intercorporeal whole - a gestalt. The word ‘gestalt’ means ‘a whole more than the sum of its
parts’. Gestalt is a German word and in English perhaps the idea of Holism comes closest to it in meaning. In
the same way I understand the idea of the human Mind as the whole person not just a brain.
One cannot think about physical vision, envisioning, perception, visual perception, prophectic imagination
or experienced implicit knowing unless one understands how vision is embodied. The idea that the eyes can
be studied alone and in isolation is a reductionist seduction. Any effort to deconstruct vision as ‘eye activity’
completely midreads the way that vision is embodied. One cannot separate any of the senses from each other
nor from their interconnectivity. We ‘see’ through all our senses not just the eyes.

Seeing by Touch
One of the scariest experiences of my life was being confused and dazed 1000 metres underground.
Whenever one is in an unfamilar place things can be a bit disorienting. When you are in pitch black, with
no guiding light, nothing but the dense stench of water mixed with mud and fumes, it’s hard to know
where to go.
I was underground with a guide/supervisor in a gold mine and my supervisor had a radio call and the
issue was urgent. We had already walked some way from the Light Vehicle (LV) and it seemed the
problem was only 100 metres away. I didn’t quite understand the message but Paddy told me just to sit
still and he would be back in 10 minutes. For some reason I couldn’t go with him.
So I sat for a bit but was getting cold so decided to walk back to the LV, I felt sure I knew where it was. I
had my hard hat on, lamp, boots and oxybox and didn’t think it would be much of an issue to walk back.

58 Envisioning Risk
 As I was walking back on very uneven
Figure 45. Rob at the 750
ground I slipped and had quite a nasty fall.
My helmet came off, lamp went off and for
a few moment was in pitch black. Things
were much more comfortable at the 750
(see Figure 45. Rob at the 750)
Somehow I was disoriented and all I
wanted to do was find the lamp, switch it
on and all would be good. So I felt about
fumbling on the ground and followed the
cable from my battery to the lamp but it
had come off the front of my hard hat.
I fumbled some more to find the lamp
because the switch was on the side of
the lamp. It’s a weird feeling in the cold
and dark with no vision to ‘feel’ for what
you need, hoping to recognise its shape
in knowing what it is. I found the lamp,
switched it on and eventually hobbled back
to the LV quit sore and sorry for myself. It
was good to feel safe inside. Paddy came
back and we went back up the decline and
I found out the problem was something to
do with explosives. Saved by touch.

Losing Touch
One of the sad realisations of the Covid-19 crisis of 2020 was the removal of touch. We always seem
to appreciate things more when they are taken away. At the height of lockdown and isolation to ‘stay at
home’ nothing was more challenging than not being able to hug my grand children. Even shaking hands
and a pat on the back was out. Yes we could ‘see’ them but it was not the same. The privilege of touch is
the greatest of gifts.
We use the language of ‘touch’ to explain relationships because we:
• will get in touch
• get out of touch
• touch base
• give the human touch
• won’t touch something with a barge pole
• rub me the wrong way
• become out of tocuh
• touch a nerve
• or things become ‘touch and go’
All of this language is premised on the vitality and tactility of haptic sense. The word ‘haptic’ in Greek
means not only ‘to grasp’ but ‘to perceive’. There is something special about the touch of skin on skin, ‘to
have and to hold’ from this day forward.
I have a friend who is a physiotherapist and he tells me that the greatest permission is that of touch.
Often we can’t see the pain that only hands can find. My friend tells me that he actually does more

Chapter 2: Perception and How We See 59

 counselling than muscle manipulation. It seems the permission to touch my body opens up permission to
the most confidential matters.
Unfortunately and perhaps because of technology like: telescope, the printing press, light globe,
binoculars, photography, computers, cameras and now Instagram and Pinterest we now live in an
Ocularcentric world. A world that priviledges visual perception as eye activity. Image becomes King.

The Ocularcentrism of Risk Figure 46. The Incredulity of Saint Thomas -

The truth is we live as embodied persons as people Carravaggio

in our skins. We embody ALL of our senses in a
polyphony of integration of vision, knowing and
envisioning. Caravaggio captures the importance of
touch in his recollection of John 20:24-27 (Unless I
see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where
the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not
believe. Thomas John 20:25). Painted in 1603 by the
masterpainter The Incredulity of Saint Thomas captures
the depth of emotions associated with doubt and
certainty (see Figure 46. The Incredulity of Saint Thomas).
Here we see in this painting Thomas the archetype of Figure 47. The Lonely Metropolitan
Technique bringing together the senses in the rationality
of proof. Unless the evidence is tactile, we know we
can be fooled, because touch brings intimacy, flesh and
bone to the discourse. Even so, Faith needs neither
touch nor eysight to ‘see’. Here the genius Carravaggio
captures the glare and stare of emotions in the touch of
a finger emphasising that the senses work together in
sync. Moreso, Carravaggio was the master of shadow
and light and mesmerizes us along with Peter, perhaps
James and Thomas unifying the senses of vision,
perception, touch, doubt and faith.
One of the key themes in this book is that vision
and envisioning should be understood as broadly as
possible. It is critical to understand that all the senses
are interconnected and embodied. As humans we need
kinesthetic experience to be persons in the world.
It was Descartes who introduced the idea of knowing
by separation, detatchment and objectivism and with
the Augustinian theology of Original Sin, hatred of
the body and the demonising of sex. It is this form of
detatchment that dominates the risk industry. In the
quest for objectivity the risk industry imagines that evidence is final in documentation when the priority of the
Court is on verbal testimony and carries equal power as evidence to visual representation.
The history of the psychosis of the church with the human body and sexuality can easily be linked to the hatred
of flesh and body. Hence the Platonist bifurcation of perfection with spirit and ‘worldliness’ with sin. We see
exactly the same in the risk industry with the bifurcation of zero and injury.
It was Merleau-Ponty that helped liberate us from the confines of body-hate and Original Sin. Merleau-Ponty
made all the senses unified as ‘flesh in the world’ (The Visible and Invisible - https://monoskop.org/images/8/80/

60 Envisioning Risk
Merleau_Ponty_Maurice_The_Visible_and_the_Invisible_1968.pdf ). We need to remember that our skin reads
texture, weight, density, temperature and can even discern colour. Recent research demonstrates that our skin
contains photorecptors similar to the eye. In a similar way we see with our hands, our perception is determined
by whether we can ‘grasp’ something, we use such a metaphor to explain understanding. This was captured by the
Buahaus artist Herbert Bayer in Figure 47. The Lonely Metropolitan.
Please note: As we proceed through this book we must hold to the complete and integrated embodiment of
the senses. We must not privilege any one sense over another. Just as the word can be seen, it can be more
powerfully heard.

Magic and Misdirection

Another fun aspect of teaching about perception and vision in our training in SPoR is the use of magic, sleight of
hand and mis-direction. The purpose again is to make the point about things such as speed, light, speed, memory,
mis-direction and visual constraints.

The Role of ‘Spotter’

It is intersting that in many industries there are ‘spotters’, ‘observers’ or ‘witnesses’ in activities paricularly
if the activity is high risk. I always find it intersting in these roles that so little is known about the limits
and constraints of human perception. So, in building and construction for example this role often goes
to the most poorly trained young person who can be spared on the job as this person is undertood as
superfluous. What happens is that the objectives of the job are perceived as more important and the myth
of objectivity prevails. Many workers believe that their perception is bullet proof and reliable, why should
the best and most experienced person be lost to the role of ‘spotter’?
Similarly, in traffic management it is not surprising to see observers on mobile phones or bored in a daze
wondering why they are there. Observation is often devalued compared to the priviledging of paperwork.
So in our Observations and Conversations training (https://www.humandymensions.com/services-and-
programs/mirisc-workshop/) a great deal of time and energy is given to learning Physical Perception as a guide
to tackling risk.

A Journey in Magic
I first took a journey into magic, sleight of hand and mis-direction due to my Boy’s Brigade leader and
friend Steve Milne. Steve was a a Magician and was astounding at palming cards and coins. He would
often do shows for the kids at church socials and for the Brigade.
There was also a Magician who was an evangelical Christian in Sydney in the 1960s called Clifford
Warne. You can read about Clifford here: https://sydneyanglicans.net/mediareleases/758a. Clifford
was an excellent magician (https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=zuck_q_8TEk) who used magic as a springbaord to tell Figure 48. Clifford Warne
of his envangelical belief. He used to use the mystery of magic and
some of its messages to speak of Jesus Christ and the evangelical
‘call’ for repentance and followership in Him. I remember seeing
Clifford often on morning television in Sydney (often Channel
7) and his Christian message was very subtle and his magic so
entertaining. You can see more of Clifford here: https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=ekvbGW9YeYo
Clifford was also an accomplished ventriloquist. He is pictured at
Figure 48. Clifford Warne

Chapter 2: Perception and How We See 61

 So at the age of 12 years of age I was drawn
Figure 49. Peter Wood
into an interest in magic and spent quite some
time in the magic shop in an arcade in the
Sydney centre. It was at this time I was also
madly teaching myself guitar and trumpet. I
kept up this interest in magic for some time
and bought a box of tricks, decks of cards, cups
and balls and ropes and these were all ‘doctored’
in some way as cards and devices that gave
the’illusion’ of magic. The point about many
of the devices and cards was that others didn’t
know the ‘secret’ of the illusion. Something
couldn’t be seen in the method of using the
device or couldn’t see the hidden structure of
the device that gave the illusion of impossibility.
Many of these ‘tricks’ required practice and
sleight of hand so that the audience couldn’t see
the effect. Much of this relies upon the same
dynamics that we have already discussed in
the speed of the visual system. I never had the
inclination to be much more than an amateur
and didn’t join any Magic Circle or professional
groups.

Peter Wood
Years later when I returned to Sydney to study Theology I met another accomplished Magician Peter
Wood who was in my student year. Peter was very practiced particularly at children’s shows and
also earned extra money in acting, in commercials and corporate roles. He was also a comedian and
ventriloquist. Peter also performed on Children’s TV (Sing Me A Rainbow for 6 years) in Sydney but
was not as Evangelical as Clifford Warne. You can see Peter in action here: https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=_WD3EP7CCtY
Peter still performs in Sydney (https://www.peterwoodmagic.com.au/funny-magic-show) and is pictured
at Figure 49. Peter Wood.

Phil Bevan
After I graduated and left Sydney I accepted a position at a school where I met Phil Bevan, Majura the
Magician was the Art Teacher at the school. Phil is by far the most experienced, skilled and professional
Magician I have ever known.
You can read about Phil here: https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6026052/we-tried-learning-
magic-tricks-with-majura-the-magician-aka-phil-bevan/. Phil performs everywhere and has also
considerable experience on TV (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIISefqtXco) and Internationally.
Often when I do training on perception I will try to get Phil to come and ‘blow their brains out’ as part
of studies on vision, observation and perception. You can see about this here: https://safetyrisk.net/
social-psychology-of-risk-post-grad-pics/
I see Phil often as we are great friends, he is pictured here at Figure 50. Phil Bevan.

62 Envisioning Risk
So, I have always had this interest in Magic and so
Figure 50. Phil Bevan
have used it in my training for many years. It not
only entertains but adds great value to the point of
underdstanding the human visual system, perception
and misdirection. I also use visual experiments
conducted by a host of the world’s best illusionists and
magicians including:
• Kyle Eschen - https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=OOG65rSM5fA
• Penn and Teller - https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=8osRaFTtgHo
• Apollo Robbins - https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=GZGY0wPAnus
• Whodunit - https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=ubNF9QNEQLA
• Richard Wiseman - https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=FG5QbJKvIjg
• Derren Brown - https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=Br2YfuR-Iv0
Whenever I present to people about the fundamentals of human perception and the visual system I always bring
a variety of magic tricks and this always helps launch into many of the key issues already discussed in this chapter
regarding perception and vision.

Questions to Consider
1. As we conclude this chapter what do you make of the connections between coherence, perception, the visual
system and vision?
2. What things do you do to nurture your sense of imagination, play and discovery?
3. What do you think of the idea that we construct out perceptions rather than our perceptions being objective?
4. When we disagree with others on our view of the world, how much of this is a reflection of culture or a
reflection on how we see the world?
5. Can you see why the metaphor of One Brain Three Minds (1B3M) is critical to SPoR?
6. Why do you think that 1B3M is critical to the foundation of SPoR?
7. What do illusions tell you?
8. Have you ever tried to develop skills in magic and mis-direction? Why not get on youtube and learn
a few simple tricks - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjLLPe5ZhFo; https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=8wFgUa2yAUo
9. Have you ever thought of using magic tricks in inductions or training to explain the risks of misdirection,
perception, vision and observation?
10. Perhaps explore some of the ideas in this chapter to stimulate people’s thinking about visual perception, vision
and tackling risk.

Chapter 2: Perception and How We See 63

Transition
We have explored the nature of vision in Chapter One as an holistic sense of seeing (envisioning) the world and being
in the world. In Chapter Two we explored the limits of physical perception and how the perception/visual system
works. Next let’s jump back to that holistic sense of envisioning again and look at envisioning and why we consider
some to be more wise, discerning and envisionary that others.
In the next Chapter we will explore some of the people in the time of the author who have had a profound,
significant and powerful influence on the shaping of experience, being and an understanding of risk. It is hoped that
in sharing examples of these visionaries that the reader might catch a glimpse of what it means to envision. It is also
hoped that the developments in this discussion will give a sharper understanding of the qualities and capabilities
required to see, discern and think in visionary ways.
Of course, we all have a sense of people, Poetics and prophets who we have found to be visionary. The following are
examaples of these who the author has found influential.

64 Envisioning Risk
CHAPTER 3
Visionary Imagination 3
Texts are acts of imagination that offer and purpose ‘alternative worlds’ that exists because
of and in the act of utterance. - Walter Bruggermann - The Prophetic Imagination.

If an ethics allows its concepts to be predetermined by the dominant worldview, it cannot

be innovative. Jurgen Motmann - A Ethic of Hope.

Faith is the presence of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. - Hebrews 11:1

Defining Vision and Envisioning

What makes a person or something visionary?
When I think of vision and visionaries I rarely think of orthodoxies.
Vision and being visionary is never ‘safe’.
When I think of vision I think of risky enactment.
Seeking safety is anathema to those who know that risk is essential to vision and learning. So in many ways
vision comes from outside orthodoxies and visionaries are often projected by orthodoxies as outsiders. The
question is: outside of what?
Many things are projected as vision, when they are not. In many organisations, the last place you will find any
vision is in some agonisingly lame ‘Vision Statement’. Usually such statements are full of motherhood aspirations
and avoid commitment to much other than self-sustaining activity.
Vision and envisioning are about the now-but-not-yet. Envisioning is about who we are now and the risks
considered in the unknown future. Vision is about what we see now and about what kind of society, world or
community we would like in the future. What we perceive now determines the methodology we will adopt to get
to that future. If all we see now is objects, money, consumption, profit, consumption, ego and utility, guess what
the future will look like?
Vision without social conscience is not vision. Vision without hope, wisdom, personhood and trust is not vision.
Vision is about much more than just wishing and making promises. It’s about the enactment of what one hopes
for and values in the now. So, in one sense vision is a kind of eschatological activity what Fromm calls ‘prophetic
messianism’ or ‘revolutionary hope’.

Chapter 3: Visionary Imagination 65

Hope often finds its voice best in suffering and injustice. This is where we find Negro Spirituals (Afro-American
Spirituals) that sing about themes of: glory, exodous, escape, deliverance, justice, freedom, love, holiness, peace,
wisdom, care, promise, faith and help. These are also themes common to the Eighth Century prophets in the Old
Testament. Both forms of writing and voice are shaped by the oppression and tyranny of slavery. When you are
the object of someone else who owns you, when you are the ‘thing’ of someone else and their property to do with
as they like, when you have no will, choice or freedom, then Hope blocks out nihilism and despair. Hope gives
purpose and meaning in Hope.
Hope is not passive, it doesn’t just wait and endure but is shaped by its vision and so drives the revolution for
change. The opposite of hope is stasis, fear and conformity. We don’t just wait in hope, we enact what we hope for.
Hope is therefore connected with a political undertanding of what can be, not some naive compliance with what
is. In this sense Hope and Vision are apocalyptic. They propose disruption to anything that dehumanises persons
in the present and envisions cataclysmic change to live more humanly in the future.

An Ethic of Hope
One can’t speak about vision or envisioning without reference to an Ethic of Hope.
Visionaries see possibilities, opportunity and new realities with the hope for betterment of persons in view.
Visonaries see Hope and connection to humanising, read the present in light of their insight into the future. The
kind of future I am thinking about is not some foretelling of events but about reading the signs of the times in
the bleeding obvious and seeing where such trajectory takes us. This is what is called the ‘Prophetic Imagination’,
the ‘vision’ for what is humanly achievable for fallible people.
The ruling ideas of most ages are generally the ruling ideas of the most powerful class and they don’t always bode
well for the humanising of persons. One of the sickening things about many entrepreneurs, business people,
politicians and celebrities touted as ‘leaders’ or ‘visionaries’ is that none of them offer an Ethic of Hope in what
they represent.
An Ethic is a moral Methodology. When one declares an ethical position, one is making a statement about
how a moral position is systematized. The fact that the risk industry pays little attention to Ethics, doesn’t study
Ethics in its curriculum and confuses moral and ethical definition is an indictment of the industry that loves to
parade the branding of ‘professional’. When one looks at real professions the focus on ‘an ethic’ is central to their
association and identity.
An Ethic must not be confused with a Code of Ethics or an ethical theory. Most Codes of Ethics are statements
of rules and standards not the guiding philosophy (moral ethic) that underpins the code. Unfortunately in the
risk industry, most confuse ‘values’ with ‘what is valued’ and, they are not the same thing. One is only likely to
understand the difference between ethics, morality, values and an Ethic through a study of Ethics. So, let’s start
by establishing what Hope isn’t and then discuss what an Ethic of Hope is.

Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope knew an Ethic of Hope, he understood the awesome, the ‘Ah’ of lifting the head to the
skies as the jaw drops and the air rushes into our mouths. When one is able to capture a vision for the
awesome one understands Hope. Pppe wrote:
Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never Is, but always To be blest.
The soul, uneasy, and confin’d from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come
- An Essay on Man: Epistle I

66 Envisioning Risk
 Pope had his focus on what it means to be a person and so also is famous for another quote:
to err is human, to forgive divine
This comes from An Essay on Criticism, Part II , 1711 (http://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/works/
o3675-w0010.shtml).
Pope’s world was a theological world ie. Theology was Pope’s lens by which he understood life and living.
Whilst Pope is known for the development of the ‘heroic couplet’ his social politic was one of competing
forces and a disdain for a lack of critical thinking and the dehumanising of persons. Pope detested ‘dumb
down’ and demonstrated through his couplets that truth was only understood in a dialectic between those
forces. Pope needs to be understood through the lens of Theology, social politics and literary criticism.
Pope’s developing years were affected by the Tests Acts (1661-1678) which upheld the status of the
Church of England and banned Catholics from teaching, attending a university, voting or holding
public office on pain of imprisonment. In 2020 this is something like a Trump Wall for Mexicans or a
Trump Muslim ban. As a Catholic family the Popes were unable to live within 10 miles of London or
Westminster. Pope, a deeply committed Catholic, felt this separation deeply. Anti-Catholic sentiment in
England at the time extensive.
So, when we come to understanding the context of this phrase theologically, socially and politically
we can better understand Pope’s meaning and purpose. Pope wrote his Essay on Criticism in 1709,
assembled over 3 years. (https://ia800809.us.archive.org/3/items/aeb0151.0001.001.umich.edu/
aeb0151.0001.001.umich.edu.pdf )
Pope explains that, while human fallibility is without question normal, forgiveness is divine. The couplet
appears towards the end of Part 2 of 3 Parts as follows:
Ah ne’er so dire a Thirst of Glory boast,
Nor in the Critick let the Man be lost!
Good-Nature and Good-Sense must ever join;
To err is Humane; to Forgive, Divine.
The scene is set for part 2 with the following:
Of all the causes which conspire to blind

Man’s erring judgment and misguide the mind,

What the weak head with strongest bias rules,

Is pride, the never−failing vice of fools.

Pope didn’t suffer fools gladly and saw great foolishness in the State fear of Catholics and Catholicism.
At the start of the next stanza Pope states:
A little learning is a dangerous thing

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring

There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

Chapter 3:Visionary Imagination 67

 And drinking largely sobers us again.

The Pierian Spring refers to the quest for knowledge and the satisfaction with ignorance. And so, a little
learning is a dangerous thing.
The idea of fallibility is a deeply theological idea, just as the notion of infallibility (eg. perfection/zero)
is an absurd idea if applied to humans. This is why Pope emphasizes the second part of the couplet, the
absurdity and delusion of seeking to be divine. For Pope and all religions, fallibility is the bedrock for
understanding self. For Pope the idea of aspiration for divinity is essentially the mark of delusion and the
nature of sin. From the stories of Adam and Eve, Abraham (see Kierkegaaard), Job (see Jung) and Jonah
(see Ellul) we learn that the seeking of divinity (perfection/zero) is the breaking of relationship with
others.
For Pope these stories are not some kind of binary trap but rather form a dialectical struggle to make
intelligent the meaning of being human and living in Hope. Accepting fallibility is not a position of
fatalism but rather is understood as a liberation to be truly human. For Pope, fighting against fallibility
is stupidity. Understood theologically Pope makes it clear that whilst humans seek blame, the Divine
offers grace and forgiveness. It is Pope’s Theology to not see fallibility as a penalty but rather as a driver of
humans to grace.
The challenge of Pope’s couplets on Hope and error is a call to dialectic between the fallible and infallible,
a dance on the pinhead of a wicked problem. What Pope calls us to is a rejection of binary discourse and
the associated delusions of ignorance in the denial of fallibility. By coupling the impossible (infallible)
after the fallible we can see that fallibility is not an evil but rather what liberates humans to accept their
humanity and this offers Hope. If we accept Pope’s call to the dance of life we will better step beyond the
seduction of reductionist and binary constructs imposed on a model of what Risk imagines it means to be
human and how it understands error.

What Hope Is Not

We have a good guide in what Hope isn’t offered to us by Erich Fromm in The Revolution of Hope.
First and foremost we need to understand that Hope is neither measurable nor a STEM concept, we hope
in Faith, Hope is Poetic. You will not hear these words in the the risk industry, consumed with the love of
Zero. Faith in Fromm’s understanding is not a religious-like hope but rather a ‘paradoxical certainty’ based on
experience, we could call this ‘the heuristic of Hope’.
Hope is an implicit/tacit way of knowing, a Poetic way of knowing what Technique rejects. Neither is Faith a
proposition or possibility of a future event. Rather Hope acts as an Archetype for what we know and have faith
in. Paul captured this dialectic between Faith-Hope-Love-Justice beautifully in his love poem read at most
weddings found at 1Corinthians 13.
The Faith-Hope-Love-Justice dialectic can really only be known Poetically.
Fromm (1970, p.26) comments:
Hope is closely linked with another element of the structure of life: faith. Faith is not a weak form of
belief or knowledge; it is not faith in this or that; faith is the conviction about the not yet proven, the
knowledge of the real possibility, the awareness of pregnancy. Faith is rational when it refers to the
knowledge of the real yet unborn; it is based on the faculty of knowledge and comprehension, which
penetrates the surface and sees the kernel. Faith like hope, is not prediction of the future; it is vision of
the present in a state of pregnancy.

68 Envisioning Risk
One of the great weaknesses of the risk industry, locked into its shallow STEM-only worldview is its complete
rejection of the Hope-Faith-Love-Justice dialectic. The Hope-Faith-Love-Justice dialectic is a state of being not
a propositional argument, only Faith-Hope-Love-Justice escape the seductions of certainty in Behaviourism,
Postivism and Scientism. The symbol for the rejection of non-measureables is zero, this is the ideology that seeks
stasis in fear of risk, the ideology that makes measurement the meaning of everything and the quest for certainty
the enemy of fallibility. Faith is the certainty of uncertainty.
Hope is always connected to the love of life. In many ways all living things are hopeful because its opposite is
despair and the hatred of life. Hope is also active, it lives in risk. The opposite of Hope is stasis, the rejection of
risk and learning. Just as Hope is not a wish or belief so too is Hope central to ‘being’ ‘human’. Hopelessness is
associated with death. Hope cannot be driven by self-interest.
Hope is not only active but must be attainable. Any ideology that is ‘pie in the sky’ and unattainable is the
opposite of Hope. Ideology and idolatry in belief render living life dead, this is the wish of zero, the love of stasis.
Passivity and ‘waiting’ for something to happen (magically) are not the expectation of Hope. Hope flourishes
where possible attainment of a human future prevails. Hope is this-world oriented whereas ideology fears
change and operates on the dynamic of possession. Hope longs for being, loving and community and these are
attained through risk, forgiveness and understanding. Zero is the enemy of Hope.
It is because zero is unattainable that it cannot be hopeful. This is why the catch cry mantra of Zero is ‘just
believe!’ Here are some samples:
• https://myosh.com/blog/2020/01/21/why-zero-harm-is-not-a-reality/
• https://www.chevron.com/stories/believing-in-zero
• http://visionzero.global/node/6
The ideology of zero cannot offer hope for fallible people. Hope must accommodate falliblity. Perfectionism
spells the death of Hope. Ideologies that offer perfectionism can only ever offer ‘False Hope’. The only
trajectory of zero can be despair and death. More about why zero suppresses vision in Chapter Four. There can be
no Hope nor vision in an illusion.

What Hope Is
Fromm states that:
Hope is a ‘psychic concomitatnt to life and growth’, ‘a state of being’ and ‘inner readiness’.
Any sense of vision needs to be oriented towards the life force of humanising persons in community.
Any exclusive attraction to accumulation, busyness, Technique and trust in bureaucratisation is the relinquishing
of Hope and the demise of trust, casting entrepreneurs as visionaries is anathema to the Hope-Faith-Love-
Justice dialectic. When one hands over freedom in trust, listening, hope and risking in relationships to goals of
accumulation and utility, real living life has ended.
Hope embeds the power to transform and transcends the seduction of stasis. When one takes on the dialectic
of Faith-Hope-Love-Justice one is discerning of all propaganda and ideology, especially promises by STEM
of certainty, predictability and infallibility. The best expressions of the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice dialectic is in
Poetics, there is no hope in metrics/Technique. The moment one attains certainty, predictability and stasis in zero,
all life dies, risk is eliminated and learning ends.
People who know Hope know it as the now-but-not-yet. We become active in so far as we can hope. We
undertake what we think is possible. If we hope for an alternative future we already seek to change things in the
now. Hope is always filled of tense expectation, promise and imminent possibility. Hope is not a naive wish for
the impossible and understands life as fluid, risky and potential.

Chapter 3:Visionary Imagination 69

An Ethic of Fear only sees a crisis, it fears harm, injury and mishap whereas an Ethic of Hope perceives future in
the crisis and embraces risk.

A Dialectic of Hope-Faith-Love-Justice
It is important to remember that Hope is part of a dialectic. Hope speaks to Faith and Faith speaks to Love.
Love speaks to Faith and Faith speaks to Hope. Hope is inseparable from Faith and Love. The purpose of Faith
in Hope is to usher in a being of Justice. Justice is concerned with Wisdom and understands decision making in
risk according to the Justice-Wisdom conversation.
Imagine four people in conversation, personify the four and see what happens as they talk to each other and
to you. The Hope-Faith-Love-Justice dialectic doesn’t talk about objects, everything is about relationships,
connecting, persons, enactment, ecological trust and ethical living in community/society.

The Rainbow Emoji Figure 51. The Rainbow Emoji

The myth of Noah’s Ark is a wonderful story
about Hope and the gift of the Rainbow - the
semiotic of Hope (Figure 51. Rainbow Emoji).
Whenever I find friends and family doing it
tough I always end my post with either the
rainbow, praying hands or the dance. I use these
emojis to say semiotically, there is Hope. Hope
is best understood as personified in Archetypes
of Hope.
I will discuss Soren Kierkegaard later in this
chapter but it is in his book on Fear and Trembling that the Hope-Faith-Love-Justice dialectic comes
to life. When we love someone so much and watch them suffering there are often no words indeed, no
words can really ‘meet’ another in suffering. When we understand what it means to act in Faith, to Hope
and to Love, then we know how to envision Justice.
It is in the lyrical Poetics of Kierkegaard that we discover the meaning of faith in Faith. Faith in another
cannot be known rationally, it is beyond rationality. With all the experience of another over many years,
there is still no certainty - only love and faith.
Indeed, to try to define the Hope-Love-Faith-Justice dialectic takes from them the unmeasureable
dynamic of what one experiences in them. And so in the vision for Hope-Faith-Justice and Love we turn
to Semiotics, rituals, gestures and symbols to try to express the depth of living and being with another in
the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice dialectic. We wear rings, take oathes, share songs, hold hands and a host
of other symbolic acts to try to express the inexpressible. The same so in suffering, the locus for all Hope.
Hope is transcendent.

It is the Hope-Faith-Love-Justcie dialectic that is the foundation of vision and envisioning. Without an
Ethic of Hope there is no vision.

Hope Gap
This is the title of a compelling movie (2020) about relationship break-up, unhappiness and hope. The
story takes place at Hope Gap, a seaside village in England. The movie was lambasted as ‘hopeless’ by
(https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hope_gap) critics yet, this movie is so profound and foundational to
what Hope is about. The main protagonist (played by Annette Bening) is a lover of poetry and building

70 Envisioning Risk
 an anthology for publication. Her husband (played by Bill Nighy) is a History teacher intersted in
building Wikipedia entries.
The real crunch of the movie is its portrayal of the everyday of relationships and the dynamics of
separation. The movie finishes in the 19th Century poem Say Not the Struggle Nought Availeth and the
final stanza is spot on:
And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look, the land is bright.
The poet Arthur Hugh Clough is slammed as a ‘goodman dull’ by Poet Laureate Tennyson but misses the
context of the poem post the Chartist Uprising of 1848. The poem in 1849 captures the failed hope of
the uprising and resilience to hope more.
The Chartists hoped for a revolution over the old guard represented by the Church and aristocracy.
The Hope-Faith-Love-Justice dialectic doesn’t understand failure as Technique does. When there is no
evidence for hope, Hope keeps on.
There is no great value in ‘rosy hoepfulness’, wishing, immature optimism and naive imagination. Hope is not
about unrealistic immaturity or ‘rose coloured glasses’. We could call this ‘weak hope’.
Ricoeur coupled Faith and Hope into what he called the ‘Productive Imagination’ . Weak hope gives up. Hope
is part of problem-solving, preventing and coping with physical illnesses and disabilities, enhanced feelings of
self-worth, and the ability to cope with trauma and other psychological stressors. Hope without Productive
Imagination and Faith, easily ‘throws in the towel’.

Is Just Culture Unjust?

One of the strange things about the Just Culture phenomenon in risk is the strange idea that somehow Justice
and Culture can be controlled. Most often what the industry of risk does with most things it touches is
redefine Justice or Culture as ‘behaviours’. This is what Technique does with most things it touches even things
such as Neuroscience somehow get reconfigured to mean behaviours (https://safetyrisk.net/safety-and-non-
neuroscience/). The key to such redefinition is the quest for power and control not Justice.
The idea of Just Culture rarely defines either Justice or Culture very well. Most often ‘Just Culture’ is understood
in risk as a blending of responsibility and accountability for behaviours.
The concept of Just Culture emerged in the history of risk in recognition of how risk had evolved as a punishing-
blaming activity. The concept was developed to shift blame away from individuals on to systems so that one didn’t
look for a person to blame but a system to blame. A tricky juggling act at best.
The general idea of Just Culture is to develop a culture where reporting can be open and behaviours can be
confessed so that discipline can somehow be linked to a behaviour rather than the individual, despite the fact
that individuals and groups enact behaviours. Of course, this is just spin so that the individual can be targeted in
a new way without using the discourse of blame. However, Just Culture often means blame just wrapped up in
different linguistic packaging.
The language of the Learning Organisation is often attached to the Just Culture discourse but whenever I
undertake a Language Audit with executives in organizations that espouse Just Culture, none associate the
notion of learning or helping with risk.

Chapter 3:Visionary Imagination 71

According to James Reason a Just Culture is a component of a safety Culture. Typical of Just Culture language
is: ‘a culture in which frontline operators and others are not punished for actions, omissions or decisions taken by
them which are commensurate with their experience and training, but where gross negligence, willful violations
and destructive acts are not tolerated’. (https://www.ioshmagazine.com/j-just-culture) So, see if you can work out
what that actually means, good luck.
Associated with the Just Culture discourse (power in language) is also the idea of a ‘No Blame Culture’. Of
course there is blame metered out under this banner and as such turns the Just Culture discourse into a slogan.
Try and work this one out: ‘Just as a blame culture prevents us learning from events, so a no-blame culture can
imply that, since no one is at fault, nothing needs to change’. (https://www.ioshmagazine.com/j-just-culture)
Others have reframed the language of Just Culture suggesting it should be ‘restorative culture’ or ‘fair culture’.
However, the tension remains between one’s definition of Culture, Justice and the method one employs to tackle risk.
One of the things we can learn from a Transdisciplinary approach to Justice is that Justice is part of a four way
dialectic. One cannot consider Justice unless it is part of the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice dialectic. Isolating Justice
from this dialectic tends to enable a discourse of brutalism in the name of good. We often see this when Risk
proposes that a Just Culture can be ‘engineered’ (https://flightsafety.org/files/just_culture.pdf ). This is similar
to proposing that resilience can also be ‘engineered’. Such approaches come from redefining language such as
‘culture’ and ‘ethics’ as behaviours.
The dialectic of Faith-Hope-Love-Justice help drive a holistic ethic that defines personhood as much more than
just the sum of behaviours. This dialectic also helps get away from the naïve idea that people somehow know
how to ‘do the right thing’, operate by received ‘common sense’ or ‘check their gut’ according to an ethic of duty -
https://safetyrisk.net/the-aihs-bok-and-ethics-check-your-gut/.
The Faith-Hope-Love-Justice dialectic affirms several things:
• The certainty of uncertainty (Faith)
• The perseverance of flourishing life (Hope)
• The enduring devotion to being (Love)
• The ethics and politics of care ( Justice)
The Faith-Hope-Love-Justice dialectic cannot be known via measurement nor behaviours. Neither resilience,
justice or culture can be ‘engineered’. Faith-Hope-Love-or-Justice can not be measured and yet they are vital for
living in the world ethically and politically. What tends to happen when Justice is pulled away from this dialectic
is it becomes an un-ethic of utility.
When one cobbles together an ethic of duty and ‘check your gut’, the outcome is always brutality by whoever has
the most power and the greatest investment in utility. The best way to weild power is to mask it as care or not
discuss it at all. The abuse of power is the elephant in the room for the risk industry.
How on earth can there be justice based upon an ideology of zero? How can there be justice when the
foundation of zeo is intolerance? How can there be hope for fallible people in justice framed in the discourse of
zero? How can one just ignore the ideology of zero as if the notion of justice is just about behaviours, when the
policing of behaviours is the outcome of zero? Doesn’t the ideology of zero eliminate the need for Faith-Hope-
Love in the exercising of justice? Doesn’t the ideology of zero just make the notion of Just Culture unjust?
One cannot talk of Justice without entering into the political and ethical context of policies and the
administration of power over dehumanising forces in orthodoxy. Most visionaries arise because something is
unjust and as visionaries they build communities of resistance against such injustice.
The call for Justice often calls into question the dominating power or ethic in organising that subjugates others to
a power-centric discourse. Justice is a political word and the call for Justice invokes social-political response. It is
often in resistance that we experience vision and envisioning is often a strategy of subversion.

72 Envisioning Risk
A Rationale for Visionaries
By now it should be clear that Vision is not Technique (Ellul). There are no collective traits that make one
visionary. However the Management and Leadership industries don’t see it that way. Even in a quest for vision
these industries seek to commodify, measure and domesticate the characteristics and qualities of vision. In many
ways these industies share the quest by STEM and all efficiencies anchored in certainty, to capture and measure
the immeasureable. STEM, Managerialism and Leadership as industries all share a common drive for Technique.
Similarly, STEM tries to capture and measures charisma, when there are none. A true visionary captures the
Hope-Faith-Love-Justice dialectic and envisions the fullness of human being and living. When this resonates
with others then vision is realised.
One of the best examples of the quest to quantify vision is discovered in the way Technique uses the story of
Nelson Mandela.

Nelson Mandela
There are many texts written about Nelson Mandela. Noone doubts that Mandela was a visionary but
his qualities bear no relevance to the way Technique seeks to turn his story or any visionaries story, into a
product. We see in the commodification of the Mandela legacy the formula for the domestication of his
vision. A few examples are as follows:
• https://www.skipprichard.com/11-leadership-qualities-of-nelson-mandela/
• https://www.bizcatalyst360.com/the-outstanding-leadership-traits-of-nelson-mandela/
• https://futureofworking.com/5-nelson-mandela-leadership-style-traits-skills-and-qualities/
Indeed, Mandela demonstrates that there is no formula for vision except the Hope-Faith-Love-Justice
dialectic?
Mandela (Madeba) was a revolutionary and subversive who spent most of his life in activities of
resistance, defiance and anti-authoritarian sedition. His Christian name ‘Nelson’ was given to him by his
first teacher at Methodist School, his real name Xhosa means ‘troublemaker’.
Mandela was a revolutionary. He was a Marxist and member of the Community Party and also a
Christian. At the age of 22 he was sacked from his first job and comdemned as a runaway (from tribal
betrothal). Mandela found dialectical materialism in Maxism compelling and fused it with a Christian
sense of Hope-Faith-Love-Justice. (Ellul who will be discussed later carries a similar worldview)
At 34 Mendela had his first stint in prison and later would serve a total of 27 years behind bars. He led
and joined radical and militaristic organisations and could be labelled ‘a womaniser’. He had numerous
affairs in his early days in the ANC.
He was accused of high treason in 1956 and admired Marxist militants like Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro
and Che Guevara. He was well known for terrorist strategies of sabotage including destroying public
infrastructure. He studied guerilla warfare in Ethiopia. His sense of Justice was tempered by his Marxist
Christian vision. It is symbolic that the South African Government introduced legislation against the
upheaval, sabotage and resistance of Mandela called the ‘Safety Act’ (1953).
Mandela’s many speeches resonate with his Marxist Christian vision. For example:
I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have
cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in
harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and see realised. But
if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die (Rivonia Trial Speech 1964)

Chapter 3:Visionary Imagination 73

 The Mandela of vision is not the romanticised Mandela of Technique. Mandela’s social politics is not
the domesticated leadership that Technique wants to romaticise. Mandela’s life is not tidy and orthodox,
it’s messy and anchored in the Hope-Faith-Love-Justice dialectic. How else could one endure 27 Years
in South African prisons? How else could he hold to resistance and resilience against many forces that
proposed no Hope, no Faith, no Love, no Justice - only violence and power?
Even in studies Mandela was a failure, he studied for the Bar in 1937 and didn’t gain an LLB till 1988.
Mandela didn’t have a dominating voice. He was no great orator like Martin Luther King Jr. he suffered
tuberculosis in prison which affected his stature and his physical vision was permanently damaged from
working in the lime pits at Robben Island. Mandela serves as an example of envisioning with poor
physical vision.
Yet, one can now do tours and see the cell at Robben Island and pay homage to Mandela as a hero
(http://www.robben-island.org.za/; https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/robben-island-a-
monument-to-courage-62697703/). Mandela never accepted such language. The language of heroics
is antithetical to the Hope-Faith-Love-Justice dialectic and Mandela was never interested in heroics.
Heroics is the language of Technique, of the superhuman, not the language of humility, identity and
empathy WITH other fallible humans.
Mandela could see the distractions of the love of power not the power of love. He realised the power of
the powerless that is common to the Hope-Faith-Love-Justice dialectic. He understood the trajectory of
this dialectic and was fixed on the meaning of personhood in the face of orthodox dehumaising forces. It
is in this dialectic that he was made the enemy of the USA and the UK by Reagan and Thatcher and later
to receive the Liberty Medal from Clinton. He courted no favours with orthodoxy and had detractors
who disagreed with his vision. His alliances with Castro, Gaddafi and Suharto brought many enemies in
the West.
Like all visionaries Mandela knew so well the power of symbolism. His wearing of the Springbok
geurnsey at the Rugby World Cup in 1995 is seen as one of his greatest unifying acts. In the Hope-Faith-
Love-Justice dialectic Mandela provided a nation with the vision to see a better way in reconciliation, in
risk and imagination. Mandela has been further romanticied through movies such as Invictus, Mandela
and The Power of One.

Orthodoxy and Stasis

Vision and Visionaries are rarely associated with orthodoxy indeed, most often battle against the
institutionalisation of orthodoxies common in the quest for power, efficiency and Technique. If anything most
vision is against the tyranny of othodoxies that are utilised to dehumanise and disable the Hope-Faith-Love-
Justice dialectic. We experience this in the quantification of products and the law used to marginalise those who
are powerless yet are perceived to have power because they exist in the Hope-Faith-Dialectic-Justice dialectic.

Little Cause for Hope-Faith-Love-Justice Figure 52. Beechworth Mental Asylum

If you are looking for a country excursion in
history, wine and intrigue look no further than
the air bnb at the Beechworth Gatehouse for
the old Beechworth Hospital for the Insane
and Mayday Hills Mental Hospital (Figure
52. Beechworth Mental Asylum). Mayday Hills
Lunatic Asylum was the second such Hospital
to be built in Victoria, being one of the three
largest. Mayday Hills Hospital closed in 1995
after 128 years of operation.

74 Envisioning Risk
 The Gatehouse is ideal for large family
Figure 53. Reasons for Committal
accommodation with 3 bathrooms and 7
bedrooms and associated facilities. Beechworth
is in North East Victoria and situated in ‘Kelly
Country’. Beechworth had its peak between
1852–1857 when gold was shipped out of the
town to Melbourne and off to England at a rate
of 20,000 ounces a week! A harvest most gold
mines would be happy to achieve in one year.
The idea of an asylum intends to be a place
of refuge and protection but in the case of
the asylums built in the 19th century in
Australia, were the opposite. Asylums were the
place where the orthodox in authority could
commit anyone who was deemed dangerous or
threatening. A list of reasons for committal is at
Figure 53. Reasons for Committal. Asylums like
Beechworth became centres for abuse of power,
fear and terror.
At its peak the hospital housed 1200 patients,
600 men and 600 women, and as medication
wasn’t introduced until the 1950s, the centre’s
doctors opted to restrain patients with
straightjackets and shackles, and in some
cases, they received electroshock treatment.
Approximately 9000 women, men and children died at the site.
As part of your stay you can take a nightly ghost tour (https://sjhstrangetales.wordpress.com/2016/03/10/
the-beechworth-asylum-haunting/) and taste the myths of the paranormal or, better still taste the
delights at local wineries, restaurants and historc venues like the Beechworth Gaol.
Beechworth was a place with no Hope. Most who were committed were not released. The place captures
much of superstition that filled society at the time for example, the first superintendent Dr Thomas Dick
believed the Moon could cause insanity, and would always take his umbrella out with him at night.
Places like Beechworth remind me of my experiences in detention centres and prisons. Such places seem
to attract those in office who adore power over others and the justification of viciousness in the name of
care and good. A perfect place for zero to thrive.

Visonaries - Off the Beat and Track

The continuing discussion of this chapter will involve an overview of a number of people the author has found
visionary. Whilst there are many people who could be called ‘visionary’ in popular culture, the following selection
is just a representative sample of those who I place in the Dialectic of Hope-Faith-Love-Justice and with
testimony to the futility of Technique. The discussion of people that follow receive little attention in stories of
great visionaries. Most of those who get trotted out as visionaries in text books rarely meet the criteria of the
Faith-Hope-Love-Justice dialectic. Similarly many who get awards for doing their job or for being gifted in sport
or some similar endeavour are not considered.
There is also no space appropriate nor writing comprehensive enough, to really explain the depth of vision in the
following people. Perhaps this stange mix of visionaries might say more about the author’s underdstanding of risk

Chapter 3:Visionary Imagination 75

and the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice dialectic than anything else but that is the perogative of writing a book. It is
hoped that some of the stories that follow might inspire and resonant.

Jacques Ellul (1912-1994)

The discussion that follows is generally ordered by date but I have stepped out of time in the case of Ellul, his
influence and vision on the author is the place to start, because Ellul’s vision frames the nature of all the books in
this series on risk indeed Ellul’s philosophy is pivotal to SPoR..
Jacques Ellul was a French philosopher, sociologist, lay theologian, and professor who was a noted Christian
anarchist. Ellul authored over 60 books, his most notable and influential books being The Technological
Society (https://monoskop.org/images/5/55/Ellul_Jacques_The_Technological_Society.pdf ), Ethic of Freedom
(https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/56371484.pdf ) and, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes (https://
monoskop.org/images/4/44/Ellul_Jacques_Propaganda_The_Formation_of_Mens_Attitudes.pdf ). If ever society
needed vision about the evils of Technique and Propaganda it is now. Ellul saw 50 years ago the problems of: fake
news, cultic following of crypto-fascists, rampant technocult delusions of AI, the nonsense of Machine Learning
and, a post-truth world. Further read: Forgas, J., and Baumeister, R., (eds.) The Social Psychology of Gullibility, Fake
News, Conspiracy Theories and Irrational Beliefs. Routledge. New York.
What makes Ellul unique is his blend of insights from Philosophy, History, Sociology and Theology. (https://
ellul.org/). Ellul is often described as a ‘prophet’ by those in both secular and theological circles, however
one would be unwise to assume that Ellul’s Christianity is easily understood or orthodox (https://thetyee.ca/
Analysis/2018/10/12/Jacques-Ellul-Prophet/).
The key to understanding Ellul is Existentialist Dialectic. Ellul’s Sociology, Theology and Philosophy is strongly
influenced by Karl Marx and Søren Kierkegaard.
Ellul believed that social justice and true freedom were incompatible. He rejected any attempt to reconcile them
and like many opposing forces must be held in tension, in an existentialist dialectic, without resolution. Such is
the nature of wicked problems. Ellul believed that a Christian could choose to join a movement for justice, but
in doing so, must admit that the fight for Justice is necessarily and at the same time, a fight against all forms of
freedom.
Ellul like many visionaries, is an outsider and a challenge to orthodoxy. His Theology is difficult for many to
understand and as this informs his Philosophy, Sociology and his view of Law, many without a Theological
background would even find his Sociology challenging. This is not something Ellul does intentionally, it is very
much just the natural outcome of a Transdisciplinary mix. The best place to start in understanding Ellul is by
Greenman, J., Schucharot, R., and Toly, N., (2012) Understanding Jacques Ellul. Cascade Books. Oregon. But here,
let’s let Ellul speak for himself:
As a matter of fact, reality is itself a combination of determinism, and freedom consists in overcoming
and transcending these determinisms. Freedom is completely without meaning unless it is related to
necessity, unless it represents victory over necessity ... We must not think of the problem in terms of a
choice between being determined and being free. We must look at it dialectically, and say that man is
indeed determined, but that it is open to him to overcome necessity, and that this act is fredom. Freedom
is not static but dynamic, not a vested interst, but a prize continually to be won. The moment a man
stops aand resigns himself, he becomes subject to determinism. He is most enslaved when he thinks he is
comfortably settled in freedom. (Technological Society p. xxix)
Although Ellul was not explicitly interested in Semiotics, he was extraordinarly sensitive to language as a
semiotic. he states:
In slogans, words are completely stripped of their reasonable and meaningful content. All oral
propaganda rests on the fact that language loses its meaning and retains only the power of inciting and

76 Envisioning Risk
 triggering. The word has become mere sound: pure nervous excitation, to which people respond by reflex,
or because of group pressure. If a speaker fails to make use of the magic words which will automatically
stir up hatreds, passions, mobs, devotion and curses, the rest of his language dissolves, as far as his
listeners are concerned, into a gush of lava, an overflow of monotony, a contemprible fog that prevents or
smothers action. The word thus loses its power. (Humiliation of the Word. pp. 126-127)
So much of this quote applies to the nonsese slogans and beliefs of the zero industry.
Ellul is brilliant at exposing trajectories, he doesn’t need to fortell like Nostradamus, he sees ‘the writing on the
wall’ and ‘the bloody obvious’ if the power of Propaganda and Technique are given rule. Such is the age we live
in where both are on full show and the dehumanising of persons in the name of good has become the norm,
the orthodox. We see today, that one can call into question anything but not Technology. Technology has now
become the god of the age that will somehow rescue us from the malaise of loneliness, narcissism and despair
that pervade western society. How strange that reality television teaches us that a chocolate leaf on top of
some cream crust is more important than the viciousness of racism. How strange that the risk industry is more
concerned about a number than the persons to whom the number refers!
Ellul indeed embodies the vision of the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice dialectic.

Paul of Tarsus (5-67)

The Apostle Paul provides a vision for the Hope-Love-Faith-Justice dialectic in his love poem in 1 Corinthians
13, as follows:
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a
clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if
I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the
poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is
patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it
is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil
but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.8 Love
never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled;
where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when
completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like
a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I
put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see Figure 54. SPQR
only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to
face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as
I am fully known. 13 And now these three remain: faith,
hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Paul is one of the greatest visionaries not just because of this
poem but by the way he embodied his faith. Having never met
Jesus personally he set out on the most amazing subversive
political campaign carrying forward the political agenda of Jesus.
His epiphany on the road to Damascus serves as a symbol for all
epiphanies.
The story of Paul and the way Paul is represented is sadly
sanitised and domesticated by the orthodox church. It is as if
Paul was not situated in the power and terror of the Roman
Empire or that his faith brought him into direct conflict with all
that Imperialism represents. As was discussed in Chapter One
the SPQR - Senātus Populusque Rōmānus was everywhere. The
example at Figure 54. SPQR is found in South West England.

Chapter 3:Visionary Imagination 77

One of the best preserved Temples to Mithras, the most popular cult in the Roman Army is located in London
(https://www.londonmithraeum.com/temple-of-mithras/). You can find out more about the power of the Roman
cult of Mithras here: https://www.mola.org.uk/blog/mithras-and-mithraism-top-10-things-you-need-know
For our current discussion we just need to note the all pervasive context of the Imperialism of Rome in the time
of Paul. The suffering, oppression and terror of Rome knew few limits. This is the context for the early church
throughout which Paul travelled (Figure 55. Paul’s Travels)

Figure 55. Paul’s Travels

Paul was a highly educated Jew under one of the most significant academics of the ancient world, Gamaliel. He
was also a Roman citizen and this afforded him significant liberties compared to other Jews. Paul was well versed
in the cults of his time and encountered them all in his travels for The Collection. This Collection for the poor in
Jerusalem and it’s political power served a three way strategy that influenced his so called ‘missionary journeys’.
The schism of the church documented in Acts 11 and 15 demonstrates the early political turmoil of the Jewish
and non-Jewish Christians politie. Whilst the early Jewish Christians in Jerusalem are starving to death during a
famine (AD47+), Paul travels to all the house churches throughout the ancient world, collects money from non-
Jewish Christians and along with their representatives from those groups, hands the monies over to the Jesusalem
group, putting their ‘money where their mouth is’. This statement put the prejudices of the original group on
notice and gave political force to Paul’s faith and economic arguments for equity. Paul’s sense of Hope included a
messianic and apocalyptic social-politik that stood in stark contrast to the power of the elite symbolised by SPQR.
One of the hermeneutical problems with the way the orthodox church has manufactured a ‘spiritualised and
sanitised Paul’ over the years completely distracts from his central political and ethical purpose.
The letters of Paul that form the corpus of the New Testament exist as evidence of Paul’s relationship with the
fledgling home church movement in the first century of dispersed Jewish Christians. It was clear that these early
disciples completely rejected the cultic and institutionalised forms of worship practice at the time. There were no
temples, few rituals, sacramental or courtly approaches to faith in the early church. Instead, if one reads the work
of Paul politically, one can see the subversive strategy at work against the Imperial power of Rome.

78 Envisioning Risk
Much of Paul’s language was counter-cultural. His blending of anthropological terms in particular is both
radical and revolutionary. Paul’s radical blending of all his anthropological terms sets the context for a notion of
faith that is embodied in: head, heart, mind, flesh-body, conscience, spirit, soul and psyche. In Paul, all of these
anthropological terms are embodied in the Hope-Faith-Love-Justice dialectic.
Paul’s radical approach to equality is evidenced in his first letter to the Galatians 3:28 and is something unheard
of in his age. ‘There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all
one in Christ Jesus’. This stands in stark contrast to the power, ethics and politics embodied in racism, inequality
and misogyny in SPQR.

Equality in Paul
Equality was not just an idea for Paul but rather his method for doing everything. Even in the
paternalistic text of the New Testament recollection of Paul we can see how he valued slaves, women,
children and all the first century Roman world determined as nepio (Greek for ‘insignificant ones’).
In Paul’s Love-Hope-Faith-Justice dialectic he reprimanded the Corinthians in how they treated slaves
in meals, he lists countless women in Romans 16 who he names as ‘Sponsors’, ‘Protectors’ and ‘Apostles’
(eg. Julia). In the oldest known texts the name Julia appears, it was the patriachal focused Jerome who in
the 4th century changed that name in translation to Julian (male). Such is the patriachy of the church
and it’s quest to write the text for orthodoxy.
Many of the critics of Paul who cast him as sexist and mysoginist simply show they have a patriachal
hermeneutic when approaching the text, including feminist theologians. If one reads Paul politcially
then his strategy regarding women, cultural norms, respecting institutions and subversively changing
the accepted orthodoxies of the day (eg. the Roman cult, Mithraic cult, sex cults like in Corinth etc) are
pronounced.
Some of the best research on Paul is by Elliott, N., (2010) The Arrogance of the Nations, Reading Romans in the
Shadow of Empire. Fortress Press. Minneapolis. also
Elliot, N., (2006) Liberating Paul, The Justice of God and the Politics of the Apostle. Fortress Press. Minneapolis.
In a similar way the best seller and work of Aslan, R., (2013) Zealot, The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth.
Random House, New York strips away the romanticsm, sanitisation and apolitical domestication of Jesus.
Perhaps people forget that the reason why Jesus, Paul, Peter and the disciples were killed was because the Empire
saw them as political subversives and a threat to their political agenda - Empire. It is against this Empire, this
embodiment of Technique and Terror that Paul shines the light of the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice dialectic.

Bosch (1450-1516) Figure 56. The Last Judgement

When we think of visionaries and radicals in Art there
is perhaps none more ‘out there’ than Hieronymous
Bosch. When one looks at the work of Bosch and
understands the context of his work, one wonders how
he was not instantly executed by the authorities or the
church. There is nothing orthodox about Bosch.
When I was working in Austria with my good friends
Rob Sams and Gabriel Carlton we were fortunate
enough to go to a Bosch exhibition. You can see Rob
and Gab at Figure 56. The Last Judgement.

Chapter 3:Visionary Imagination 79

In this 15th Century piece Bosch conjures up fantastical scenes from Biblical myth including sarcastic and
mocking images of the Pope as a lizard, rebel angels as insects and weird creatures half animal and person. The
middle panel of the triptych is full of monsterous images, mutilation and suffering. The painting is messianic
and apocalyptic capturing the Hope-Faith-Love-Justice dialectic between the panels and the myths portrayed
between panels.
When one explores the work of Bosch one wonders what he was taking? His work seems to resemble a
psychedelic trip and contrasting figures mocking orthodoxy and church theology at the time. He shines light on
the terrors of darkness, sometimes implicating the church in such and then shows that Hope-Faith-Love-Justice
are the essence of life and living.
In the The Garden of Earthly Delights Bosch uses a triptych again to capture the Hope-Faith-Love-Justice
dialectic. The dominant theme is the futility of self-indulgence and the promises of Hope, Faith and Life. The
best exploration of the painting is here: https://archief.ntr.nl/tuinderlusten/en.html
So much more could be said about Bosch and commentary offered about his visionary work but it’s best perhaps
to leave that to you, to experience it. I feel envious for those who live in Europe who can view his work and
experience how he presents the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice dialectic.

William Blake (1757-1827)

SPoR is interested in Poetics and Mimetics. When one is interested in the nature of the unconscious and how
humans make decisions one moves away from Positivist/Empiricist approaches to knowledge and looks at a
broader approach to understanding decision making.
One of the truisms of the Music, Dance, Poetry and Arts scene is the commonality of psychedelics and accessing
the unconscious (Hill, Confrontation with the Unconscious). A study of 19th Century literature and art reveals
that opium influenced the creative and imaginative spirit of many thinkers, philosophers, poets, musicians and
artists (https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/representations-of-drugs-in-19th-century-literature;
https://www.worldcrunch.com/culture-society/under-the-influence-tracing-a-long-twisted-history-of-artists-
and-their-drugs). Much of the creative and imaginative work of the likes of: Dickens, Coleridge, Browning,
Van Gogh, Warhol, Pollock, Led Zepplin, The Beatles and Rolling Stones was drug induced by accessing the
unconscious. And BTW, you don’t have to have more than a few milligrams in the body to generate visions,
dreams, hallucinations and creative ideas.
There are some of course who have visions, dreams and an imagination that doesn’t require psychotic drugs to
enact the imagination and creativity. There is no record of either Jung or Blake having taken drugs to induce
dreams or visions.
Now before I venture too much further let me say that this discussion in no way advocates the taking of
psychedelics. What I do want to point out is that even the slightest chemical imbalance in the body can trigger
the unconscious to see things beyond conscious control, and lead to practical outworking of decisions and
judgments.
Whilst I can’t comment on the music scene today, it was clear in the 1970s that much of the creative spirit
in music came not from the conscious mind but the unconscious mind (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Drug_use_in_music).
It is interesting in risk literature that there is very little interest in the nature of consciousness, the unconscious
or the Collective Unconscious. The assumption is that risk is all about Scientism, Behaviourism, Cognitvism and
Dataism. Human decision making is therefore all about right programming and un-risk then becomes a ‘choice
you make’.

80 Envisioning Risk
Everytime I undertake workshops in tackling risk I introduce the nature of human decision making through
the One Brain Three Minds metaphor (https://vimeo.com/156926212; https://vimeo.com/106770292). Unless
Risk tackles the issue of consciousness it will never envision the nature of the wayward mind, complacency or the
unconscious. Claxton’s work The Wayward Mind, Hare Brain Tortoise Mind and Intelligence in the Flesh ought to be
mandated reading for any risk curriculum.
In literature William Blake is the professor of the Wayward Mind. At the age of 9 years he was already seeing
visions of angels and demons. His art and poetry is a kaleidoscope of images and Poetics about the dehumanizing
process. He was born in 1757 and saw the best and worst of the Industrial Revolution in England. His poetics
testifies to his vision/prophetics for humanizing his society and the battle of good against evil and, the problem
of innocence and naivety. Her saw what Technique does to a society and knew its power to demonsise. Much of
his work is freely downloadable:
• http://triggs.djvu.org/djvu-editions.com/BLAKE/SONGS/Download.pdf
• http://www.93beast.fea.st/files/section2/blake/The%20Works%20of%20William%20Blake.pdf
• http://erdman.blakearchive.org/
• http://www.mindserpent.com/library/blake/the_prophetic_books_of_william_blake.pdf
It’s amazing that the risk industry is bedeviled by the wayward mind and the issue of complacency but has no
interest in the challenges of consciousness.
In a previous life I taught High School and University Literature/English and it’s enlightening what we
can learn from the classics likes of Blake, Shakespeare, Dickens and T.S. Elliot. Whilst we don’t have to
experience visions like Blake, or take psychedelics like the Beatles, it would be good if just a skerrick of
the risk industry would be interested in creativity, discovery, learning and the imagination.
The curses of Behaviourism (https://safetyrisk.net/the-curse-of-behaviourism/), Cognitvism (https://safetyrisk.
net/the-curse-of-cognitivism/) and Dataism (https://safetyrisk.net/the-curse-of-dataism/) simply help bog down
Risk in more of the same and few have any vision of a way out. Instead, the industry seems preoccupied with spin
and marketing and nothing changes, more Technique and Propaganda. When your only worldview is ‘safety is a
choice you make’ and regulatory capture, you are intellectually and humanly bankrupt. If the only way forward in
risk is the denial of fallibility then risk can never be humanized.
Blake didn’t just write poetry but the illustrations for
Figure 57. Blake on Job
this poetry are powerful Semiotics that complete his
work. A good example is his work on Job. The story of
Job poses significant challenges for anyone interested
in philosophical theology, theodicy or theological
psychology, this is why Jung addressed the book of Job
as a way of tackling the problem of good and evil. In
Figure 57. Blake on Job we see the Faith-Hope-Love-
Justice dialectic. What most don’t understand about
the Book of Job is the place of the commentator in this
wisdom literature. Few understand that the book of Job
is a personified dialectic.
In Blake we experience the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice
dialectic through this Poetics that shows how the
quest for control, certainty and righteousness indeed
omniscience, is seduction for the fallible human.

Chapter 3:Visionary Imagination 81

Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
When thinking about risk, faith and uncertainty, experience, the unconscious and hope, there none more
important, influential and visionary that Soren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard knew in his short life all about despair,
the quashing of Hope and the human delusional quest for certainty. He pitted himself against the othodoxies of
the time - the state church and Hegelianism.
Kierkegaard is often regarded as the father of Existentialism. In the midst of the power of Hegel and Schelling
he rejected the proposal that truth through synthesis was possible. Kierkegaard’s dialectic was not a dialectic for
certainty as Hegel proposed but the opposite - humans are always in dialectic, ambiguity and paradox, there is no
synthesis.
Kierkegaard’s works and philosophy are well documented:
• https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kierkegaard/
• https://www.gradesaver.com/author/soren-kierkegaard
• http://www.faculty.umb.edu/lawrence_blum/courses/306_12/readings/kierkegaard_works.pdf
• Some of his works can be downloaded here:
• https://www.gutenberg.org/files/60333/60333-h/60333-h.htm
So in this brief discussion of Kierkegaard I wish to draw attention to just one of his works Concluding Unscientific
Postscript (1846). You can download it here: https://www.academia.edu/30372238/S._Kierkegaard_Concluding_
Unscientific_Postscript.pdf
It is in this work that Kierkegaard brilliantly puts forward the nature of human being, the myth of objectivity,
the nature of faith and being as subjectivity. In the midst of a Europe constrained by Cartesian certainty and
Hegelian certainty in comes Kierkegaard stating: ‘subjectivity is truth’ (The Essential Kierkegaard, p.210) then what
follows:
Through the objective uncertainty and ignorance, the paradox thrusts away in the inwardness of the
existing person. ... for without risk, no faith; the more risk, the more faith; the more objective reliability,
the less inwardness (since inwardness is subjectivity); the less objective reliability, the deeper is the
possible inwardness. When the paradox itself is the paradox, it thrusts away by virtue of the absurd, the
corresponding passion of inwardness is faith.
But subjectivity, inwardness, is truth; if not we have forgotten the Socratic merit. ... with the tremendous
risk of objectivity, there is no stronger expression for inwardness than - to have faith. But without risk, no
faith, not even the Socratic faith, so say nothing of the kind we are discussing here.
When Socrates believed that God is, he held fast the objective uncertainty with the entire passion
of inwardness, and faith is precicely in this contradiction, in this risk. Now it is otherwise. Instead of
the objective uncertainty, there is here the certainty that, viewed objectively, it is the absurd, and this
absurdity, held fast in the passion of inwardness, is faith.
Kierkegaard meant by this ‘objective uncertainty’ that all we can know in fallibility objectively is uncertainty.
Therefore all truth is subjectivity. The objective of subjectivity is faith which is absurd, and only that can be
believed objectively. For Faith, what Technique offers is much harder to believe and so the more one endeavours to
seek certainty in Technique, the more one acts in faith to believe it. We see this is the risk industry’s bizarre faith
in the ideology of zero.
The more STEM-only Technique rejects the subjective and therefore faith, the more religious and faith-like
it becomes. For in the quest for certainty in reason is the elevation of human reason that is fallible, hence no
certainty other than faith, which is absurd. For Kierkegaard the rejection of subjectivity and faith in objectivity

82 Envisioning Risk
becomes a mechanism for power and so, the myth of objectivity hides the will to power that Neitzsche was to
espouse not long after Kierkegaard.
Another of Kierkegaard’s writing is called Works of Love (http://www.faculty.umb.edu/lawrence_blum/
courses/306_12/readings/kierkegaard_works.pdf ), and like The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air, sets before
us the temporality of life, being, suffering and the ontology of faith. And so too, an Ethic of Risk must include
an understanding of Faith. We see in Kierkegaard’s discussion of Abraham and Job the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice
dialectic in the face of this absurdity.
In Kierkegaard, we experience the move away from quests for certainty and objectivity to the Faith-Love-
Hope-Justice dialectic with subjectivity. For Kierkegaard it is Either-Or not both-and, it is: if-then, i-thou, as-if,
now-not yet, subject-object, the one-the many, order-disorder, fragility-anti-fragility, faith-reason, time-eternity
and, freedom-necessity all in constant dialectic.
Then there is the great unknown - Death, and for Kierkegaard exposes the seeking for knowns in atheism,
ritual, ideologies and agnosticism endeavouring to create certainties in the face of death. These are all quests for
Transhumanism, Technique and Control. Even then, there is only Faith.
Kierkegaard opens us up to the meaning of fallibility and the futility of the quest for infallibility, zero. For
Kierkegaard, it is in inwardness, subjectivity and faith that we find humility in the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice
dialectic.

C.G. Jung (1875-1961)

When one explores the wealth of meaning and sense in the ontology of Poetics one doesn’t get so tied up with the
false constructs of scientific method, faith in repeatability, mythology of objectivity and the closed and circular
journeys of mono-disciplinary thinking. Indeed, it is in the non-measureables that we receive worldviews that
make just as much sense of the world as Technique.
One of the greatest visionaries in Poetics is Carl Gustav Jung. One cannot take the constructs of STEM-only
to Jung and possible seek to find proofs, certainties, objectivity or measurements. Jung himself had become
disillusioned with scientific rationalism.
There is so much written by Jung and about Jung that it would be foolish to attempt a discussion here.
• https://www.thesap.org.uk/resources/articles-on-jungian-psychology-2/carl-gustav-jung/
• http://www.jungsocietymelbourne.com/carl-gustav-jung
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AMu-G51yTY
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZSbffrftd0
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWB8Gx2j0R0
• https://www.jungiananalystvt.com/ThePhilemonFoundationTendingtoJungsLegacy.en.html
However, what I will do is give an overview of the innovation, vision and insight of Jung and how his worldview
makes sense for journeying through the world and tackling risks. I am not a Jungian though many follow Jung
religiously and cultically. Even a book has been published called The Jung Cult but unfortunatley is a very poor
analysis of cultic ideology and Jung’s works and his followers. The movie on Jung A Dangerous Method serves as
an insight into Jung’s world and his journey into the unconscious.

Jung Town 3401

In 2018 My wife and I decided to do a back to Lucindale trip, back to the first school we worked at in
1974. As part of our trip from Canberra to Lucindale we decided to do it all by back roads. Doing a trip
in this style of navigation makes for discovery, risk and adventure but you need lots more time for getting
lost and taking one lane dirt tracks.

Chapter 3:Visionary Imagination 83

 So we set out and travelled through Victoria
Figure 58. Jung
off the ‘beat and track’ and as we were nearing
Horsham I saw this sign to a town called Jung,
a little village of perhaps 25 people. So I went
off the track to see the village for no other
reason than its name. I couldn’t find anyone in
the town or anyone wandering about, it looked
mostly deserted with no shop, an abandoned
railway siding and a few old buildings. You
can read about the village here: https://www.
victorianplaces.com.au/jung
The town dates back to 1877 and was originally
‘Jung Jung’ and noone knows what the name
Jung means but my fascination was just to get
a selfie with the name of the town, see Figure 58. Jung. The reason for the selfie was more a memento of
the trip and what happens when you wander ‘off the beat and track’. Although the village is not named
after C. G. Jung, I wondered if any town was named after him, given his ground breaking thinking and
influence? As far as I could find there is no place bearing his name and then this place in the middle of
nowhere bears a resemblance to his name but has nothing to do with the famous Swiss Psychiatrist and
Psychoanalyst. Jung would call this Synchronicity (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/26905461_
Synchronicity_Nature_and_Psyche_in_an_Interconnected_Universe) and perhaps of significance, well at
least in my imagination.
A search on Google with just the name Jung brings 273,000,000 results.
As a visionary Jung broke from the orthodoxies of his day not just a break from Freud. In 1913 Jung crashed
into an upheaval haunted by troubling visions and heard inner voices. This ‘confrontation with the unconscious’
lasted for years and Jung wrote it all down. What he wrote did not belong to the previous canon of dispassionate,
academic essays on psychiatry but what he learned through an encounter with his own psychedelic visions.
One doesn’t approach learning in Jung scientifically but mythically and symbolically because everything about
Jung is about the unconscious and Collective Unconscious. To study Jung is to encounter the human unconscious
and its mystery. Jung explored all he could about psychic activity best observed in pathological states: neuroses,
psychosis, hysteria, mental illness etc. However, Jung’s biggest avenue for encountering the unconscious was
through dreaming, the imagination and psychedelic states. In many ways Jungians don’t study Jung but rather
seek to explore the unconscious.
It is through Jung’s vision that we explore the following:
• Myth • The primordial self • Types
• Symbols • Unconscious • Dream symbolism
• Orientation • Collective Unconscious • Transcendence
• Archetypes • Phenomenon of the self • Synchronicity
• The personification of drives • Mandala dialectic • Suffering
and powers
Each one of these concepts was explored by Jung and is extensively mapped through his many writings and
drawings.
For the purposes of understanding vision and envisioning Jung’s ideas about the unconscious, it is most helpful to
understand what Jung meant by the unconscious.

84 Envisioning Risk
When it comes to the world of risk,
Figure 59. Semiotics Mandala
uncertainty and faith and the many
things people do unconsciously, Jungian
vision can be helpful. When it comes
to understanding the Faith-Hope-
Love-Justice dialectic Jungian Mandala
Symbolism is essential. The mandala depicts
the competing forces in dialectic between
polar/binary competing forces as in Figure
59. Semiotics Mandala.
Although not Jung’s language, there are
strong similaraities between Lotman’s
‘Semiosphere’ (Universe of the Mind) and
Jung’s ‘Collective Unconscious’. When
we view the world semiotically we gain
insight and vision into how and why
various social forces shape the way fallible
humans envision the world. Lotman
would call this semiosis, the construction
of meaning and purpose through myth/
symbol. Jung called this ‘psychic energy’
and the Collective Unconscious. Moreso,
there is a whole movement of academics
and thinkers who endorse Lotman’s and Jung’s idea that the universe is panpsychic (https://qz.com/1184574/
the-idea-that-everything-from-spoons-to-stones-are-conscious-is-gaining-academic-credibility/). It is not the
purpose of this book to explore the veracity of the ideas of panpsychicism but there is plenty of movement in
thinking across the globe (https://aeon.co/ideas/panpsychism-is-crazy-but-its-also-most-probably-true). Perhaps
such a vision is beyond imagination, perhaps fanciful but as Jung would state, the myth of such serves as a symbol
that makes sense. Maybe if we imagined the universe as an organism we might better look after our planet and
each other.
Without an exploration of the nature of myth, symbol and vision one will tend to construct ideas like
Panpsychicism through the binary lens of STEM-only Technique damning all matter to utility and constructs of
using the world. Through Jung, Lotman, Kierkegaard, Ricouer and Mary Douglas and their understanding of
Myth-Symbol-Ritual-Gesture and embodiment, we can better understand the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice dialectic.

Mary Douglas (1921-2007)

Having concluded discussion on Jung and by introducing Mary Douglas it seems logical to chronicle her work as
a visiony and explore how she envisions risk.
Mary Douglas was a British anthropologist whose work draws together the way humans symbolise life and
anchor symbols, ritual, codes of conduct and process to belief. Mary was Transdisciplinary in approach bringing
together Anthropology, Religion, Semiotics, Politics, Economics and Cognition in her work.
Douglas’ work was not without controversy either, her publication of her books brought her into conflict with
orthodox Catholicism because of the way she linked: rites, cults, symbolism, ritual, taboo, pollution, cosmology,
alchemy, defilement and compliance with the construction of the sacred, magic, mystery, codes of behaviour and
an Ethic of Risk, see further:

Chapter 3:Visionary Imagination 85

• Douglas, M., (1966) Purity and Danger, an analysis of th concepts of poluution and taboo. Ark Paperbacks,
London. (https://monoskop.org/images/7/7d/Douglas_Mary_Purity_and_Danger_An_Analysis_of_
Concepts_of_Pollution_and_Taboo_2001.pdf )
• Douglas, M., (1970) Natural Symbols, Explorations in Cosmology. Routledge. London. (https://
dl.uswr.ac.ir/bitstream/Hannan/133434/1/Mary_Douglas-Natural_Symbols__Explorations_in_
Cosmology%2C_2nd_Edition%281996%29.pdf )
• Douglas, M., and Wildavsky, A., (1982) Risk and Culture. University of California Press, London.
• Douglas, M., (1992) Risk and Blame, Essays in Cultural Theory. Routledge. London. (https://monoskop.org/
images/1/1d/Douglas_Mary_Risk_and_Blame_Essays_in_Cultural_Theory_1994.pdf )
‘Where there is dirt, there is a system’ (1966. p. 35) she stated, and demonstrated how the doctrine of Original
Sin and the construction of the symbolism of evil resulted in myths, taboos and contamination that needed
systems of purification. Uncleanness was a result of stepping in risk outside of these constructs.
Douglas puts together a wonderful critique of how cultures are constructed, maintained, sustained and policed
to ensure compliance and the maintenance of purity in the face of danger (eternal death). And as she discovered,
all cultures undertake similar constructs to ensure the harmony of the group and universe. Whilst she explored
and researched what might be called ‘primitive cultures’ she was able to demonstrate that all the same dynamics
common to an untouched tribe in New Guinea or South America was present in the same way we construct
systems, procedures and compliance. She connected the construction of compliances and taboos in risk in
common systems of today to a religious-like enactment of taboo, defilement and non-compliance in primitive
rituals, rites and semiotic systems. This has also been confirmed by others like Ricoeur and Eliade.
In Natural Symbols (1970), Douglas began to answer the question: what kind of society is best able to support
the complex symbolism that makes the best society possible? The book took exception to some 1960s cultural
trends - notably the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council and student revolts - and presented the
first of many attempts to correlate features of institutional organisation with patterns of belief and morality. Her
conclusion - that differentiated, hierarchical and bounded institutions provided the most conducive environments
for complex thinking and symbolism - remained the same, whatever changes her theories underwent. This of
course confronted the mystical secrets of orthodoxy. Such is the Love-Hope-Faith-Justice dialectic.
The relevance of Douglas’ work for the risk industry couldn’t be more pronounced. The parallels to the way the
risk industry constructs taboos, defilement, corruption, purity and compliance in a religious-like methodology
could not be more clear. It is unfortunate that the work of Mary Douglas is not considered worthy on any
reading list for studies in risk.

Louisa Lawson (1848-1920)

Louisa Lawson was one of the first feminist radicals in Australian History. Her husband Peter died leaving
Louisa with £1103 so she bought a paper called The Republican. Soon Louisa, established the first journal for
Women in Australia called ‘Dawn’. Louisa was a suffragette (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_
suffrage_in_Australia) and most industrious, and Dawn soon had 10 female employees including 2 female
printers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dawn_(feminist_magazine).
The New South Wales Typographical Association (NSWTA) (comprising all men) tried to close Louisa down
because women were unwanted in the industry. Louisa countered the power of the NSWTA by seeking support
from the Trade Union Movement. Louisa demonstrated throughtout the 1890s her amazing insight, ingenuity,
inspiration and vision. She did well at anything she put her hand to, except His-story pushes women like her to
the background and foregrounds males of the time who were far less influential than her. It was also a time that if
a woman thought of something, invented something or demonstrated a sense of vision, she would be smashed by
orthodoxy and patriarchy.

86 Envisioning Risk
In 1889 Louisa formed the Dawn Club in Australia,
Figure 60. The Dawn
the first association for female suffrage. Of course
Dawn is symbolic for the Millennial Dawn, an
apocalyptic hope for a new era and Louisa was one
of the first female socialists - feminists. Louisa had a
vision that one day women would get the right to vote.
The fortresses of masculinst power and self-interest
were rallied against her. The image of the first edition is
at Figure 60. The Dawn.
Louisa was instrumental in the Womanhood Suffrage
League of New South Wales formed in 1891. Her son
Henry published his first volume of verse in Dawn in
1894. Who knows where Henry would have gone if
it were not for that opportunity. In 1892 Louisa and
others campaigned to the Premier to ‘redeem the world
from bad laws passed by wicked men’.
The Dawn magazine was published every month
advocating feminist ideas, discourse and interests and
continued for 17 years. The Dawn was more than a
magazine, it was a movement and focal point that
offerred women Hope, Love, Faith and Justice that one
day they might be considered equal, including having
the right to vote. Although Louisa couldn’t enter politics
she was a powerful political force at the time with
associations with the Labor movement, Worker’s parties,
Union and Socialist Groups that were all being formed
at the time. She did all of her work whilst also running a
household of 6 children and a husband who was violent and unreliable. Louisa left her husband Peter after 20 years
marriage in 1883 and went to Sydney.
After being thrown off a tram and breaking her spine she recovered and in 1902 joined the Women’s Progressive
Association to continue her political campaign. Unfortunately, her accident took a toll and Dawn closed in 1905
but saw in 1902 the day that Women got the right to vote. South Australia gave women the vote in 1894 and
Western Australia in 1899, and by 1911, the remaining Australian states had legislated for women’s suffrage for
state elections.
The following tale captures the nature of paternalistic culture at the time and the nature of victimisation of
visionaries.
In 1896 Louisa, with considerable experience in the Post Office and publication, developed a buckle
mechanism to replace the strapping process used at the time to seal mail bags. Louisa wasn’t so much of
an inventor as a pragmatist and if there was an agenda maybe it was that she could do something as good
as any man.
Her invention was immediately adopted by the Post and Telegraph Office with due acknowledgement
that it saved time and money. She took out a patent on the design and received very little money for her
service. Similarly, it was expected that women were NOT entrepreneurs and should not infringe on the
male dominated sector. She had already been suppying the fasteners to the Department for 4 years and
with Federation approaching could have earned up to 1000 pounds a year for her invention. But almost
immediately trouble arose. In 1900 Edward Nicol Murray without consent started making a replica and
the Post Master General had instead given a contract (for 5000 fasteners) to him. ‘Jobs for the boys’ club’.

Chapter 3:Visionary Imagination 87

 Lousia opposed the patent application by Murray and he withrew his claim but continued to manufacture
his product and sell it. It was about this time Louisa had her accident and it took her 2 years to recover.
The case went to court, another male domain, and after a year the magistrate ruled that Murray’s design
was an infringement of Lousia’s patent. She received 250 pounds in damages, far less than what her
product would have saved the Department. Then the news came, the new Federal Government had given
the contract to Murray outside of the juristiction of her patent (NSW). She proceeded with court action
again but lost and so her work had been thwarted by politicians, male, yet again.
Lousia was an accomplished poet, writer and business woman. Before she started The Dawn she wote for and
managed The Republican. Louisa’s writing was sophisticated, radical and original. She didn’t just offer hope in
verse but was articulate in captivating any cause of injustice, inequity and/or corruption. From the first issues
of The Dawn, Lawson included a Poet’s Page. She also released her own book in 1904 The Lonely Crossing and
Other Poems. It was not published again until 1996. Louisa’s poetry discussed issues of masculinity, femininity,
love, marriage, and the dangers that alcohol and sex posed to women are significant preoccupations in Lawson’s
poetry, particularly in poems like ‘The Flower and the Book’ (which reflects the trope of the fallen woman), ‘Song
of Bacchus’, and ‘To a Libertine’. Louisa was also involved in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union that
was founded in the 1891 and identified with any cause or movement that upheld the ethical and moral dignity
of women. Apart from women’s political rights, the WCTU, from its foundation has been committed to children
and women’s welfare
In her poetry, as with Henry, Louisa’s focus is often on spiritual themes and the Afterlife. In 1877 Louisa had
lost one of her twin daughters to gastroenteritis and this had a profound effect on her. Louisa found solace in her
poetry and wrote:
With rapture I gaze for by faith do I see
The child that my saviour has taken from me
Secure in His arms in that beautiful place
Many of Louisa’ poems involve a similar sense of communication beyond the grave. Her use of both Psyche and
Bacchus in her poetry reflects feminist concerns with marriage and temperance. The concerns with marriage,
the soul, and Eros are all highly significant themes of Louisa’s feminist poetics and political reform. The fallen
woman is symbolised by flowers in many of Lawson’s poems including ‘The Common Lot’ and ‘The Flower and
the Book’.
Louisa’s poems capture all that is critical in the prophetic imagination and the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice
dialectic.
We know that the Theosophists were strong in Sydney from 1880 to 1939. Roe gives insight into the Spiritualist
leanings of Louisa, in Beyond Belief: Theosophy in Australia 1879–1939, commenting that:
A spiritually distressed Louisa Lawson learned ‘Zooistic Science, Free Thought, Spiritualism and
Harmonial Philosophy’ all together from a Spiritualist organisation in Sydney during the ‘Freethought
craze’ of the 1880s
It was Theosophy that promoted the idea of Lemuria. The founder of Theosophy Madam Blatavsky, argued that
the lost land of Lemeuria (think Atlantis) was Australia. She also argued that the Aborigines were the ‘left overs’
of its sub-humans. It was this focus on Australia as Lemeuria that fueled Theosophists boom in the country
and the idea to redeem Australia spiritually from its aridity and backward Aboriginality. Blatavsky promoted
that Aryans were superior to black peoples which dovetailed neatly into White Australia politics and fear of the
Chinese at the turn of the Century.
There were concerns at the time that the Women’s Suffrage League was too closely aligned with Theosophy.
Spiritualist ideas were linked closely with marriage reform and free love. Spiritualism was also associated

88 Envisioning Risk
with socialist politics, radicalism and Union leaning
Figure 61. Louisa Lawson’s Memorial
associations and papers. Louisa whilst brought up as a
strict Methodist had dabbled in the Occult and seances
when she lived in Mudgee.
The final issue of The Dawn carried ‘An Explanation’
that because of the legal case she had been involved
in (over the belt patent) she had been slandered and
persecuted (by men) and had suffered too much and
her health was failing.
Unfortunately, Louisa died in lonely and impoverished
circumstances but her legacy lived on through the
inspirational verse of her own as ‘Dolley Dear’, and
through the work of her son Henry.
Louisa stood up against forces much greater than herself and modeled to Henry a vision for a new dawn. A
park in Marrickville, New South Wales is named after her (see Figure 61. Louisa Lawson’s Memorial). The Louisa
Lawson Reserve contains a large colourful mosaic depicting the front cover of The Dawn, and a plaque that reads
‘Louisa Lawson (1848–1920) Social Reformer, writer, Feminist and Mother of Henry Lawson’.
In all my research on Australian visionaries I could find none who were not ‘political’ yet not politicians. All
visionaries call out against the nature of power and advocate for most vulnerable. Often visionaries like Louisa
are destroyed because they won’t get into bed with orthodoxy. You can read more about Louisa here: Ollif, L.,
(1978) Louisa Lawson, Henry’s Crusading Mother. Rigby.Adelaide.
Keeping to stasis favors the privileged and keeps everything safe. Stepping outside regulation, orthodoxy and
bureaucracy embraces risk and enters into the social contract (https://www.iep.utm.edu/soc-cont/), this is where
real decision making takes place. This is where vision and imagination are found that envisions a new, different,
humanised and better future in the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice dialectic.

Marion Mahony Griffin

The city I live in Canberra, is a designed city, the vision of Marion Mahony and Walter Burley Griffin. The
story of that vision is often attributed to Walter but even a casual reading of their relationship will show that
the design of Canberra was perhaps more Her-story than his-story. Walter in his letters attributes much to
Marion’s work as more significant than his own and it seems when investigating Her-story much of the humility
attributed to her speaks more of the patriarchy of History than the reality of her significance and influence.
Unfortunatley too, some historians tend to dismiss the work of Marion because of her Spirituality and views on
Transcendence.
Marion Mahony Griffin was one of the first licensed architects in the world. Both she and Walter were idealists,
philosophers, writers, dramatists, artists, graphic semioticians, thinkers, architects and devoted to poetics
(https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6061397/making-magic-the-marion-mahony-griffin-story-reveals-
the-soul-of-the-capital/#gsc.tab=0). The story of Canberra is not just about two architects who won a global
competition to design a city. The Griffins had a vision not just for the ideal city but also for an ideal way of living
in community. Although Marion ‘played’ the role of helper, it is clear that her vision and energy, her spirituality,
philosophy and vision were the reason why Walter was both successful but also a failure.
Wherever the Griffins went they encountered the games of petty politics, power brokers, orthodoxies and
conservativism. The way both were treated from the day they arrived in Australia in 1914 to guide their vision
for Canberra is simply atrocious. It is perhaps another story to tell how Department Mandarins sought to
consciously sideline and isolate Walter from the building of Canberra. There was also the nature of petty
inter-party and intra-party politics that virtually guaranteed that nothing Walter and Marion envisioned would

Chapter 3:Visionary Imagination 89

be achieved. When Walter was finally terminated as the Director of Design and Construction of Canberra in
December 1920, he and Marion turned their sights to other visions. Like many visionaries they realised that
fighting the non-vision of conservativism is a lost cause and one not worth fighting.
Marion was controversial in many ways, Walter was more conservative having been raised in a middle-class
family and also with a shy retiring temperament. Marion was 5 years older and 5 inches taller than Walter but
also towered over him in her radical ideas and philosophy. It is said that Marion proposed to Walter and was also
instrumental in him entering the competition to design Canberra (Korporaal). They were married in 1911.
In 1895, Mahony was the first employee hired by Frank Lloyd Wright (https://www.curbed.
com/2017/6/8/15755858/marion-mahony-walter-burley-griffin-wright-drawings). Her drawing skills are
legendary and she would often use her initials MLM in drawings ascribed to Wright in a subtle squiggle in the
corner, looking more like a knot in a tree or spider on the bark of a tree. Marion was instrumental in Wright’s
success and was critical to the work of the Prairie School and Oak Park Studio. She worked for Wright for 15
years before Walter joined the studio.
It was Marion’s drawings, perseverence and insight that won the competition for the plan for Canberra. It
was her view of the Celestial City, her cosmology and spirituality that created the vision for a city that would
humanise persons. Marion’s understanding of spirituality started at a tender age, brought up in Hubbard Woods
she always was convinced she could see fairies, undines, gnomes and mystical creatures. As a young girl Marion
was raised by a feminist mother (her father died young), part of the radical Chicago Woman’s Club. Marion was
educated in an environment of female activists, labour reform and women’s rights. Abraham Lincoln was a friend
of the family and would drop by sometimes.
Marion understood herself as a being within nature and later when she discovered Anthroposphy was able to
integrate many of her spiritual ideas into her architecture, drawings and dramatic enactments. Marion’s part in
the dream for Canberra is documented here: https://www.hamessharley.com.au/knowledge/marion-mahony-
griffin. Korporal’s excellent study Making Magic, The Marion Mahony Story. (2015) Oranje Media. Sydney. is an
excellent capture of Her-story.
In everything Marion did she demonstrated the Love-Hope-Faith-Justice dialectic and this often brought her in
direct conflict with orthodoxy, authority and the forces of Technique. When she first arrived in Sydney in less than
a few months she was arrested for demonstrating against World War One. The USA was not committed to the
war and as a pacifist she was therefore identified as an enemy of the state. Meanwhile Walter was experiencing
the petty politics of public servants and political parties
and inter-city rivalry. The Capital of Australia at the Figure 62. Plan for Canberra City
time was Melbourne and this is where the offices
for the Design and Construction of Canberra were
administered. Situated against this was the influencial
and powerful demands of Sydney and its growing
competition against Melbourne which had long since
lost its power after the decline of the gold boom in
1895. The location of Canberra between both cities was
intended to appease the factionous bitterness between
the cities.
Once Walter was terminated from direct supervision
of the design and building of Canberra the Griffins
moved to Sydney and commenced their vision and
social experiment for the development of the ideal
town of Castlecrag. It was here too they met with
the backwardness and resistance to vision by local
councils and various conservative voices. It was here

90 Envisioning Risk
 Figure 63. Canberra Elevations

they were able to create some of their vision for a

Figure 64. Canberra Environs
unique community with their cliplock houses and flat
roofs and the Haven Scenic Theatre where many plays
and festivals were perfomed bringing the community
together in a flair for the Arts and imagination and
Poetics. It was at Castlecrag where the Griffins gathered
around them an amazing collection of visionaries,
artists and free spirited people with unconventional
ideas. Marion was sure that ‘dark forces’ were behind
those who opposed her.
At every turn the Griffins were met by the power-
centric forces of Technique and Propaganda. This is
because Marion was an exemplar of vision. A friend
Miles Franklin, wrote in 1928 about the Griffins
persecution as ‘shameful and terrible’ but typical of
Australia. Marion herself wrote in a letter back home
that Australia was ‘a nation of pessimists full of fears,
ideals are rarely to be found in this country. All policies
are based on fear’.
It is demonstrable that Marion’s drawings and vision
for Canberra were the reason for the Griffin’s success.
See Figure 62. Plan for Canberra City, Figure 63.
Canberra Elevations and Figure 64. Canberra Environs.
It was the particular drawing Figure 63. Canberra Elevations that clinched the Griffin’s success. The drawing is
one of pure imagination with four drawings joined together drawn in ink and gold leaf and 6 metres long.
The Griffins believed that cities should be carefully designed to fit into the landscape, following the contours
of the topography, with as little damage to the natural surroundings as possible. The site, with its wide river
floodplain surrounded by hills, was a natural amphitheatre. As they began to imagine a new capital, it was not
hard to see that Marion thought of the seven hills which surrounded Canberra as the ancient city of Rome.
Proudfoot’s work (The Secret Plan of Canberra https://pubhtml5.com/rukq/auqx/basic) truly captures the
mystical and semiotic fascination about Canberra and Marion’s vision. Proudfoot draws out the unique vision
of the Griffins and particularly the way Marion and Walter built into the design many spiritual and Occult-like
symbols.

My Canberra - Today
Today Canberra is very much like that city of Rome designed by Michaelangelo. The mountains and hills of
Canberra cannot be built on by regulation and so create the mood of the ‘bush capital’. What this does, along
with the seven lakes is empahsise a city that circles. Occultic shapes of the rhombus, triangles, vestias and

Chapter 3:Visionary Imagination 91

octagons make for a city that is hard to navigate, but this is good. What this does is slow people down, it is a city
that makes one reflect. No straight lines anywhere, if you get lost you can’t just go around the block.
Despite the early opposition to the Griffins many critical aspects of their city design and the Griffin’s vision for
a humanising city where money and power give way for people, parks and nature are a pleasure to see and live in.
Motorised vehicles are not allowed on the lakes and the roads are in the valleys, it’s hard when travelling about
to even see the houses or suburbia. On weekends it is a delight to experience their plan in the many parks, cycle
paths, walking around lakes and the open spaces.
Canberra is a marvelous semiotic haven. Those who visit to learn about the Social Psychology of Risk can be
treated to days after days of unique excursions into the connection between lifes’ signs and symbols and how they
create a Collective Unconscious in a city. and, because it is the capital of Australia it is a concentration of other
unique archtiecture, symbols, places and monuments to the rich history and spirituality of our country.
How amazing to live in a place that exudes the Love-Faith-Hope-Justice dialectic

Margaret Atwood
When people think of Margaret Atwood it is most probably through the lens of the popular video series The
Handmaid’s Tale (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5834204/). The Handmaid’s Tale tells the dystopian story of
Offred (the possesion of Fred) in the United States of America in the future under the rule of a fundamantalist
Christian politik. The Handmaid’s Tale video series won the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series –
Drama. The main actress Elisabeth Moss was also awarded the Golden Globe for Best Actress.
The symbol of The Handmaid’s Tale is the Puritanical bonnet. The curtain ‘wings’ bonnet in Gilead is the symbol
for a repressive Fundamentalist regime in which the main protagonist Offred is forced to live. The bonnet is
intended to function as a sign of female subservience and the tyranny of non-vision.
The costume of The Handmaid’s Tale has now become the symbol for women’s rights (https://qz.com/
quartzy/1643273/the-handmaids-tale-costume-has-become-the-symbol-of-womens-rights/). In 2017,

Figure 65. The Winged Bonnet

Handmaids marched on Capitol Hill, Washington, in protest at the Republican healthcare bill which was seen
to threaten women’s bodily autonomy. Protesters against Trump’s 2018 and 2019 visits to the UK also wore
handmaid costumes in protest against abortion-related legislation.
Atwood’s description of the Handmaid’s dress is based upon the Anchorites of Medieval England. The purpose
of the winged bonnet serves as a wonderful metaphor for this book you are currently reading on a lack of vision.
The Handmaid was unable to see out from under her bonnet and it forced her to be bowed and submissive.
Similarly, the bonnet prevents vision so that the females features and facial identity cannot be recognised. See
Figure 65. The Winged Bonnet.

92 Envisioning Risk
It is of interest that there is no Feminist perspective globally that reflects on the patriachy of the risk industry.
The Discourse of women in the risk industry conforms to patriachal Discourse.
Atwood also tells the story of a seventeenth century forebear: Mary Webster in a Puritan town called Hadley,
Massachusetts who was accused of being a witch. The truth is that Mary was simply unusual and so they strung
her up. Back then they didn’t do drop hangings so Mary dangled from the tree all night and the next morning
they cut her down thinking she was dead but was alive. Webster became known as ‘Half-Hanged Mary’ and was
one of the dedicatees in The Handmaid’s Tale.
Atwood is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, inventor, teacher, and environmental activist. Her father
Carl was an entomologist and Margaret spent much of her childhood in the backwoods of northern Quebec.
Atwood realized she wanted to write professionally when she was 16 and since then has been a prolific writer with
over 60 books published including: novels, poetry, short stories, critical works, children’s literature and comics.
Atwood’s works encompass a variety of themes including gender and identity, religion and myth, the power
of language, climate change, and power politics. Her vision is for a better and more humanised world. In The
Handmaid’s Tale and much of her work Atwood demonstrates the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice dialectic showing
what non-Faith looks like and Hope in Justice and Love through apocalyptic and dystopian themes.
Rebecca Mead in The New York Times describes Atwood as a ‘Prophet of Dystopia’ (https://www.newyorker.com/
magazine/2017/04/17/margaret-atwood-the-prophet-of-dystopia), an insightful piece on Atwood’s vision. In an
interview with Mead, Atwood describes the lot of visionaries:
After sixty years, why are we doing this again? But, as you know, in any area of life, it’s push and
pushback. We have had pushback, and now we are groping to have to push again.
Atwood made this comment when she went to a Women’s march and saw a sign that said ‘I can’t believe I’m still
holding this fucking sign’. The visionary spends most of their time seeking to release themselves and others from
toxic trajectories found in conservativism and orthodoxies.
Having been raised in a Fundamentalist Christian home and having studied Theology I can see
connections to reality in Atwood’s dytopian projections not least of which is: the cult of Trump, the
binary disinformation and power of propaganda, a general lack of discernment and critical thinking,
the suppression of opposition, the alienation and demonisation of criticism and the rise of right-wing
fundamentalist governments across the world in 2020. Some of this fundamentalist Discourse populates
the risk and safety industry.
One of the ways Atwood brings home the nature of cults and taboo myths is through the use of language eg. In
The Handmaid’s Tale a sign of acceptance of suppression, oppression, cult conformance and duty were captured
in the repetition of: ‘Blessed be the fruit’, ‘may the Lord open’. Cults are maintained by such symbolic language
and the semiosis attached to them. Similar gestures and rituals are practised in the risk industry that confirm
ingroupness but serve no purpose.
Atwood draws upon an assembly of well known archetypes and myths in Theological and literary traditions
to demonstrate how easily persons can be dehumanised in the name of good. ‘Whenever tyranny is exercised’
Arwood warns, ‘who profits by it?’ This is often the vision of her work. This is one of many foundational questions
visionaries ask but a pertinent one and often it is those whom they criticise and satirise that are the beneficiaries
of the work of dehumanisation. This is what makes visionary work risky, speaking truth to power often results in
the crucifixion of the visionary and this is the struggle of the Faith-Hope-Love Justice dialectic.

Elizabeth Moltmann-Wendel
For many years the voice of women has been absent from Theology. For centuries Theology has been the domain
of men, calling out dogma and dictating orthodoxy using patriarchal texts, most noteably The Bible. A study of
the Bible and it’s various translations is the tale of men doctoring texts to suit a partriachal hermeneutic. For the

Chapter 3:Visionary Imagination 93

purposes of telling the story of Elizabeth Moltmann-Wendel I will use her example in the Christian tradition to
exemplify the radical vision of Feminists for Theology. Of course, women have always been present since Eve but
their story was not told neither was it considered worth telling.
Feminist Theology like Marxist/Liberation Theology only emerged in the 1960s. My first interest in Feminist
Theology was through my interest in Theology generally in Jurgan Moltman. His partner Elizabeth Wendel
co-wrote a text with Jurgen called Humanity in God and this served as a wake up call for the limitations of my
own Theology. It was from this text that I expanded my Theology to include Feminist, Political and Indigenous
voices to my hermeneutic. This occurred during my time at Theological College 1982-86.
One of the strange paradoxes of Evangelical Theology and Fundamentalism is a claim to respect the text of the
Bible but a complete ignorance of hermenutics and honesty/integrity to the text that is claimed as inerrant. What
Elizabeth Wendel does is explore the Theology of the Christian Trinity and demonstrate the nature of femininity
in God.
Of course, Theology, History, Ethics and Hermeneutics come together in a Social Politics of Theology. It
is through such a study that one realises how Patriachal Theology is manufactured through a masculinist
hermeneutic. Similarly, it is through a Feminist and Liberation hermeneutic that one understands a new
Theology of God, Politics, Ethics and Justice.
Elizabeth Wendel is one of a few Feminist Theologians who have come on the scene post 1975. Significant
others I have read are:
Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza
Fiorenza, E., (1983) In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins. Crossroad
Publishing Company. NewYork
Fiorenza, E., (1985) Bread Not Stone: The Challenge of Feminist Biblical Interpretation. Beacon Press. Boston.
Mary Daly
Daly, M., (1973) Beyond God the Father, Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation. Beacon Press. Boston.
Mary Grey
Grey, M., (1989) Redeeming the Dream: Feminism, Redemption and Christian Tradition. SPCK. London.
Virginia Ramey Mollenkott
Mollenkott, V., (1983) The Divine Feminine: Biblical Imagery of God as Female. Crossroad Publishing Company.
NewYork.
and of course three excellent theologies by
Elizabeth Wendel
Moltmann, J., and Moltmann-Wendel-E., (1983) Humanity in God. SCM Press. London.
Moltmann-Wendel-E., (1993) The Women Around Jesus. Crossroad Publishing Company. NewYork.
Moltmann-Wendel-E., (1994) I am My Body, A Theology of Embodiment. Continuum. New York.
Some Christian Feminists believe that gender equality within the church cannot be achieved without rethinking
the portrayal and understanding of God as a masculine being. Wendel certainly helps in this reframing of the
nature of god. The theological concept of Sophia, usually seen as replacing or synonymous with the Holy Spirit in
the Trinity, is often used to fulfill this desire for symbols which reflect women’s religious experiences. Wendel in the
tradition of Moltmann Trinitarian Theology draws upon the myths and symbols of the Divine Feminine to explain
how the community of God is central to a society of Christianity. How Sophia is configured is not static, but
usually filled with emotions and individual expression. For Christian Feminists like Wendel, the Sophia concept is

94 Envisioning Risk
found in a search for women who reflect contemporary
Figure 66. The Feminine in God
Feminist ideals in both the Old and New Testament.
In Wendel’s Humanity in God she demonstrates through
Church History, Biblical Theology and Art how the
Feminine in God has always been present in the Divine
Perichoresis (https://www.theopedia.com/Perichoresis).
Of course such Theology is challenging to the Church
as invested in a patriarchy of god. In this regard
Feminist Theologians and their vision for equality in
god and equality in the church have been marginalised,
demonsised and chastised as the enemies of the church
and God. Interestingly Wendel shows clearly that the
Trinity has always included the Feminine as Holy Spirit
in Hebrew and Christian traditions eg. Figure 66. The
Feminine in God.
This fresco from the ceiling of the church of Prien bei
Chiemsee in Bavaria is a 14th century depiction of the
Holy Spirit as female uniting the Son forsaken by the
Father, echoing the cry of Christ from the cross.
Wendel demonstrates through Archeology, History and Art that the construct of God-as-Male has only been
made by a paternalistic church harbouring a fear of female power. This is not a message or vision such a church
wants to hear. Yet Wendel along with her husband Jurgen, one of the most noteable Theologians of the last 100
years, make clear that the Socialitie of the Trinity makes no sense unless there is a Divine Feminine. Wendel
argues that it is in a dialectic between Father-Mother-Son that the Theology of the Trinity make sense and
becomes a symbol and framework for the Socialitie of humans.
Such a Theology shakes the very foundations of the patriarchal church but such a Theology offers women Hope-
Faith-Love and Justice in a vision for inclusion in a church that has for centuries marginalised and demonsied
them in the name of Christ. Morseo, women were made the instigators of sin through Eve and the construction
of Original Sin or Hereditary Sin put forward by Augustine in the fourth century and leading to the theology
of Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA). Fallibility has historically been understood as being broken or at
fault and is most associated with moral failure. Through Augustine ‘fall-ability’ has been understood through the
‘fall’ of Adam but was most associated with the demonisation of women through Eve. This was theologized to
explain everything from pains of childbirth, projection of shame, the evils of prostitution as a woman problem
and uncleanness and taboo in menstruation. Historically the church through its patriarchy had ostricised and
blamed women for all ills of humanity. Therefore women could not lead in any way in the church but must serve,
obey and bear children as their duty. The rules of the church and its patriarchal hermeneutic of Scripture had to
be obeyed in complete compliance or a woman would be ‘cast off ’ and isolated Theologically, Ecclesiastically and
communally.
The vision of Wendel and other feminists Theologians threatens this hegemony and offers real Hope for
women. It remains to be seen in a declining religous West, declining church and mostly women remaining as
congregations just how long this tradition of patriarchy and demonisation of women can remain. Many like
Wendel have formed their own movement and support associations for the Ordination of Women.
So, we see in Feminist Theology a much stronger sense of the Faith-Hope-Love Justice dialectic than in
orthodox masculinist Discourse that is most common in the patriachal church.

Chapter 3:Visionary Imagination 95

Marcia Langton Figure 67. Indigenous Slavery
Visionaries are often alone and stand outside the camp.
They are often unpredictable because those watching
and listening don’t know their ontology, what really
drives them. One such visionary is Marcia Langton.
Marcia is an Yiman (Indigenous) woman and holds
the foundation chair in Australian Indigenous Studies
at the University of Melbourne in the Faculty of
Medicine. An encounter with Marcia is a confrontion
with rage against injustice, despair, greed, expoitation,
colonialism, racism and Technique.
Marcia was born in 1951 and the first half of her life
was characterised by disadvantage, turmoil, turbulence,
racism, insecurity, uncertainty, exploration and developing a visionary ontology for injustice to Indigenous First
Peoples in Australia. Her latest book Langton, M., (2020) Welcome to Country, A Travel Guide to Indigenous
Australia. Hardie Grant. Melbourne. is a sharp articulation of her understanding of Indigenous History and
Anthropology readable in a popular non academic format. She also sites other most noteable Indigenous (pp.
36-37) and visionary works like Pascoe’s Dark Emu. Dark Emu presents conclusively that Indigenous peoples
have occupied the Australian continent for over 65,000 years and were NOT nomadic as we were taught at
school but rather sophisticated agriculturalists, adept at Aquaculture, housing, storage and preservation and fire
management. The White English Colonialist records of terra nullius (unoccupied land) was nothing more than a
propagandist lie of Technique and white orthodoxy.
One of the important things about the Love-Hope-Faith-Justice dialectic is that it is not premised on agreement
nor compliance. Indeed, the nonsense of Seligman-type positivity that fears criticism and negative analysis fosters
a lack of resilience and a sense of weak love. Love that is robust and manages criticism is Costly Love. Marcia
demonstrates this in the sharpness of her criticisms. The love of her people clearly drives some of the invective
she serves up to others who have no idea of their own racism and prejucice. This was evident in her well known
clash with Germain Greer (https://www.news.com.au/news/greers-essay-is-racist-langton/news-story/d5c63e7a
b6c827399308dc40b4099087?sv=62f4f90f84f4a7b16760e496ccdcdb7c).
One of the grand weaknesses of the risk industry is its ontology of compliance, agrement and duty. This may
bode well for the staus quo but doesn’t sit well with visionaries. Orthodoxies build up buraucracies in a fortress
Mentalitie of resistance so that trouble makers like Langton can be demonised and branded ‘trouble makers’.
There is nothing visionary in stasis.
One of the profound challenges for Western ideologies in engaging Indegenous life is the challenge of Poetics.
Indigenous life is not about measurement or Technique indeed, it is the rejection of such. Whilst Technique and
Positivism were at the heart of Colonialism they no longer help in engaging First Nations people. If you want
to learn about Indigenous people then start with: Songlines, Dreamtime, Art, Dance, Hospitality, Land, Stories/
Narrative, Spirituality, Language, Kinship and Music. All of these are qualitative in nature and not measureable,
perhaps this is why White Male-centric power doesn’t understand even their own racism and prejudice. An
understanding of prejudice is foundational to the discipline of Social Psychology.
In many ways Langton’s ability to transverse the Western Positivist to Poetic dialectic is unique. She is able to
articulate well in print, social and multimedia the plight of her peoples and yet at the same time connect through
Poetics to her own . She writes continuously in the media (https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/contributor/
marcia-langton), is often on TV and radio, has received numerous awards and honorary positions and in 2019
Langton was announced as a co-chair on the Senior Advisory Group of the Indigenous voice to government.

96 Envisioning Risk
At the writing of this book in 2020 and at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement (https://
blacklivesmatter.com/) the Prime Minister of Australia Scott Morrison claimed during a radio interview and
in response to Black Lives Matter protests during Covid-19 lockdown, that there was ‘no slavery in Australia’
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWNz2mPLSMo). This sparked outrage from Historians, Indigenous
activists and Legal academics and social media was flooded with graphic depictions demonstrating just how
prejudiced this white male privileged conservative politican was. See Figure 67. Indigenous Slavery.
Close to the same time when Langton received an order of Australia award she was asked for her opinion and
she stated clearly to the media ‘I would have thought it’s pretty straightforward. Do not kill Aborigines ‘ (https://
www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-08/marcia-langton-dont-ignore-black-lives-matter-protests/12332408).
Since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody final report in 1991 (https://apo.org.au/
node/30017), more than 400 Aboriginal people have died in prison and the Indigenous incarceration rate is
double what it was 30 years ago. Although Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults make up around 2% of
the National population, they constitute 27% of the national prison population. Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander incarceration rates increased 41% between 2006 and 2016. Langton played a key role during the Royal
Commission.
In 2017 Langton campaigned against ‘environmentalists’ thwarting native title reform as part of the case
against the Adani Carmichael coal mine. However, her criticisms have not always been met well by other
Indigenous leaders. Her questionable ties to Rio Tinto were brought into focus when Rio knowingly
destroyed archaeological sites of global significance framed as a mistake (https://www.mining-technology.
com/mining-safety/mining-safety-rio-tinto-kennecot; https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-05/rio-
tinto-knew-6-years-ago-about-46000yo-rock-caves-it-blasted/12319334). Langton, despite once being
associated with Rio Tinto ripped them apart over the issue (https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2020/08/28/
marcia-langton-calls-reparations-traditional-owners-following-juukan-gorge)
Scholars in archaeology, cultural heritage and the Chair of UNESCO state that this action by Rio Tinto is the
equivalent of Islamic State (ISIS) blowing up Palmyra (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/23/isis-
blows-up-temple-dating-back-to-17ad-in-unesco-listed-syrian-city; https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/
pm/pilbara-cave-explosion-on-par-with-palmyra—unesco-chair/12297884). Rio is a zero harm company.
One of the most intimate and telling accounts of Langton appeared in The Medium (https://www.themonthly.
com.au/issue/2011/march/1326846139/peter-robb/who-s-afraid-marcia-langton#mtr), and documented her
background, loneliness and vision. The title of this insightful piece says it all: Who’s Afraid of Marcia Langton.
Marcia has appeared in many documentaries and in Film namely:
• Jardiwarnpa: a Warlpiri fire (with Ned Lander and Rachel Perkins)
• Night Cries: a rural tragedy (with Tracey Moffatt & Penny McDonald)
• Blood Brothers, a 1993 four-part Australian documentary series
• Perkin’s First Australians series for SBS television, 2008, features many commentaries by Langton
One doesn’t need to scratch at Australain History, Politics or society to discover just how much Indigenous
people are dehumanised, victimised and disadvantaged in Australia (https://australianstogether.org.au/discover/
the-wound/indigenous-disadvantage-in-australia/) It is clear that the Closing the Gap strategy instigated in
2008 has been a massive failure (https://closingthegap.niaa.gov.au/).
In 2017 Marcia Langton penned an essay for the Griffith Review (https://www.griffithreview.com/articles/for-
her-we-must-no-excuses-naidoc-marcia-langton/) in response to Prime Minister Turnbull’s comments on the
Closing the Gap Strategy of 2018. She drew attention to the failure of governments to make any dent into the
rampant racism, disadvantage and oppression for Indigenous peoples that exists in Australia. The slogan for the
2017 NAIDOC Week in November was: ‘Because of her, we can!’ This was in recognition of the appointment
of June Oscar AO to the role of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner and Lowitja

Chapter 3:Visionary Imagination 97

O’Donoghue AC CBE DSG as the first chair of the
Figure 68. Because of Her We Can
now defunct Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Commission (ATSIC). Langton too has signifcant
‘runs on the board’ in transversing the academic,
popular culture, media and political landscape in
Australia.
In my own neighbourhood in Kambah this significant
elevation of the role of Indigenous Women as
visionaries has been captured in a mural across some
appartments a few blocks from my house. Figure 68.
Because of Her, We Can. In 2018 what followed was a
most signifcant conference where many Indigenous
women leaders including Marcia Langton, were able
to articulate their alienation from both male and white
male power in their communities. The life expectancy for Aboriginal & Torres Straits Islander women is 9.5 years
less than other Australian women.
Marcia’s vision is profoundly spiritual both in an Indigenous sense but also through her time in South East Asia
as a Buddhist. Her focus on an Indigenous future for Justice has always been on Education. Professor Langton
is also an adviser to the Empowered Communities Project, Patron of the Indigenous Reading Project, and
ambassador of the Yothu Yindi Foundation. She was previously Chair of the mining services company Guma, the
Indigenous Higher Education Advisory Council and of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership.
Marcia Langton has been instrumental in devloping resources for school teachers to incorporate Indigenous
knowledge in the classroom. These resources are for Years 3 – 10 across seven learning areas in the Australian
Curriculum (English, Mathematics, Science, Humanities and Social Sciences, The Arts, Technologies and Health
and Physical Education). Simply called ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures’ (https://
australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/cross-curriculum-priorities/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-
histories-and-cultures/) these teach children about the validity of Aboriginal Poetic Knowledge. In so doing
white children will learn that knowing is not just about Technique but rather the Poetics of living, and if children
can learn that being is not about utility and measurement but rather ‘being’, then Marcia will have fostered the
Love-Hope-Faith-Justice dialectic at every level of Education in Australia.

Transition
This chapter has explored a number visionaries at preference of the author, there are of course many visionaries
and books on those visionaries that are told in story in other places. What is unique about this chapter has
been the context for what the author deems as vision and a visionary, this is the criteria of the Hope-Faith-
Love-Justice dialectic. This dialectic has also drawn the author away from a discussion of populist visionaries to
a more nuanced discussion of less known visionaries. It has also been important for the author to move away
from the typical white male discourse about visionaries and to skip stories of politicians (often consumed by
power, pragmatism and position), hereos (made to stand out as less fallible and human), explorers (consumed by
conquest) and entrepreneurs (often about materialism, consumption and capital).
The visionary imagination ought to be framed within a Hope-Faith-Love-Justice dialectic to be of value to
Socialitie. An ethic and vision founded in Socialitie exemplifies a focus on the common good, social meaning,
personhood and community. These are also the context for an Ethic of Risk.
Visonaries are rarely ‘safe’, their reason for being is often what drives them to challenge orthodoxies and the lack
of a Hope-Faith-Love-Justice dialectic in their context. Visionaries are often risk takers not risk rejectors, and by

98 Envisioning Risk
their ontology come into conflict with the power-orthodoxy nexus. Usually visionaries are projected as outsiders
to those in power and are demonsised as a threat to vested interests in keeping to orthodox and stasis.
We now move on to what constrains and opposes vision and visionaries. If vision and visionaries inspire us with
their prophetic imaginations and their insights into how to live in a common good, social meaning, personhood
and community then, what is it that quashes such vision? Of course, this is not about physical blindness but
blindness enabled by zero, ego, power and Technique.

Chapter 3:Visionary Imagination 99

100 Envisioning Risk
SECTION
TWO
The Meaning of Vision
102 Envisioning Risk
CHAPTER 4
Zero Vision

Still the Same - Bob Seger

4
Technique is like describing a flower by the fetilizer is was fed - Gaston Bachelard The
Poetics of Space

Poor Vision - Sydney Trams

At one stage in History, Sydney had the largest tram network in the world. The first trams in Sydney
were horsecar trams installed in 1861. Exactly 100 years later in 1961 the last tram went off the rails in
favour of petrol driven buses. At much the same time the railways across Australia were being left to ruin
in favour of diesel driven trucks. In 1945 Sydney trams carried over 405 million passengers per annum.
You can see video of Sydney trams here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfPbD9-axyw and an
excellent overview here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Sydney
The reason that the outstanding Sydney tram network was destroyed in 1961 is nothing more than
the pure power of vested interests armed with lobby groups with lots of money to sponsor fear and
conservativism as a vast propaganda campaign. At the time of the destruction of the Sydney tram
network was the booming sale of cars and complaints that trams increase congestion and were less
versatile. All kinds of arguments were put forward why the trams should be destroyed including that
buses would be cheaper (https://www.abc.
net.au/news/2018-04-12/sydneys-original-
Figure 69. Burning Tram
tram-network-what-happened-curious-
sydney/9610328) For low and behold 35
years later came the announcement that the
tram network was going to be rebuilt, exacly
where the old tramways had been ripped
out. Meanwhile in Melbourne, they kept and
expanded their tram network.
All the Sydney trams were burned at the
Randwick and Bennalong Point terminus
(Figure 69. Burning Tram) where the Sydney
Opera House now stands (Figure 70. Terminus).

Chapter 4: Zero Vision 103

 This is such a strange story because in 1961
Figure 70. Terminus
the destruction of the trams was broadcast as
a ‘vision for the future’ and then 35 years later
the expensive rebuild was gain marketed as a
‘vision for the future’. What this strange story
shows is a complete lack of vision and the
power of vested interests wanting short term
gain at the cost of the wellbeing of the people
of Sydney, the community and the state of
NSW.
Several anti-visionary dynamics are in plain
view in this crazy episode, these are: Technique,
Power and the Propaganda of Positivism mixed
with the egos of key politicians and capitalists.
The Ego of the Premiers in both periods is saturated in spin and the demonisation of the enemy. Safety
played a huge part in the Propaganda campaign and appeals to ‘common sense’, compliance, binary
oppositions and duty to the powerful. These are always common themes in the quest for stasis and
Technique. It’s always ‘safe’ if we do nothing.
Journalist Matthew Hounsel describes this sad story as a ‘Convenient Falshood’ (https://www.
theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jul/28/erased-from-history-how-sydney-destroyed-its-trams-for-
love-of-the-car) and this is how Propaganda works by mis-information, misdirection and lies. Hounsel
calls this the largest organised vandalism in our Nation’s history.
In their history of Sydney trams Shooting Through, Caroline Butler-Bowdon and Annie Campbell
reinforce how that thinking about trams and cars became loaded with symbolism, trams were an:
‘embarrassing and sentimental anachronism in the age of speed and streamlined proficiency’ and cars as
representatives of ‘modernity and progress’.
I remember riding on Sydney trams as a young boy across the Harbour Bridge and up George St. How
surprised when I heard in 2016 that they were being put back at a cost of billions of dollars exactly where
they had destroyed and of course in the rebuild there were massive blow outs and mistakes and it all had
to be ripped up and built twice (https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/network-map-shows-
sydneys-massive-former-tram-system/news-story/011abaf90477768751377ce7b6689dcf ). It’s strange
when the tax payer foots the bill it all seems to be washed away with further Propaganda.
We now have a tram network in my own city of Canberra which was planned by Marion Mahoney
Griffin one hundred years earlier.

Criteria for Stiffling Vision

The next step in tackling the nature of vision is to discuss what stiffles it. What are the critical principles,
activities and dispositions that stifle and quash vision? What is it about a new view and different view that so
threatens the status quo? If someone has a view for something new, something better, something upbuilding and
empowering, why is such vision opposed? Why are visionaries demonsised? Who benefits from stasis? What is
‘at-risk’ if things change? Why is it best to ‘conserve’ what is? These are some of the questions we will consider in
this chapter.

The Terrible Trauma of Trauma of the Terrible in No Vision

In Episode Three Season Five of Peaky Blinders the scene starts with a car racing down a dimly lit
driveway to a mansion-like house, the Orphange of St Hildas. The scene switches between the racing car

104 Envisioning Risk

 and the heavy footsteps of two people trampling their feet on the wide but cold wooden floors on their
way to the room where the Mother Superior is praying with the sisters before they have breakfast. The
two people walking the halls of St Hildas are Polly Grey and Thomas Shelby, the ruthless one and two
of the Peaky Blinders, gangsters and gypsies with power in Birmingham obtained by racketering, murder
and power.
The foot steps thud into the dining hall where the nuns and Mother Superior sit and they sit down in
two wooden chairs and light up cigarettes. A conversation eschews in which Tom and Polly bring up
evidence of abuse and torture at the Orphanage. Mother Superior digresses with a comment about Tom
and Polly’s sins to which Tom reminds her of who funds the Orphanage.
When an argument develops about righteousness and language of ‘divine right’ Tom grabs the spectacles
of the Mother Superior and crushes the spectacles on the table. There the smashed spectacles sit on the
table with glass smashed and frames bent. Mother Surperior sits stunned by this act of violence to which
Tom states: ‘put those glasses back on!’, ‘Put those glasses back on’, he yells. She shakes and returns the
glasses to her head to which he informs her of her absuses and torture on children and how they will be
all removed and taken to a Peaky Blinder orphanage and how her funding will be cut off. ‘Now’ he says,
‘you might see the world a bit differently’, and they leave.

Opposition to the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice Dialectic

When we look at visionaries and who and what opposed vision, we get a good idea of what opposes the Faith-
Hope-Love-Justice dialectic. From studies in the previous chapter we can see some common oppositions to the
visionary imagination, these are:
1. Technique
2. Power-Positivism-Ego
3. Zero-Stasis-Comfort
4. Absolute Safety
5. Orthodoxy-Conformity-Duty-Common Sense-Complaince
6. Binary Opposition-Fundamentalisms
7. Perception Blindness
8. Disembodied Alienation
9. Orthodoxies-Organising-Institutionalisation
10. Propaganda, Misinformation and Misdirection
This chapter will be built around these factors and the methodology associated with how the Faith-Hope-Love-
Justice dialectic is opposed, supressed and marginalised.

Technique
For the purpose of this book the dynamics of STEM-only perfectionism and the ideologies associated with
Positivism, Objectivism, Empiricism and Scientism are symbolised in Ellul’s concept of Technique. Technique
symbolises all quests for efficiency and measurement against the seeming deficiencies of human fallibility,
metaphysics and Poetics. Technique is named and explained by Ellul in The Technological Society - (https://
monoskop.org/images/5/55/Ellul_Jacques_The_Technological_Society.pdf )
Many critics have misunderstood Ellul’s diagnosis of the world’s social ills via Technique, because they have
wrongly perceived that he was attacking technology. Ellul’s issue was not with technological machines but with a
society necessarily caught up in efficient methodological techniques. Ellul states:

Chapter 4: Zero Vision 105

 Technique is the totality of methods, rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage
of development) in every field of human activity. (The Technological Society p. xxvi)
Technique refers to any complex standardised means for obtaining a predetermined result that involves
measuring and using humans as a trade-off for that result.
• The Technical person is focussed on measurment and results and so sets standardised devices in motion in
order to find ‘the one best way’ for maximum performance.
• Technique transforms ends into means, people into objects that only have value in their utility. In this utility
effeciency is the primary value for those who have the most power.
• Technique relies on centralist control and the power of Propaganda. In this way meaning is simplified into
slogans, mantras and myth-symbols that hide the power and dynamics of Technique. The conflict of slogans
and mantras takes the place of debate over ideas so that Power politicises belonging to simplistic loyalties
and cultic camps.
• Technique acts as an Archetype so that it takes on a life of its own, its methodology is not seen only its
method for finding the one best way. Technique is regarded as the prime instrument for performance
and things that are not measureable or ‘waste time’ fall under the rule of Technique as a metaphor for
understanding life. The by-products of Technique are insecurity, anxiety, fear and uncertainty.
• Technique requires contentment with what is, with stasis so that the powerful can hold power. Technique
enables life to be full of distractions so that questions of meaning are confined to funerals and esoterics.
Everything falls under the power of the Technical Imperative so that distractions, misinformation
(Propaganda) and entertainment are made reality.
In this book I use the notion of STEM-only (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) interchangeably
with Technique. STEM is a construct of the Education and Schooling system and represents a dominant mode of
thinking compared to how those systems understand other parts of the curriculum that are Poetic.
Poetics is not about poetry although poetry is an aspect of Poetics but about all the activities and concepts that
defy the seduction of Technique. If it’s measurebale then it’s not Poetic.
People who read my work often project some strange idea that I am anti-science, nothing could be further from
the truth and such thinking says more about the binary framework of the interpreter.
What I am on about is a full existential dialectic of living a phenomenological life and this includes not just
STEM but everything that we hold in Poetic tension with it such as: dance, art, graphics, Semiotics, poetry, food,
spirituality, literature, transcendence, mystery and the inexplicable - the Metaphysical, the Transcendent.
Poetics is about much more than an appeal to the Social Sciences and Humanities for even in these aspects of the
curricula the seduction is strong in the quest for Technique, efficiency and measurement. Such is the striving for
power, objectivity, orthodoxy and control in the face of fallibility.
Technique doesn’t speak or write lyrically or poetically but analytically. It doesn’t participate or resonate in the soul
of the world or the moment but rather it undertakes atomistic analysis so it can use and control it.
When I visualise Technique I think of a painting that hangs in the National Gallery of Australia (NGA - https://
nga.gov.au/). The painting is called Abendland (Twilight of the West - 1989) by Anselm Kiefer. The painting is
made of lead sheet, synthetic polymer paint, ash, plaster, cement, earth, varnish on canvas and wood. It is huge
(400.00 x 380.0 cm) and when you stand in front of it, it saturates your senses in an understanding of Technique.
It is a bleak reminder of what Technique does to the world. See Figure 71. Abendland.
Lead is a powerful metal, both an industrial pollutant and protection against radiation. As the base metal in
Alchemy it embodies the idea of metamorphosis that underlies Kiefer’s art. The German title, Abendland (land
of evening), is written on the painting and is derived from Oswald Spengler’s historical study Der Untergang

106 Envisioning Risk

des Abendlandes - The Decline of the West published
Figure 71. Abendland
in 1918. A recurrent motif in Kiefer’s work is a path
through desolation in a similar way to how Atwood
depicts a dystopian future in order to offer Hope. Here
railway tracks cut the countryside in half. Kiefer was
aware of the role of railways leading to concentration
camps in the Holocaust. The track, dividing in two,
may also symbolise the subsequent partition of
Germany. You can find out more about Anselm Kiefer
here:
http://www.artnet.com/artists/anselm-kiefer/
https://www.artsy.net/artist/anselm-kiefer

Power-Positivism-Ego
You can get some background on the philosophy
of Positivism here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Positivism. Positivism privileges information
interpreted through reason and logic and is the most
common worldview in the Discipline of General Science - STEM. Positivism is founded on absolute Empiricism
which means it only accepts knowledge from sensory experience and is behind the general founding principle
of Scientific Method and that validity is determined by repeatability. Positivism like many philosophies was
constructed in opposition to another philosophy. In this case Positivism was constructed by Auguste Comte
(1798–1857) in opposition to Metaphysics, non-materialist philosophies and Philosophy itself. Positivism
anchors to the Scientific Method and rejects non-material thinking and transcendence.
Positivism seeks to free itself from value-laden thinking in the quest for Objectivism. Of course, this is a
contradiction because the quest to divorce oneself from values is a value.
The Positivist focus is on objects and the rejection of non-materialist understandings of the world. If something
is not ‘observable’ then Positivism must reject it, including Psychology. There are a range of Positivisms that
have emerged since Comte but most share this foundation in Objectivism, Metrics, Numerics and observable
evidence. Underneath the Positivist framework is the quest for power and so the Positivist seeks absolute cause
and absolute evidence and gets caught up in the reductionist seductions of Atomism.
The Frankfurt School which was founded by Fromm and Habermas later rejected the assumptions of Positivism
and founded the philosophy of Critical Theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School). Since the
development of Critical Theory a host of Post-modern philosophies have emerged that critique the Positivist
assertion of logical realism and objectivity. Postmodernist and Poststructuralist philosophies are two emerging
philosophies from Critical Theory. The Social Psychology of Risk has evolved from these traditions.
When one looks at the curriculum in the risk and safety industries the dominant focus is on objects (at least 75%
of all Bodies of Knowledge and curriculum in risk) in the Positivist worldview. In many ways this is a worldview
that doesn’t have the Metaphysical equipment to even understand itself. Strangely, without a focus on non-
materialist thinking the Risk industry finds itself with no thinking equipment to critique its own non-materialist
Discourse.
Indeed, the Positivist rejection of philosophy itself makes it more exposed to metaphysical trade-offs as it seeks
numerical absolutes. The risk industry is now more immersed in Metaphysics than one could imagine. In the
search for zero that magical number, Risk now drifts into religious language and metaphors of super-heroes and
faith/belief. Because the risk industry is not equipped with philosophical thinking including An Ethic of Risk, it
now accidentally falls into a religious worldview in its quest for secular absolutes. This is evident in the American

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Association of Safety Professionals (AASP) (https://safety.assp.org/education/general-sessions/) and XXI World
Congress on Safety 2017 (https://www.safety2017singapore.com/) conferences.
Philosophically speaking the risk industry has nowhere to go. Without a philosophical understanding of itself
it cannot go any further than zero, which is why the new mantra must become ‘beyond zero’ or anything more
or less than zero. This of course sets up risk and safety for delusional rejection of fallibility, vulnerability and
suffering (all Metaphysical challenges).
By building a fortress around Positivism anchored to zero it can now only peddle confusion about its own
metaphysical contradictions. Unfortunately, the risk industry is now anchored to a philosophical worldview that
makes compromise and collaboration with other worldviews virtually impossible.
In the SEEK Program (SPoR Incident Investigations) we use the metaphors of the atom and a coffee cup to
denote what a conversation is and is NOT about (See Figures 72. The Atom and Coffee Cup). The atom reminds
us that Reductionism rarely works in effective questioning. The atom reminds us that drilling down to detail
and focusing on objects rarely engenders trust in the other. The purpose of Atomism is similar to Technique, the
purpose is to analyse to control rather
than to develop understanding for its
Figures 72. The Atom and Coffee Cup
own sake. The coffee cup reminds us
that we need to suspend our agenda
when approaching others and this is the
foundation of effective listening. This is
often the biggest challenge for people in
the risk industry, they find it so hard to
let go of power in the moment and so
enact a climate of ‘telling’ not listening.
Rather than empower the other, they
empower themselves. Nothing can be
more disempowering to the Faith-Hope-
Love-Justice dialectic that the dynamics
of self-ego-power.

Politics and Power in Risk

If one is interested in understanding politics and power the place to start is with Foucault (https://aeon.co/
essays/why-foucaults-work-on-power-is-more-important-than-ever). You can find some of his works here:
• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301216441_Michel_Foucault_A_brief_introduction_to_major_
Foucaultian_themes
• https://monoskop.org/images/4/43/Foucault_Michel_Discipline_and_Punish_The_Birth_of_the_
Prison_1977_1995.pdf
• https://monoskop.org/images/5/5d/Foucault_Michel_Power_Knowledge_Selected_Interviews_and_Other_
Writings_1972-1977.pdf
One of the driving dynamics in the study of Social Psychology of Risk (SPoR) is understanding power and
politics. Social Psychology emerges out of social political schools of thought. SPoR studies the nature of
power and its place in the tackling risk in the module The Social Politics of Risk (https://cllr.com.au/product/
the-social-politics-of-risk-unit-14/).
If one wishes to understand the nature of power and politics I would also suggest reading Gramsci, Freire or
Giroux. An easy start might be with Pedagogy of the Oppressed (https://envs.ucsc.edu/internships/internship-
readings/freire-pedagogy-of-the-oppressed.pdf )

108 Envisioning Risk

Some of the dynamics that work against an understanding of power and politics are bundled up neatly in
the Australian Institute of Health & Safety (AIHS) Body of Knowledge (BoK) on Ethics. The call for duty,
compliance, zero (the silent master - http://visionzero.global/node/6) in a deontological ethic is a perfect mask
for the privileging of power.
A study of politics, ideology and power is the starting point for any consideration of the nature of ethics in risk.
Naturally, none of this is studied in the AIHS BoK on Ethics. The best way to hide one’s politics, ideology and
power is to be silent on it. A very effective political ideology hides its real dynamics in moralisms and duty.
Nothing is quite as terrible as someone giving you the sack under the rubric of care. How easy to find
an absolute and create a tyranny in the name of good. How easy to hide in a psychology of care as you
get the sack. How easy to dehumanize people as objects under the politics of risk. The only time the risk
industry comes a cropper over its power is when it is met with an even greater power in a courtroom.
The beginning to understanding power is questioning. You will always understand the nature of power when you
question the locus of Powers. You will always feel the power of an ideology if you suggest taking it away. Where
is the power? How is it wielded? Who suffers under it? These are beginning questions for finding out how power
works in risk and safety. You can see other helpful questions on the Critical Political Questions Tool at Figure 73.
These are some very simple questions one needs to ask to find out where the power is in risk and how it is being
used politically against whom.
Often the privileging of a certain form of knowledge (often professionalized) is the pathway to power. All
processes of professionalization and accreditation create the hoarding of power for a certain group. Ask a medical
doctor, teacher or lawyer a question and you will soon find out where the power in the profession is. The power
of knowledge is hoarded in language unique to the group. This may not be intentional but is what outcome is
generated. Professsionalised power is
easily politicized, territorialized and Figure 73. Critical Political Questions
commodified as a product so that others
can be easily oppressed by the use of
that power.
Compliance power is often exorcised
by isolation, ex-communication and the
creation of cultural taboos that suppress
criticism and non-conformity. We see
this in the professionalized power of the
clergy. Even better when oppression,
domination and exploitation can be
enacted under the cloak of an ideology
of religious good.
The nature of hegemony, culture and
ideology is also foundational to a study
of politics and power. Hegemony defines
the way a group enacts their power
within a culture and society (https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/hegemony). Hegemonic
power works insidiously in a culture delivered by ‘good people’ committed to a closed ideology. The cause of the
hegemonic group often becomes ‘deified’ and absolute so that any resistance or non-compliance is deemed evil,
anti-good and non-compliant.
The demon to power politics is resistance, questioning and subversion. The power of institutionalization is created
to resist such threats to orthodoxy. The love of orthodoxy is stasis and there is no greater power to stasis than zero.

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Zero Quashes Vision
One of the challenging things about the Coronavirus crisis (2020) is stasis. For those without work and confined
to home, for those in self-isolation, it’s as-if life is frozen in time. ‘Stay at home’ is the mantra. The trouble is, in
order to be fulfilled as persons we need movement not just movement in home but social movement (https://
www.economist.com/international/2020/04/04/how-will-humans-by-nature-social-animals-fare-when-isolated).
There is no learning without movement. And there is no movement without risk
Nothing is more sure than the quest for stasis is the quest for death. This is the quest for zero. The only way to
avoid harm and injury in the real world of humans, randomness and living, is to stop moving. Yet, this quest is
the so called ‘vision’ of the global safety movement (http://visionzero.global/node/6). Any view that advocates
for zero is a view of anti-vision. Zero is the mantra of the Australian Institute of Health & Safety, Safe Work
Australia (SWA) and National Safety Council of Australia (NSCA), all party to the global ideology of zero. The
global risk industry is an industry with zero vision.
Moreso, the evidence for denial of fallibility is extensive. This is why the quest for zero can never have a vision but
rather zero vision.
The outcome of the zero fixation is paralysis by fear of injury. When your goal, language, mythology and ideology
is ‘zero’ many hidden trajectories and by-products come into play. Who will be first to report the next injury?
When your work-life is defined by a number then, whatever flows from it must dehumanise persons. And of
course, when mental health harm is increasing (https://www.headsup.org.au/docs/default-source/resources/
bl1270-report---tns-the-state-of-mental-health-in-australian-workplaces-hr.pdf ?sfvrsn=8) and harm by a virus
is increasing, how can the risk industry hide the numbers?
Once locked in to the absolute stasis of zero the risk industry has nowhere to go. Every statistic and any data that
follows the language of zero is deemed dumb . Everything that follows the language of zero that involves fallible
humans, randomness in the real world and the unpredictability of risk in learning/movement, looks dumb. The
first step in being professional is being ethical and intelligent, and zero fails on both counts.
Stasis is stressful. When stasis becomes dis-stressful then it becomes harmful (https://theconversation.
com/cabin-fever-australia-must-prepare-for-the-social-and-psychological-impacts-of-a-coronavirus-
lockdown-133353). So the quest for stasis is also the quest for harm.
It doesn’t matter how one examines zero ideology it has a trajectory in the absurd. When you start with an absurd
binary question (how many people do you want to die today?) you must get an absurd answer , zero!
How an industry can collectively maintain the absurd denial of fallibility is a self-indictment of insanity. No-one
who claims the title of ‘professional’ can be professional if they deny human fallibility. Immutability is stasis yet,
everything about persons it the opposite - mutable, vulnerable, mortal and fallible. There can be no immutability
in movement.
We know that various forms of stress and, the drugs the body generates through stress, make stress addictive
(https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270849389_The_Relationship_between_Stress_and_Addiction).
Dis-stress is addictive (Scientific American Mind May 2020 The Stress Fix) and results in the prominence
of various forms of self medication (https://americanaddictioncenters.org/adult-addiction-treatment-
programs/self-medicating) used to help cope with the rising rates of anxiety and depression in society.
One thing that has risen dramatically in Covid19 lockdown, staying at home and stasis, has been the
rise in alcohol consumption, drug use and domestic violence (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-26/
coronavirus-crisis-has-people-drinking-more-experts-say/12086790).
The case studies that follow of two global corporations helps demonstrate the dynamics of zero ideology and
how zero quashes vision.

110 Envisioning Risk

Dark Waters, The True Story of DuPont and Zero
If you want to learn about the meaninglessness of zero harm and the Bradley Curve watch the
documentary Dark Waters (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-06/dark-waters-review-mark-ruffalo-
todd-haynes-dupont/12028034). The movie gives a dramatic account of how DuPont knowingly over 50
years intentionally harmed people, communities and the environment under the banner and mantra of
zero harm!
The movie is based on the life work of Rob Bilott (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/magazine/
the-lawyer-who-became-duponts-worst-nightmare.html) who exposed DuPont’s intentional causing of
harm to the community, people and environment, all the time extolling the virtues of the Bradley Curve
and the meaningless mantra and ideology of zero harm.
The numbers of people directly harmed by DuPont is at least 70,000 but more likely over 5 million
(https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/magazine/the-lawyer-who-became-duponts-worst-nightmare.
html). DuPont knew for decades that people were drinking poisoned water from their factories.
From DuPont’s perspective this is the price one pays for the profits from Teflon. You can read
Bilott’s own account in his book Exposure (https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Exposure/
Robert-Bilott/9781501172816).
There is nothing quite like propaganda to cover the tracks of secret hypocrisy, holding up oneself as the
bastion of safety when in fact, the opposite is the truth. Harm in the name of good always makes for
effective propaganda (https://monoskop.org/images/4/44/Ellul_Jacques_Propaganda_The_Formation_of_
Mens_Attitudes.pdf ). Projecting the safety-hero through the nonsense Bradley Curve (https://safetyrisk.
net/nonsense-curves-and-pyramids/) and shouting zero from the roof tops whilst harming tens of
thousands if not millions of people (https://time.com/5737451/dark-waters-true-story-rob-bilott/) is the
DuPont truth. But first a brief excursion into the nature of zero harm, the bastion of DuPont’s delusion.
When I first entered the safety industry 20 years ago I couldn’t believe this psychosis with
zero. Hence, I wrote For the Love of Zero, Human Fallibility and Risk in 2012 (https://
www.humandymensions.com/product/for-the-love-of-zero-free-download/). I followed
this up in 2018 with the book Fallibility and Risk, Living With Uncertainty (https://www.
humandymensions.com/product/fallibility-risk-living-uncertainty/). Both books are available for
free download.
Since the publication of my first book against zero nothing has changed in the risk industry with zero
indeed, it has simply got worse. It doesn’t matter where one goes in the risk industry zero is everywhere.
Companies even replace the word ‘safety’ with the word ‘zero’ and have ‘zero harm meetings’, ‘zero harm
advisors’ and ‘zero harm managers’! If you want a zero harm job look here: https://www.seek.com.au/
zero-harm-jobs.
Of course, zero harm is a symbol for how immature the risk industry is. Zero harm is the myth that
binds zero crusaders together in the absence of critical thinking. Zero harm is the global mantra (http://
visionzero.global/node/6) for an industry deluded by the myth of injury rates as a measure of safety. The
best pathway to being unethical and unprofessional is through the discourse and ideology of zero.
Many in the risk industry have no idea how to counter the arguments of zero harm binary logic and so
it now dominates the discourse in government, regulators and most tier one companies. Without any
training in critical thinking, most people are exposed to the delusions of the zero harm binary logic and
don’t know what to do. But zero doesn’t mind passive agreement. DuPont were the creators of this
delusion.
Of course, any foundation in the denial of fallibility can only ever be unethical. This is why the
AIHS BoK Chapter on Ethics 38.3 makes no mention of zero despite the fact that this unethical

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 mantra is the most dominant religious myth in the industry. If you want to rev up the emotions
and spark irrational debate just criticize zero or the AIHS BoK on Ethics (https://safetyrisk.net/
it-was-the-sia-until-someone-wanted-to-swing-from-the-chandelier/).
Indeed, what the ideology of zero creates is an industry that cannot cope with any criticism. Zero is the
ideology of intolerance and the lover of stasis. Demonizing the enemy who criticizes zero is the best way
not to listen and learn anything. The cycle in compliance is profound, now the bastion of compulsory
mis-education. There’s no curriculum anywhere that teaches the unethical nature of zero ideology.
Of course, wherever one finds zero there can be no leadership or understanding of culture. You will
often find the word ‘leadership’ attached to zero (https://www.worksafe.qld.gov.au/construction/articles/
zero-harm-at-work-leadership-program) but the opposite is the case. There can be no leadership in zero
ideology but the language of leadership and culture attached to zero has the same meaning and worth as
a DuPont brochure.
When DuPont were finally found out for being a harming company, just like BP were found out to be
a harming company (https://www.nrt.org/sites/2/files/GPO-OILCOMMISSION.pdf ) did anything
change? Of course not, ideology has the same power as religion. Indeed, ideologies and religions share
much in common. No, DuPont spent extra money and energy trying to obfuscate and cover up their
crimes (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/magazine/the-lawyer-who-became-duponts-worst-
nightmare.html). See Figure 74. Dark
Waters. Figure 74. Dark Waters

I launched a survey in 2020 (https://

safetyrisk.net/take-the-zero-survey/)
and invited as many people from across
the risk and safety sector to respond.
At the time of writing this book and
with over 1000 respondents there are a
number of fascinating results:
• 95% of people in the industry do
not believe in zero
• 87% think zero is unachievable
• 88% believe zero leads to bullying
• 91% believe zero leads to
dishonesty
It seems very clear that the ideology of zero is really a psychosis of senior managers and CEOs.
So, watch the movie if you can (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvAOuhyunhY) or read the NY
Times report (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/magazine/the-lawyer-who-became-duponts-worst-
nightmare.html) but most of all learn how to pull apart the nonsense arguments of zero vision. Nothing
demonstrates dumb better than the question: ‘how many people do you want harmed today?’
You will find out how to challenge zero more than anywhere in the blogs on this site (https://safetyrisk.
net/?s=zero) or in the two books already mentioned.
Don’t be fooled, zero ideology is as toxic to humans as DuPont sludge floating down a river. In the end it
will be more costly than just money, its toxicity will destroy people’s lives in the name of good. How evil
is that? How unethical is it to mask evil in the name of good?

112 Envisioning Risk

Selective Harm for Rio Tinto - A Case Study in Zero Vision
When you make your raison d’être (reason for being) the counting of injuries then one loses all
perspective and vision. When your mantra is ‘zero vision’ we all know that means - ‘selective harm’ – zero
vision.
Everyone in the Health, Safety, Environment, Risk and Quality (HSEQ) industry knows that zero is
nonsense (see the survey results). This meaningless mantra that drives the global HSEQ industry (http://
visionzero.global/node/6) is nothing but a ‘Smokescreen’ and Propaganda for doing what you like. We
saw this with DuPont and Rio Tinto
in 2020 (https://www.abc.net.au/ Figure 75. Rio Tinto Destroys Priceless Indigenous
news/2020-06-05/rio-tinto-knew-6- Archeology Site
years-ago-about-46000yo-rock-caves-
it-blasted/12319334).
Rio Tinto is a zero harm organisation.
So knowingly destroying Indigenous
archeological sites of global
significance is the ‘zero-harm approach’
(https://www.mining-technology.
com/mining-safety/mining-safety-
rio-tinto-kennecot)! See Figure 75.
Rio Tinto Destroys Priceless Indigenous
Archeology Site.
When your mantra is zero then paper
cuts and sprained ankles are amplified
whilst priceless artefacts
and Indigenous heritage are just dirt.
It is clear that Rio Tinto just like
DuPont, knew of the harm they were
causing when they took action in May
2020. Then all nicely packaged with
the appropriate spin of zero, Rio utters
a ‘sorry’ and more spin of ‘we care for
cultural heritage’ (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-28/rio-tinto-blasting-indigenous-site-prompts-
heritage-protection/12296958). This is how Zero works!
Scholars in archeology, cultural heritage and the Chair of UNESCO state that this action by Rio is the
equivalent of Islamic State (ISIS) blowing up Palmyra (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/
aug/23/isis-blows-up-temple-dating-back-to-17ad-in-unesco-listed-syrian-city; https://www.abc.net.au/
radio/programs/pm/pilbara-cave-explosion-on-par-with-palmyra---unesco-chair/12297884).
‘Zero’ is the language of binary dumb down thinking and all the tier 1 companies speak it as if somehow
fallibility doesn’t exist, even their own fallibility. When you make your target zero then you make
yourself a big target! Your target will then be used against you, both in the media and in the courts, but
still the industry continues its Love of Zero.
Zero is not just a number but rather a semiotic and ideology for stasis. Zero creates a petty mindset that
burrows deep down into insignificant human injury and blows it out of all proportion. Then, allows Real
Risks to disappear into insignificance.

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Many other case studies could be provided to demonstrate just how this toxic ideology quashes vision and the
Faith-Hope-Love-Justice dialectic.

Absolute Safety
Nothing quashes vision more than the fear of risk and the quest for absolute safety. Indeed, framing the world
via the lens of safety creates a tense anxiety with the fear of death and the consequences of risk. The quest for
absolute safety is also the quest for zero risk and zero risk only offers a life of zero learning. The fear of harm is
the fear of vision.
One of the great texts that smash the notion of zero risk/zero harm is by Amalberti, R., (2013) Navigating
Safety, Necessary Compromises and Trade-Offs Theory and Practice. Springer. New York. Amalberti is a Professor of
Medicine, Ergonomics and Physiology and argues for ‘risk realism’ in the Health Sector. Amalberti demonstrates
conclusively, mathematically and statistically that absolute safety is impossible. In a recent paper (‘Managing
risk in hazardous conditions: improvisation is not enough’ BMJ Quality and Safety, Vol. 29. Issue 1. 2020.
https://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/29/1/60) he comments about the nature of health care and the Covid-19
pandemic. In the mid part of this paper he has a paragraph entitled ‘Managing Risk Rather Than Striving for
Absolute Safety’. The paragraph discusses Safety II and concludes with:
Most importantly, the existing literature offers little guidance as to how we might best prepare and
support people and organisations to manage expected pressures and crises. How can we turn elegant
conceptualisations into practical action?
One of the unique things about the Social Psychology of Risk (SPoR) is that it provides practical action and skill
development in tackling risk. SPoR doesn’t focus much on safety but privileges skill development in tackling risk.
Those who have been undertaking the free online Introduction to SPoR Module in 2020 (https://cllr.com.au/
product/an-introduction-to-the-social-psychology-of-risk-unit-1-free-online-module/) testify to this (https://
safetyrisk.net/online-studies-with-cllr/).
SPoR is basically a new vision for approaching personhood not a way of doing systems. SPoR assumes that
persons as social beings better manage risk through: engagement, better connection, listening, understanding
power and dynamics in organizing. SPoR teaches through practical tools new ways of understanding risk.
Kay and King in their recent book (Kay, J., and King, M., (2020) Radical Uncertainty, Decision Making for an
Unknowable Future. The Bridge Street Press. London.) discuss the nature of risk in the field of Economics
and use the notion of ‘radical uncertainty’ to demonstrate that humans can never optimise and at best can only
satisfice. In their book they progress through story after story in recent history where leaders could only satisfice
including discussion of the: Global Financial Crisis, War on Terror and decisions by the Obama administration.
On page 40, without any knowledge of Covid-19 they state eerily:
But we must expect to be hit by an epidemic of an infectious disease resulting from a virus which does
not yet exist. To describe catastrophic pandemics , or environmental disasters, or nuclear annihilation, or
our subjection to robots, in terms of probabilities is to mislead ourselves and others.
This idea of ‘probabilistic reasoning’ is something they criticise as responsible for current delusions about the
nature of risk. In reference to wicked problems they state: ‘The problem of radical uncertainty has supposedly
been tamed by probabilistic reasoning’ (p. 15). This ideology of ‘probabilistic reasoning’ is everywhere in the safety
industry hence the industry’s fixation on controls, prediction and objects.
Amalberti (2020) states four principles in tackling risk:
• First, we must in a sense, give up hope of waiting for things to ‘return to normal’. We can of course continue
to innovate and improve the system. However, we must face the fact of unsafe practice and ask how risk can
be minimised in essentially dangerous conditions.

114 Envisioning Risk

• Second, we must accept that we can never eliminate all risks and hazards. There is nothing wrong with
eliminating risks where this is feasible, we need to balance these preventative actions with a wider portfolio
of safety strategies that are explicitly aimed at managing dynamic threats and pressures.
• Third, although most of the literature on adaptation focuses on the management of surprises and unexpected
problems, we believe the principal focus should be on expected problems and hazards. Pressures of beds,
staffing, equipment and sick patients are unexpected in that it is hard to know when they will happen but
entirely familiar. These situations are quite different from sudden, unexpected and unusual crises that are the
focus of much of the literature.
• Finally, we must acknowledge from the start that the management of risk when an entire unit or
organisation is stressed necessarily requires engagement and action at all managerial levels. Negotiating
new priorities, comprehensive training and strategies in a stressed organisation requires coordinated action
between executives, middle management and frontline staff.
In order to better enact these principles we need to look to the skill development of people in organizing and
how they seek to tackle risk. Rather than be distracted by slogans, more mechanistic models and positivity
training, the reality is that many people in safety lack fundamentals skills in engagement. Without exception
everyone from the risk and safety industry in the SPoR Introduction have stated: ‘why have I not been shown
this before’.
I think part of the problem of not knowing how to engage others is Risk itself and its closed Positivist worldview.
The risk industry spends all its time framing the problem of risk by its outcome not by an Ethic of Risk. An
Ethic of Risk starts with the challenges of human fallibility, vulnerability, radical uncertainty and Socialitie. It is
from this foundation that we both understand and tackle risk in a Transdisciplinary way and the nature of the
ecological world we live in. SPoR assumes that we cannot approach safety through safety but must first come to
terms with how Risk Makes Sense (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/risk-makes-sense/).
My first foray into the risk and safety world was with a book entitled Risk Make Sense (2012). It seemed strange
to me at the time that this world of risk and was unable to make sense of risk. Even to this day I have seen
no publication anywhere globally in the industry on an Ethic of Risk. Surely an Ethic of Risk should be the
foundation for understanding safety. What a strange world that spends all of its time battling the challenges of
risk and yet is unable to define how risk sits within a human ontology (theory of being).
But first we have to drop the delusions of absolute safety. Absolute safety is absolute nonsense and inhibits any
vision in making sense of risk. It will only be through an Ethic of Risk that the industry will move away from the
delusions of absolute safety and come to terms with the realities of harm.
One of the principle challenges for the risk industry is the way it frames the problem of risk via an outcome -
safety. Unfortunately, the risk industry is captivated by Positivism and Behaviourism and this warps vision so that
outcomes (doing) frame a blindness to being.
Being is about -isness, and the experience of being. The existential reality of being is risk. Risk is defined as: ‘the
faith and trust required to undertake movement in living’. There is no learning without risk and no risk without
movement and any movement requires Faith.
Risk is one of those fundamental certainties of being fallible. Fromm (1970) defines faith as: ‘the certainty of
uncertainty’ or ‘paradoxical certainty’. This is the risk of fallible human being. There is no risk without some
expression of movement or ‘leap of faith’.
We ought to not shy away from the language of ‘faith’. Faith is a methodology for visualising. When someone
says they have faith in something or someone they declare they trust something possible that others out of
relationship cannot see. If I thank someone for having faith in me I acknowledge the value of their trust, despite
possible doubts but there is no certainty in that trust.

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Kierkegaard (1974) reminds us that the human
Figure 76. The Miracle Rescue
disposition to live forward in leaps of faith (in
uncertainty) is ‘absurd’, such is the human condition.
We either learn to live with fallibility (Long. 2018)
or spend most of our lives constructing delusions
of infallibility. Becker (1973) calls this The Denial
of Death. Of course, the ideology of zero in the risk
industry is an example of such a delusion.
As an outsider looking in, I see so many strange leaps
of faith in an industry that denies faith. Indeed, it
seems the risk industry deludes itself and imagines
there is no paradox in human being. All of the language
that surrounds the global safety mantra of zero vision
(http://visionzero.global/node/6) is about ‘belief ’. All
of the so called evidence that is paraded to demonstrate
zero is faith in itself, there is no evidence and never
can be. Faith is faith because it is arational, it believes
without evidence. Such is the Discourse on zero.
Kay and King (2020) state: ‘The problem of radical
uncertainty has supposedly been tamed by probabilistic
reasoning’. They demonstrate how clearly humans
make leaps of faith in the face of wicked problems.
Who could have ever predicted the state of things in
2020 with Covid-19. What a wonder is Hindsight
Bias that proposes that forward living is certain and
predictable. If so, why pay insurance? Why so many
systems to create such a profound sense of assurance in
safety?
Of course the risk and safety world doesn’t entertain the notion of faith but rather concocts a faux world of
certainty and supposed measurement by its belief in Behaviourist-Positivist philosophy - hence the focus on
controls, behaviours and objects (hazards). Then when things go wrong explain backwards how there was no leap
of faith. Unfortunately, the industry because of its fear of discussing faith has become so much more religious-
like in discourse and language. Just do a reading of any text in risk and find words such as ‘mystery’, ‘belief ’, ‘trust’
or ‘uncertainty’ and challenge that language for its connection to faith (paradoxical certainty). See what you find.
I have no idea why the sector is so fearful of such a discussion.

Australians of the Year

It was great to see that the Australians of the Year for 2019 were adventurers (https://www.abc.net.au/
news/2019-01-26/australians-of-the-year-craig-challen-richard-harris-inspiring/10753288). The idea
of adventure and learning in risk is central to all they represent. Even when they were in the midst of
their rescue of the boys in the caves in Thailand they expected to lose some or all of the boys, they were
prepared to risk death for life (https://www.sbs.com.au/news/australian-of-the-year-winners-thai-cave-
heroes-message-to-kids). As they say: ‘we had no choice’. As they stated, ‘If you couldn’t die, I wouldn’t
be interested’. Much of the media and rescuers described it as ‘a miracle’ (https://www.gq.com/story/thai-
cave-rescue-miracle-at-tham-luang). How interesting that we include religious language when discussing
risk and death. See Figure 76. The Miracle Rescue. The picture of the two Doctors Challen and Harris after
the rescue (Figure 77. Drs Challen and Harris) exmplifies (in true Aussie style) how safety ought to be
viewed through the lens of risk.

116 Envisioning Risk

 The only reason these men had the required
Figure 77. Drs Challen and Harris
knowledge to rescue the boys in Thailand is
because of all they had learned through risk.
Just imagine if these men had lived by the
nonsense mantra of ‘zero vision’ or ‘all accidents
are preventable’. Can you imaging how dumb
they would be. Certainly with no capability to
do anything. There is nothing like risk-averse
dumb down infused with zero ideology to
make you the dumbest person on the planet.
How strange, our two famous Australians
describe their friendship as ‘hanging about with
each other at our own peril’.
Dr Challen, joked that: ‘it was the greatest regret of my childhood that I never had a plaster cast on my
arm’. What a comparison to an industry that counts band-aids out of the first aid kit and has a Spanish
Inquisition if you twist an ankle. I dare say these blokes count what they learn not by the number of times
they nearly died on an adventure but how important it was to embrace risk.
There is no vision in absolute safety because it fears the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice dialectic.

Orthodoxy-Conformity-Duty-Common Sense-Compliance
Humans form alliances, associations and organise to reduce equivocality and ambiguity in living. A wonderful
read is Weick, K., (1979) The Social Psychology of Organizing. McGraw-Hill. New York. on the dynamics of
social organizing and like all things human, hinges on a paradox. We insitutionalise to create security and
assurance in the face of paradox and uncertainty and this organising for safety isolates visionaries and innovation
because it often threatens what has been made orthodox. Most visionaries come from the outside and threaten
orthodoxy that builds a fortress around what was once a good idea under a visionary leader and then settles into
conservativism in all that is safe and secure in stasis.
This is how the Institutionalisation of the Charisma (Weber) (Figure 78. Institutionalisation of the Charisma)
works. The Institutionalisation of the Charisma works in a cycle like this:
1. Someone, usually a charismatic visionary, has a great idea and communicates that vision to a small group.
2. The group gathers together and are enthused by the vision and seek to capture it and set in place an
association around the leader and group.
3. Others get attracted to the vision and leave other organisations because their idea has gone stale and become
irrelevant.
4. Usually, the founding visionary of other groups continue on hoping their original vision continues to attract
people, but it doesn’t.
5. New people who come on board in the new group bring with them their histories, biases and memories
from the previous group and this changes the charismatic group. It starts to instituitionalise.
6. A new culture develops and processes have to be institutionalised to maintain trust and accountability eg.
presidents, secretary, minutes, annual reports etc.
7. Roles and responsibilities within the organisation are now politicised and factions develop.
8. People leave the institution looking for something fresh and new, often for or with an insider with a good
idea who is isolated, politicised and demonsised because they are a threat to orthodoxy, compliance, status
quo, stasis, duty and ‘common sense’.

Chapter 4: Zero Vision 117

9. Often the leaving group coagulate around another vision and visionary leader and form a new charismatic
group.
10. and so the cycle continues.
The Institutionalisation of the Charisma (IoC) was articulated by Max Weber in the late 20th Century (https://
www.researchgate.net/publication/249631674_Max_Weber%27s_Charisma). He also articulated the idea of The
Protestant Work Ethic.
When it comes to wanting to change and influence culture or sub-cultures, it would make sense to look at, and
understand, the cultural identifiers as presented in the concept map Figure 78. Institutionalisation of the Charisma.
The symbols, language, customs and norms in a culture are powerful, and filter in and out those who do and
don’t belong. The process of institutionalisation is such that it locks these things into place over time. It takes an
enormous stress to change culturally entrenched values and beliefs.
Unless the organisation and the culture is able to learn and change, then many of the cultural norms become
historically entrenched, so much so, it seems like they are locked in concrete. In time, old cultures become
impervious to change. Over time they may weaken but still linger about while new and more vibrant cultures
emerge. Eventually, one culture slowly watches the other die out.
The ebb and flow of unsuccessful business
is testimony to this pattern of birth, energy,
Figure 78. Institutionalisation of the Charisma
institutionalisation, lock-in, fixed position
and irrelevance. The culture of the public
Organisational Development and the Institutionalisation of the Charisma
Company

service and the church are testimony to

Starts
Conflict
Questioning

the difficulty of adaptation and change

Doubt

in entrenched cultures. Often entrenched Exciting Idea

Charismatic Person/s New people come on board without the history
or culture of start up. Old hands become disillusioned.

policy, processes and procedures bring their Fundamentals of Attraction Culture of organisation changes.

own risks, especially as new technologies are

?
introduced whilst the culture using those Long hours

technologies resists change. The larger the Energy, Drive,

Growth,
New culture develops.

organisation, the more entrenched and

New people arrive, vision changes.
Excitement Transition is painful for some.
Lack of structure
Bureaucracy has to develop to

immovable the culture. manage everything fairly.

Policies and Procedures etc

Kay and King (2020) give a marvelous

account of organisations like: Kodak, Nokia, More attraction changes dynamic
Lots of sacrifice, work and managing People learn to Bitterness
without resources accept change

Microsoft, Blackberry, Lehman Bros, Wang and new culture.

etc that are testimony to the reality of

The Insitutionalisation of the Charisma. Futher read: Gerth, H., and Mills, C., (eds.) (1948) From Max Weber.
Routledge. London.

Reforming From the Inside or Outside

I have found that sometimes the best way to learn something is to experience it. This is certainly the case
with learning about political parties. In 2001 I joined the local branch of the Australian Labor Party out
of interest and a friendship formed with a fellow member.
In less than 12 months and a few meetings later the members in a ballot elected me as President of that
sub-branch. At sub-branch level the meetings were friendly, orderly and everyone was able to canvas
views and debate ideas. It was very different at a regional level.
As I was required to associate with regional sub-branches in other areas I soon learned about the petty
factional fighting between sub-branches and how these factions organised to get their way and assume
power in party governance. The local faction I was in was from the Right and had ties to different politics,
ethics and economics than the Left factions that were located in the North of my region.

118 Envisioning Risk

 At a sub-branch level we would debate things and put them to the regional council that managed things
for the Party, everything was quite friendly. The local region was in government and it also had two
representatives in the Federal Parliament who were Ministers. One of those politicians was in my own
sub-branch and we became very good friends.
I soon discovered the bitter, nasty and viciousness of the party at a regional level, including being called
in by the President for the region and being castigated for unhelpful motions for actions from my
sub-branch.
It took only took 2 years to learn just how petty, infantile and immature political parties are and their
machinations. I resigned after 3 years and had learned my lessons.
Some people are of the view that the best way to seek change is from the inside ie. one joins, develops
belonging and tries to influence things by order, subtlety and quiet diplomacy. From my experience this
doesn’t work. What one experiences is the machinery of the insituition and you don’t affect it, it affects
you. I have had similar experiences in large organisations, associations and the church.
It seems that vision and visionaries can only really influence from the outside with effect. Such is the
Institutionalisation of the Charisma. The Institutionalisation of the Charisma creates a politic that
shuts out the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice dialectic and in the end power-pragmatism becomes the ruling
dynamic.

Binary Opposition-Fundamentalisms
One of the most challenging issues for the risk industry is the cultivation of critical thinking. This is most
obvious in the logic of those who seek to advocate infallible rules for fallible humans in fallible institutions. This
is the outcome of what is known as ‘binary thinking’ or what is known as ‘binary oppositionalism’.
The binary question is the black and white, either/or question, often structured as: ‘how many people do you want
to harm today?’ or as one recent writer put it, ‘pick a number’. Binary questions are questions of entrapment, the
question is framed to only one answer - zero! Such questions need to be called out for what they are. These are
questions that are not interested in discussion but rather just want agreement and compliance with some issue or
agenda.
Let’s put to one side the problem of basing the existence of something (that is: safety) on the basis of the absence
of something else (namely :injuries) for a moment, and let’s look at the logic behind binary thinking.
Binary thinking is premised on the logic of either/or thinking and rejects the notion of dialectic. Binary thinking
seeks one of two options, there is no grey, only black and white. Binary thinking is fundamentalist thinking. The
fundamentalist worldview only wants certainty and will not countenance ambiguity, paradox or uncertainty.
A binary question is a question of entrapment; there are no options out, only a commitment to one view or its
opposite. Let’s look at how this logic works.
If I ask you: ‘do you believe in God’ … ‘no’ … ‘oh well, you must be a devil worshipper’. This is the logic of binary
opposition.
Yet in reality, there are many middle positions, one can also be an agnostic (I don’t know) or an atheist (I don’t
believe). Such questions often bait others and don’t respect the view of others to a differing opinion.
One can be political, anti-political or a-political. One can be passionate, dis-passionate or a-passionate, one can
be immoral, moral or a/moral. There is nothing wrong with taking a position of non-commitment and standing
in the middle.

Chapter 4: Zero Vision 119

We often put the letter ‘a’ in front of words to designate the middle, neutral or non-committed position in an
argument. For example, one can be rational, irrational or a-rational (neither rational or irrational). One can have
many beliefs that are neither rational or irrational. Faith, Trust, Hope, Love and Justice are such positions.
One can have faith in another person ‘as-if ’ something will happen, yet there is no evidence that it will happen.
Faith is about accepting a risk in the face of uncertainty. Most relationships act on faith in another person and
such faith is not irrational but rather a-rational. all the evidence for faith and trust are in hindsight.
We often create systems and have faith in them, we have faith ‘as-if ’ they will work but they don’t always
work. Sometimes we discover that our faith has been unfounded. We took a risk based on that faith and are
sometimes wrong.
Binary opposition logic doesn’t acknowledge that there is an in-between. Binary thinking asks if you support the
war on terror, if you answer no, then binary logic determines that you must be a terrorist. Binary thinking doesn’t
want any dialectic, there is no middle in competing forces, there is only good and evil no inbetween, there is no
hyphen or tension between polarities.
If I ask if you support the Republican or the Liberal Party (conservatives) and you say ‘no’ then binary logic
assumes one must be a Democrat or a Labor member. In reality, one can be a-political or non-political and
simply opt out, not vote and not care, this is what we call a-pathea, it’s where the word ‘apathetic’ comes from
meaning, without passion.
Binary thinking lacks maturity and sophistication, it sees the world in a simplistic either-or way. It asks a
question only to prove it’s own bias, it doesn’t ask questions to understand, learn or listen. It already knows the
answer to its own question and simply wants to prove its own assumption. Here are some more examples:
‘Do you understand the binary opposition?’ … ‘No’ … ‘Well, you must be an idiot’
‘Do you support marriage equality?’ … ‘No’ … ‘Well, you must be homophobic’.
The truth of the fact is that binary logic is unhelpful in the world of risk and attaching it to numbers assumes
that numbers represent something, when they don’t. This was clearly demonstrated in the Royal Commission into
the Pike River disaster.
The truth is. One can be indifferent to numerics, because one knows that the presence of numbers or absence of
numbers does not reflect whether an organization is safe or is mature about risk.
For example: On the day BP were celebrating 7 years without injury on the Deep Horizon oil well in
the Gulf of Mexico, 11 people were killed and 210 million gallons of oil poured into the Gulf killing the
environment for years. BPs motto was ‘zero harm’, their statistics were at zero for 7 years and yet it did
not reflect a culture of safety.
Binary logic is meaningless. It loads a question so it can demonstrate its own answer. It is only interested in
telling not understanding.
The strange thing is that binary thinking is out of control in the risk industry, in most other industries thinking
is open, more mature and critical thinking abounds, people know that risk aversion is dangerous and that real life
is about uncertainty and risk. There is no either-or in real life but plenty of in-between. The mature person always
entertains doubt and it is often from doubt that vision arises. The person with vision questions stasis and asks if
the black and white is suitable. The visionary asks questions outside of the conformity-fundamantalist trap.
The best advice to people in risk is to reject the nonsense logic of binary thought, this logic of entrapment. The
question, ‘how many people do you want to harm today?’ is a nonsense question, it is not dissimilar from the
question, ‘when did you stop bashing your partner?’ The best advice is to ask open questions and remain silent
on immature and binary questions. Binary logic and questions are of no value. If asked such a question the best

120 Envisioning Risk

response is to question the question itself. ‘Why are you asking such a loaded question?’ ‘Have you considered
that there are other positions than a binary one?’
There is short video on the issue of binary thinking here: https://vimeo.com/172195306
One thing is for sure, binary thinking is not interested in the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice dialectic.

Perception Blindness
We have already discussed the problem of physical, visual, psychological and cultural forms of blindness. Many
with orthodoxy blindness don’t recognise a vision or a visionary because they simply don’t have the dispostion
to see what is in front of them. Often there are pressures inside orthodoxy that mean the pain of cognitive
dissonance is too powerful to let go of the comfort of stasis. People fight tooth and nail against disruption.
One of the manifestations of orthodoxy over many years has been the privilege of white male dominance in
politics, economics and history. His-story has rarely if ever accepted Her-story. For this reason I would like
to discuss the way that the risk industry privileges mysoginist activity. This is why in my previous chapter on
visionaries that I endeavoured to focus on female visionaries as much as male visionaries. If one is a student of
History one knows just how much the story of women (Indigenous peoples) have been suppressed over time.

The Risk Industry as a Mysoginist Activity

Cornell philosophy Professor Kate Manne argues that misogyny is not about male hostility or hatred
toward women — instead, it’s about controlling and punishing women who challenge male ideology.
Misogyny rewards women who reinforce the status quo and punishes those who don’t. Misogyny can be
exercised by men or women. I will return to misogyny later.
The evolution of Social Psychology has much in common with Feminism and: Sociology, Psychology, Politics,
Annales History, Anthropology, Philosophy, Semiotics, Cultural Theory, Discourse Analysis, Post Structuralism
and Linguistics. These Transdisciplines remain absent from any conversation about risk and safety.
It is from this intersection of Feminism, Post-structuralism and Social Psychology that the following critique
is offered. I have written before about what a Feminist critique could offer Risk (https://safetyrisk.net/can-
there-be-a-feminist-safety/). There is also a video from a feminist perspective on Risk here: https://vimeo.
com/237511120
It was 1975 when I first read Anne Summer’s excellent history Damned Whores and God’s Police, The Colonization
of Women in Australia. Anne Summers is a remakeable visionary in Australian History. The title is a quote
from Caroline Chisholm and denotes the way women are either objectified sexually or attributed to a policing
identity. Summer’s Annales History and subsequent books (https://www.annesummers.com.au/) do a great job
of rewriting a History that is profoundly white masculinist, power-centric and fixated on the oppression of
minorities.
The risk industry was set up as such a patriarchy and remains so.
What a surprise when I first entered the risk industry to find there was no Feminist voice in or to this industry
and continues to be so. A woman’s voice does not necessarily mean it is a Feminist voice (https://issimo.
s3.amazonaws.com/static/thirdpartyassets/annesummers/TheWomensManifesto_pdffinal.pdf ). In risk, one
either complies with the masculinst models or one is marginalized. For Risk it seems that women continue to be
Damned Whores and God’s Police. So let’s look at a few examples that demonstrate this to be so.

Example One - Hazardman

I was astounded when the ACT Regulator came out with the safety campaign Hazardman (https://safetyrisk.
net/hazardman-wont-save-you/). I wrote letters to Ministers, Opposition, Media and Feminist groups asking
how this could be a helpful approach to risk. The campaign remained in the airwaves for 5 years and was not

Chapter 4: Zero Vision 121

removed because of its sexist complaints but because of
Figure 79. Hazardman Winner
budget concerns.
Hazardman is the quintessential hero who saves
women from petty hazards. The images of women
as objects complete with tight fitting uniforms
exhibiting their bodily features. The campaign was
viewed as progressive and included an indoctrination
campaign in schools to help inculcate the
misogyny into the minds of young girls (https://
www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6150157/
holy-safety-hazardman-is-on-the-case/)
You can see the winner of the school competition at
Figure 79. Hazardman Winner.
What an amazing thing that the Education sector,
dominated by women accepted this mysoginist
campaign. What was staggering about this campaign
was that no-one except myself voiced concern about
this misogynist exercise, not even the Teacher’s Figure 80. Hazardman Dolls
Union to whom I also corresponded. The campaign
came complete with masculinst dolls see Figure 80.
Hazardman Dolls.
The campaign was complete with an animation
series where the big risk ticket items and petty
risk saving women who were sexualized (https://
vimeo.com/433435395). Ah, for the Love of
Zero, Behaviourism and policing PPE (https://
issimo.s3.amazonaws.com/static/thirdpartyassets/ Figure 81. Female Images
annesummers/TheWomensManifesto_pdffinal.pdf ).
At no time was there ever a voice raised against
Hazardman other than in the pages of the safetyrisk
blog (https://safetyrisk.net/hazardman-disappears/).
Just look at some of the messages hidden in the
animation series. See Figure 81. Female Images.
Don’t forget - this whole campaign was developed and
endorsed by the Government Regulator. Orthodoxy
blindness on full show.

Example Two – Safety Sofie

When I was last in Europe I was shocked to see a safety consulting company on site called ‘Safety Sofie’. See
Figure 82. Safety Sofie.
In Figure 83. Sex Sells, we see Sofie complete with sexy outfits, leaning over men and language with sexual double
meanings playing sexy policing on naughty boys who don’t act safely.
Ah, if you are a safe boy Bill, I’ll give you a Safety Sofie kiss – Figure 84. Sofie Kiss
You can read about Safety Sofie here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959652616001967
but of course no suggestion that the strategy is misogynist. Damned Whores and God’s Police indeed.

122 Envisioning Risk

Moreso, Safety seems to think that the message of
Figure 82. Safety Sofie
selling safety as ‘sexy’ is a good thing. And this has been
going on for some time: https://www.safetysolutions.
net.au/content/personal-protection-equipment/article
ohs-becomes-sexy-for-investors-977847301
Just search on Pinterest and see what comes up when
you look for ‘Safety is Sexy’ (https://www.pinterest.
com.au/pin/323062973240750867/), hmmm –
objectified women.
So, amidst the tirade of boring safety that loves petty
risk, objects, checklists, counting, PPE and policing, it
seems the remedy is to call it ‘sexy’ and put a woman-
as-object in view. Dammed Whores and God’s Police
indeed.
Figure 83. Sex Sells
Example Three. Mums For Safety
So, currently running in 2020 and in the theme
of God’s Police is the Mum’s for Safety campaign
(https://houstongroup.com.au/projects/mums-for-
safety/). Ah, where even the CEO of Lend Lease
needs policing from his Mum for decision making.
Ah, Dumbs for Safety (https://safetyrisk.net/dumbs-
for-safety/), does anyone stop for just a second in this
industry of objects and think for two seconds about the
Semiotics, symbolism and unconscious messaging of
what it does? Figure 85. Mum’s for Safety.

Figure 84. Sofie Kiss

The campaign is running in 2020 here: https://www.

lendlease.com/au/company/about-us/safety/mums-
for-safety/ Of course Mum’s in Safety is all bubble
wrapped in positivity and if you criticize it, you must
be anti-safety, this is how misogyny works. Misogyny
is always packaged up along with binary logic to create
duty to the status quo. Don’t let it worry you that
women are yet again given the policing role against the
naughty boys.
Then when you accept the model, it even gets better
(https://rokon.com.au/news/2019/10/rokon-takes-
lend-leases-mums-for-safety-campaign-to-new-
heights/). Hey I know, let’s have a blow up Mum doll on top of the site shed. Ah, Mum is looking over you, let’s
project responsibility and policing safety on to her (https://www.9news.com.au/national/workplace-accidents-
lendlease-construction-mothers-worry-safety-message/28ba31c3-86d5-49e3-9a7b-13bb63905cf4)

Chapter 4: Zero Vision 123

On some good news, it’s great to see the iconic high
Figure 85. Mum’s for Safety
heeled stiletto go from the Women in Safety identity
(https://www.womeninsafety.net/), took a while. Then
how disappointing to see it’s endorsement of zero. If
there ever was a more misogynist symbol of control,
objectivization, metricization and masculinst power it
is zero. Zero is the symbol for bullying, policing and
power. Ah, I’m only smashing you and sacking you for
your own good but it’s ok, I’m doing it positively for
safety!
The heart of Feminism is about much more than sex,
gendered roles or sexism but rather a philosophy that
values Socialitie, cultural meaning and the politics/
ethics of risk. You will of course find no discussion of
these in the risk industry.
Unfortunately, one cannot separate the advancement of women in safety without also tackling the deeply toxic
focus of an industry that dehumanizes and objectifies humans, especially women. And staying inside the camp,
doesn’t change the camp, the camp changes you. Such is the politics of conformity. Do a study of visionaries some
time you rarely find them inside the camp.
And so it seems the risk industry is quite happy to promote women just as long as its hegemony of duty is not
broken. The rules are quite simple:
1. Don’t question, criticise or interrogate safety – positivity is god
2. Deconstruction is wrong, negativity is bad - leave Lend Lease, Du Pont and Rio Tinto alone
3. Don’t attack founding assumptions of the industry and comply
4. Accept the defining roles of safety: control, policing, PPE, counting and power.
5. Keep out of the territory of philosophy, let men do that
6. Suck up the Behaviourist ideology and keep on policing
7. Accept masculinst symbology and roles
8. Don’t read Feminist history especially, Post-structuralist critique
9. Accept power-centric models of management
10. Demonise critical/cultural thinking
And for godsake, don’t read Jane Caro (https://futurewomen.com/culture-2/books/jane-caro-is-an-accidental-
feminist/), Clementine Ford (https://www.theguardian.com/world/australia-books-blog/2016/sep/28/
clementine-ford-theres-something-really-toxic-with-the-way-men-bond-in-australia) or Kate Manne (https://
www.vox.com/conversations/2018/6/6/17409144/jordan-peterson-12-rules-for-life-feminism-philosophy)
Whilst, the three examples of misogyny are quite obvious and pronounced it is actually the more subtle and
unconscious things in risk that are the most destructive. This is how behaviourist, binary and power-centric
ideologies pervade the risk space masked by an ethic of duty. Of course duty is the deontological theme for the
AIHS BoK Chapter on non-Ethics, what a perfect framework for oppression.
Whilst I understand why women have created their own association in safety it can also be a way of
disempowering and marginalizing women to emphasize how non-mainstream women are and force acceptance
of masculinst ideology (zero) to remain accepted in the camp.
There’s no better way of keeping critical thinking and vision quashed than duty, obedience and positivity. All
wonderful dynamics of the misogynist story. There is no better way at maintaining misogyny than keeping

124 Envisioning Risk

the safety status quo. Any critical thinking must be sidelined and demonsised so that the non-vision of zero is
maintained as the mantra and made the non-vision for an industry with no vision. This is your duty.

Female Dr Who
In 2019 the media ran hot with the advent of the first female star of Dr Who (http://www.smh.com.au/
entertainment/tv-and-radio/theres-a-girl-in-my-tardis-gender-politics-time-travel-and-doctor-who-
20170716-gxcg0s.html). The reports extracted every ounce of gender stereotyping possible in the name of
journalism. What it highlighted was the continued misunderstanding in our society of Feminism, gender
and confusion about social politics. Feminism is not just about being female and masculinism is not
about being male. Understanding gender itself and the polarization and politicisation of gender are two
completely different things. Being male or female is very different from the nature of ideology.
Men are also harmed by a masculinist thirst for political power, control, exploitation, authoritarianism,
treating people as objects and reductionism. Whilst the social construct of masculinity is seen by Feminism as
problematic because it associates males with aggression and competition, it is not helpful to confuse the ideology
of domination with being male. This in itself reinforces patriarchal and unequal gender relations.
Feminism also shares common theoretical and philosophical disciplines with Social Psychology namely:
Sociology, Psychology, Politics, Annales History, Anthropology, Philosophy, Semiotics, Cultural Theory,
Discourse Analysis and Linguistics. It is only in a Trans-disciplinary approach to risk that we best find ways to
tackle Safety as a Wicked Problem (http://www.peterwagner.com.au/wp-content/uploads/Safety-A-Wicked-
Problem2.pdf ). This is why the WHS curriculum needs reform through a Transdisciplinary approach to risk
(https://safetyrisk.net/isnt-it-time-we-reformed-the-whs-curriculum/).
In the late twentieth century various feminists began arguing that gender roles are socially constructed. Post-
structural feminism argues that gender roles are essentially created through cultural discourse (semiosis, language,
symbols and signs). When we observe the nature of Masculinist framing we see a prioritization on Reductionism
privileged status given to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, devaluation of ‘people’ skills as
‘soft’ skills and knowledge, a quest for absolutes, a focus on binary oppositions, black and white thinking and,
disparaging discursive ways of knowing (See: Tannen, D., (ed.) (1993) Framing in Discourse. Oxford Uni Press,
New York; Blenky, M., et.al., (1997) Women’s Ways of Knowing. Basic Books, New York.). These core priorities are
extraordinarily prevalent in risk discourse and quash any sense of vision.
The history of safety demonstrates that Technique sponsors a masculinist focus on objects (hazards) and power
using regulation, has become the ‘way of safety’ or the dominant ‘paradigm’ (Kuhn). Being a woman and
maintaining Masculinst methods of tackling risk simply becomes Masculinst Safety. The tools of objectifying
people, blaming (eg. ‘safety is a choice you make’), punishing, inequality (by safety first), policing, telling,
counting (zero and LTIs) and focusing on authoritarian approaches to safety are masculinst tools for power and
control. The devaluing of dialogue, listening, respect, questioning, openness, trust, facilitation, helping and non-
measurement show that Feminist values struggle to take hold in safety.
As part of this discussion I think it is important that a male should write such a piece on Feminist safety, as the
confusion of gender with ideology is also a source of dismissal by a masculinism that devalues the voice speaking
the message.
The recent emergence of the Women in Safety (WiS) movement offers promise to an industry that is known for
its brutalism, use of power (in the name of good) and objectification (see https://safetyrisk.net/safety-isnt-sexy-
and-it-shouldnt-be/). It can only be hoped that WiS might glean some of the crumbs of Feminism in its charter
and reject the stasis of Masculinism and Patriarchy common to risk Discourse.
The power of misogyny ceratinly quashes an chance of vision in the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice dialectic.

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Disembodied Alienation
One of the greatest impediments to an envisioned understanding of risk is how the human person is defined. The
idea that the fallible human is divided between a body and a brain completely distorts all strategy in risk.
The problem of consciousness and knowing in risk can never be properly tackled as long as the human mind and
life, brain and body, environment and inner self, are conceptualized in such a way that they exclude each other. As
long as the risk industry remains anchored to Behaviourist/Cognitivist paradigms all solutions and strategy will
fail to respond holistically to humans as socially embodied persons.
The traditional response in the risk industry to the problem of harm and injury is to focus the problem as a brain-
environment problem. Whilst the industry has worked over history in shaping a safer environment, it still doesn’t
understand how embodied fallible humans respond to that environment.
The focus on human judgment and decision making in risk training has always found its locus in the brain and
systems. Indeed, in the language of the industry ‘the brain’ and ‘mind’ are used interchangeably as if they are
the same thing. And so, the language of risk is primarily mechanistic focused on the brain as an interpreter of
systems.
If one understands humans as embodied then consciousness doesn’t stop at the skin. Indeed, we all know how
tools become part of ‘our’ hand, we can feel things through the tool. Similarly when we drive a car, we feel every
bump on the road as if the car is a part of us and we are a part of it. As living bodies we extend into the world
and the world affects us. Moreso, the discovery of ‘canonical neurons’ in the premotor cortex in the 1990s helps
us understand our own agency in the world and how we ‘feel’ a part of it. Our environment ‘thinks’ and ‘feels’ just
as much as we do.
The model of the brain-as-computer ‘driving’ the body, is simply not supported by the evidence. The idea of
‘reprogramming’ the brain approach has little chance of making much difference to the practice of risk.
The brain does not create the Mind. If humans are ‘embodied’ then the brain is not the organ of creation or
instigation but rather a relational organ that ‘mediates’ our living body in the world. As Claxton (2015, Intelligence
in the Flesh) notes: ‘the brain does not issue commands but rather hosts conversations’. Claxton (The Wayward
Mind) ought to be foundational reading for all people in the risk industry.
What are the implications of human embodiment for risk?
1. Risk must be viewed much more as a socially enacted process, where all factors, not just process, human and
technique are viewed as interconnected and ecological.
2. The idea of complacency (The Wayward Mind) must not be viewed as just a brain problem. If the Mind is an
integrated whole then everything should have significance in tackling risk.
3. If humans are not conscious of many things but ‘repress’ aspects of themselves even to themselves, then
social presence much be given more importance in knowing oneself in context and in tackling risk.
4. As social and ecological communicators then all symbols and language should be given more significance in
an industry that prides itself on speaking nonsense to people.
5. Moreso, issues of Mind, psychological health and well-being must be viewed as a social challenge not just
an individual challenge. This means then that resilience is not an individual problem but a social problem.
We have to stop viewing it as ‘pulling oneself up by the bootlaces’ but resilience as the holistic and ecological
challenge that it is.
6. This means that disciplines that the risk industry rejects must find a voice inside the mechanistic monster
that has been closed by a history of STEM-only thinking. If risk is to have any vision, it can only come
from a Transdisciplinary opening up to more imaginative possibilities beyond the confines of Behaviorism,
Scientism and Cognitvism. This means that such interests an Anthropology, Social Psychology, Education

126 Envisioning Risk

 and Learning, Pastoral Care, Ethics and Semiotics should be included in the curriculum. The current high
focus in curriculum for WHS qualifications on regulation and legislation should be cut to 20%.
7. An awareness of what is unconscious should therefore become of interest to the risk and safety industries.
This includes the human and ‘Collective Unconscious’.
8. The mechanistic and dehumanizing (https://safetyrisk.net/the-mechanistic-worldview-and-the-
dehumanisation-of-risk/) trajectory of excessive systems and excessive objectifying must stop and a new
vision for risk and safety should be countenanced as an ecological process.
9. Training should therefore shift from a training room focus to an embodied process in situ, where implicit
knowledge receives greater value and heuristics are taken seriously.
10. If leadership is about vision then the current approach on meaningless data, language and symbology must
be dropped and a new narrative created in how tackling risk is practiced.
To take up any of these challenges would require a real sense of vision and change. We hear all this tokenistic talk
about ‘disruption’ in the risk industry whilst at the same time building the fortress for ‘non-change’ and comfort
in what is known. The industry asks the question ‘where to next?’ but doesn’t want to engage with little else
outside the comforts of its own paradigm. And so, nothing will change.

Embodied Vision
Fuchs’ work (2018) is based on a neurophenomenological and ‘enactive’ approches to human being. Human
Socialitie doesn’t start from isolated individuals acting as computers on top of bodies, neither as computers
that construct and represent the world internally in brains, process information and then direct brains to order
movement. Human Socialitie is about Intercorpreality and Interaffectivity that is, how humans are incorporated
into each other and society and how humans are mutually affected by each other.
These two combined concepts are essential to understanding Socialitie in line with the Annales concept of
Mentalitie. Socialitie is the holistic resonance of all humans with other humans - body, mind and environment.
At the heart of the ‘enactive approach’ to humans in Socialitie is an understanding of the emotions. Emotions
consist of circular interations with others and the world through embodied subjects, not disembodied brains.
All social interactions offer affective affordances that is, they invite interactions at all levels just like a chair affords
‘sitting’ or a bucket affords ‘filling’ and ‘carrying’. Everything in life offers affordances by design and context and
create loops as they hard-wired the human somatic system through experience.
Embodied interaffectivity is a process of coordinated interaction between humans through bodily resonance,
mutual incorporation and body memory. Together humans in Socialitie build intercorporeal and body memory that is
acquired from early childhood, well before the development of language.
There are countless experiments that demonstrate the dynamics of interaffectivity and human resonance (Fuchs
and Koch, 2014). Indeed, all Socialitie involves humans ‘resonating’ with others through emotions (via mirror
neurons) attracted to or away from what is experienced.
Whether we like it or not we are all affected by the presence of others. This is about much more than sharing a
common social existence or some sense of mutuality but via body-memory, a complete interaffectivity with others
and the world/environment. Socialitie extends way beyond just being affected by language and images and makes
sense of what Lotman called the Semiosphere. That is, human Socialitie is embedded in the world of symbolic/
mythical living and cannot be separated from it. There is extensive evidence for the reality of Interaffectivity.
For example:
Simple actions like ritual cleansing can help manage guilt (Meier et.al., 2012), holding a pen between the
teeth and taking it away can affect the way we respond to humour (Strack et.al., 1988), standing or sitting
in power positions can assist confidence (Cuddy et. al., 2012) and that experiencing warmth or cold can

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 affect the way we respond to people positively or negatively (Bargh and Williams, 2009). These and many
more experiments discussed by Fuchs and Koch (2014) show that our Socialitie shapes interaffectivity and
resonance.
The term Intercorporeality simultaneously foregrounds the social nature of the body and the bodily nature of
social relationships. As a concept, it emphasizes the role of social interactions in the construction and behaviours
of the body. Our existence in relation to others – our Intersubjectivity – is something tangible and bodily. In terms
of SPoR this is understood as the dialectic between humans embodied in the environment. This is the meaning of
Buber’s i-thou.
The idea of Intercorporeality comes from Merleau-Ponty (Phenomenology of Preception, 2005) referring to the
pre-reflective interwining of lived and living bodies, in which my own body is affected by yours as ‘embodied
communication’. Intercorporeality is the opposite of the theory of humans-as-brains that represent the world in
heads on top of bodies through the sum of ‘neural processes’.
In Intercorporeality there is no ‘inside’ and ‘outside’, inside and outside are not separate domains but only
directions of motion (dialectic) between e-motion and affection. This is the same as Moltmann’s understanding of
perichoresis or interpenetration. Whether we like it or not we are all affected by each other and the enactment of
others penetrates our being.
From early childhood the presence of others is infused in implicit knowledge as bodily memory in what can be
called ‘intercorporeal memory’. This is similar to Bordieu’s idea of the habitus, that set of culturally unconscious
dispositions, skills, styles, tastes, beliefs, customs, habits and demeanour that are adopted unconsciously in
everyday living.
A metaphor for this is breathing. We not only share the same air as others, we also breathe it onto others and
they inhale it, it is the shared life. If that air carries an infection, that person recieves that infection and so
becomes sick. This also happens emotionally.
Intercorporeality and Interaffectivity are best understood through enaction, action and the metaphor of ‘the dance’.
The metaphor and action of dance is critical for understanding SPoR and e-motion.
The dynamics of Intercorporeality, Interaffectivity and Interconnectivity are captured in the models at Figure 86.
Interconnectivity of Risk and Figure 87. Interaffectivity of Risk.

128 Envisioning Risk

 Figure 86. Interconnectivity of Risk Figure 87. Interaffectivity of Risk

I Wish I Could Dance

I was brought up in a fundamentalist household that projected dance as evil, mostly associated with the
Evangelical/Augustinian rejection of the human body known as concupiscence (https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Concupiscence). The doctrine of concupiscence understands the ‘appetites’ of the body as debased and
‘carnal’. Much of this is linked to Augustine’s construction of fallability and Original Sin. Yet, there are
such bizarre contradictions in this. What kind of god would create humans with sexuality and genitals
and then expect you not to use and enjoy them? In this doctrine masturbation is made evil leaving no way
out for the celibate priest. What kind of a construct of god would do this?
After escaping Fundamentalism we used to tell a joke about this absurd fear of dancing and bodily
being. eg. ‘Why don’t the Baptists make love standing up? ... because it could be mistaken for dancing’.
Unfortunately, not as funny as it was true.
This rejection of body and dance from childhood means as of today, I still don’t know how to dance
and I am absurdly self conscious about dance. I admire the freedom of those who can dance indeed,
I discovered later that the notion of the Trinity is understood as ‘the dance of God’ (eg. Richard
Rohr, Jurgen Moltmann etc). How strange that Fundamentalism in its fear of the body and sexual
identity should demonise the beauty of movement and dance. Indeed, the Bible is full of references
and authentication of dance none of which was communicated to me in the cult. Only in binary
Fundamentalism could the words of Scripture be twisted to make dance an evil. We could of course
add other aspects of repression pushed by Fundamnetalism such a covering up the body, playing games
of chance, cards playing, alcohol, playing sport on Sunday and anything that resulted in demonsing fun
in general.
Further, the sacralisation of the day of Sunday was also another of the silly constructs of Fundamentalism,
including the doctrine of tithing (giving 10% of earnings). All put together many of these things were
about the rejection of the human body, the demonising of pleasure through the body and the association
of sin with sex. The Catholic church sacrament of celibacy is a similar and an absurd construction of

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 this mindset. We owe much of this to Augustine, the creator of Original Sin, Concupicence and Penal
Substitutionary Atonement (all discussed in Fallibility and Risk, Living With Uncertainty)
Of course the beauty, flow and freedom of dance involves the merging, synchronicity and rhythmic
mystery of movement between humans. It is amazing to watch one or more people move and change
with unrecognisable signals or only signals known to them, in the adventure of expression. It is here
where we witness such amazing intercorporeal skills and resonance.
Dance is very much about change, adaptation and transcendence, especially transcending the constructs
of Puritanical and Augustinian fears of the body. It is in dance that we learn to rise above the confines of
body-as-burden and work-horse construct to the heights of mutual expression and circular interaction.
Of course none of this was helped much by Descartes either. We can thank Descartes for the separation
(disembodiments) of body and mind in his reductionist thinking associated with the elevation and
separation of cognition over body.
When people dance, the rhythmic movements originate from the body without the need to steer
them from the brain. We live in our movements not neural processes that direct movement. Over time
the patterns of movement become hard-wired as intercorporeal memory so that I can perform many
movements in life through heuristics and automaticity. In a similar way, most of our bodily gestures
such as: pointing, calling, holding, stopping, stepping, walking, rubbing, shaking, using and instrument
or scraping are ‘performed’ without thinking rationally. That is, they are all ‘performed’ without need for
neural processes.
Fuchs demonstrates the learning of a child and mother as ‘rhythmic mirroring’. In the first months
a child well before the development of language, learns to ‘dance’ with the mother through facial
expression, sucking, crying, postures, movement, gestures and vocalisation. Infants express affects that
resonate with their mothers through rhythmic, melodic, vocal, facial and gestural characteristics. In many
ways the infant becomes ‘attuned’ with the mother and the mother with child. Fuchs describes this special
relationship between mother and infant as ‘a dance’.
We know through the work of Fuchs and others that dance, music and bodily intercoporealisation are
highly effective for treating anxiety, depression and a host of mental health issues including dementia and
autism. Unfortunately, under the STEM-only social construction of illness, harm and injury we now look
to medications to address issues as defined by the separation of the body and brain.
Dance symbolises and acts as a metaphor for dialectic. The mystery is not so much what happens in the two
dancers but what happens between them. Dance is triarchic. The dance is a creative movement that never sits
still, there is no Hegelian synthesis when fallible humans dance. All movement is learning and all learning
is movement, full of e-motion. Unfortunately, the seduction of Technique and technology draws the risk industry
further away from understanding the nature of Intercorporeality and Interaffectivity.
When we know and experience the connection to others and their experience of us, then we can enter into the
Faith-Hope-Love Justice dialectic.

Propaganda, Misinformation and Misdirection

Propaganda is a Technique of Power.
Propaganda is the ideological manipulation of ideas to support and defend political interests. Ellul (1973, p. 61.
https://tavaana.org/sites/default/files/Ellul_Jacques_-_Propaganda.pdf ) states:
Propaganda is a set of methods employed by an organized group that wants to bring about the active
or passive participation in its actions of a mass of individuals, psychologically unified through the
psychological manipulations and incorporated in an organization.

130 Envisioning Risk

A critical aspect of Propaganda is the process of
Figure 88. Stage of 2017 Safety Congress
indoctrination. Indoctrination is the inculcation of
ideas without critical analysis and the promotion of
non-reflective discourse. Indoctrination is the opposite
of education and is associated with parrot training
rather than reflective-discovery learning. One of the
key dynamics behind indoctrination is ‘blind faith’.
Blind faith requires non-critical thinking, absorption
and non-questioning. The enemy of blind faith is
doubt, questioning and critical thinking. Blind faith
is a way of thinking most associated with religious
discourse.
The larger than life iconography and symbolism used
at the Global Safety Congress of 2017 was targeted at absorption rather than contestation. Zero was accepted
as non-contestable and unquestionable. This is achieved through social psychological forces such as ‘groupthink’,
‘affect heuristic’ and ‘conformity bias’ (http://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/glossary/conformity-bias). See Figure
88. Stage of 2017 Safety Congress.
Zero Vision has been the global religious Mantra for the safety industry since 2017 and remains on track to be
continued at the next Global congress. As long as zero remains the mantra for an industry that doesn’t want to
think critically it will never envision what it means to be professional.
The evidence for religious discourse is evident throughout the 2017 Congress includes: language of possible
perfection, fear of harm, Fundamentalist (black and white) ideology, binary thinking and semantic conformance.
The ideology is supported by a range of ‘testimonies’ (itself a fundamentalist strategy) see here: http://visionzero.
global/testimonials. Here is a sample of the language in the testimonials:
- A workplace without accidents, diseases and
Figure 89. We Believe
harm is only possible if both the safety, health
and wellbeing of people is properly looked
after.
- However, nothing can substitute good
leadership and commitment to ‘safety first.’ For
this reason, safety concerns were at the core of
every decision I made both in orbit and on the
ground.
- Vision Zero starts with those who hold
responsibility, but it can only become a living
culture if everyone contributes.
- Our mind-set needs to aim at a Vision Zero: zero accidents, zero harm...Some people think Vision
Zero is unrealistic. We beg to differ; the power of our mind-set is strong.
As with all Propaganda, there must be a comprehensive ‘campaign’ (http://visionzero.global/).
In the promotion of zero vision at the World Safety Congress, we observed the religious signs and
symbols of ‘We believe’ (Figure 89. We Believe) and other faith-based statements (https://safetyrisk.net/
no-evidence-for-the-religion-of-zero/).

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We look at the this festival of all things zero and are reminded of similar activities associated with the Hillsong
greed cult (https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-feed/hillsong-church-cult-or-money-making-machine). There is
no focus on people, no focus on tackling risk, no focus on humanising the industry - everything is centred on
a number zero. How crazy when everyone knows that the measurement of injuries is never a demonstration or
evidence of safety (http://www.transformationalsafety.com/documents/A_Second_on_Safety_June_16.pdf ).
The campaign includes:
• Regional launches.
• A global outreach http://visionzero.global/.
• Products and promotion materials (http://visionzero.global/resources).
• Guides (http://visionzero.global/sites/default/files/2017-09/2-Vision_Zero_Guide-Web.pdf ).
• Powerpoint templates (http://visionzero.global/Powerpoints).
• Seven Golden Rules, complete with assessment checklist and survey tool, web app etc (http://visionzero.
global/sites/default/files/2017-09/2-Vision_Zero_Guide-Web.pdf )
• A guide to ‘zero accidents’ (http://visionzero.global/sites/default/files/2017-09/2-Vision_Zero_Guide-Web.
pdf )
• Promotion into targeted audiences (http://visionzero.global/sites/default/files/2017-08/Electricity_Vision_
Zero_Guide_final.pdf )
• A training program (http://visionzero.global/become-vision-zero-trainer)
• A prevention strategy http://visionzero.global/sites/default/files/2017-09/Your%20First%20Steps%20to%20
Success%20in%20Prevention.pdf
• Case studies (http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@ed_protect/@protrav/@safework/documents/
presentation/wcms_422118.pdf )
• Video resources http://visionzero.global/videos
• And ‘success’ manuals.
None of this contains anything visionary. There
Figure 90. Religious Zero Pledge
is no Faith-Hope-Love or Justice in anything of
this campaign, all that matters is a number. Even
Goebells would be delighted at the extent and
reach of this propaganda campaign. Of course and
the campaign came complete with a religious-like
pledge, see: Figure 90. Religious Zero Pledge. This
reminded me so much of strategies used by The Billy
Graham Crusade across the world and their many
evangelistic ‘crusades’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
List_of_Billy_Graham%27s_crusades).
Of course the talk of ‘success’ is ‘spin’ and the seven
golden rules are nothing new. The truth is none of this
is needed and all it does is mask the simple things that
need to be done in tackling risk (https://safetyrisk.net/
bells-and-whistles-and-due-diligence/). None of this
is even slightly rational or ‘scientific’. None of this even
comes close to the STEM framework that Safety loves
to parade as its foundation.
All of this is about ‘bad faith’. Bad Faith is the opposite of the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice dialectic.

132 Envisioning Risk

 In Being and Nothingness Sartre defined ‘bad
Figure 91. Zero Succeeds
faith’ as: ‘hiding the truth from oneself ’. We all
know just how common this is, ‘bad faith’ often
surfaces in denial and self-delusion. Sometimes
a good fantasy is easier to sustain than the pain
of the truth. Zero is one such fanatasy.
All that is presented in this zero vision campaign is
marketing propaganda to give the impression that
zero ideology ‘works’. It has more in common with
a MacDonalds advertisement on ‘nutrition’ than
helping people face up to the realities of fallibility
in tackling risk. For the undiscerning (https://www.
humandymensions.com/product/real-risk/) the zero
vision is nectar of ‘promise’ accompanied by all the
bells and whistles (https://safetyrisk.net/bells-and-
whistles-and-due-diligence/), trinkets and familiar
tools of Propaganda. Because it apparently ‘succeeds’.
See Figure 91. Zero Succeeds. Of course zero vision
cannot succeed in a random world inhabited by fallible
people. Of course the assertion of success is part of the
believability rhetoric of the propaganda campaign.
As with all ideological propaganda the zero vision
‘machine’ is typically religious and political. The politics
of zero creates an ‘us and them’ culture, a binary in and
out group. Those who don’t adopt the ideology and
language must be deemed ‘unbelievers’ because, ‘we
believe’.
If one runs even the slightest piece of critical thought across all this propaganda one will see:
• A confusion in language that contradicts itself (that zero doesn’t actually mean zero), blurring boundaries in
the sense of words is critical to all propaganda
• A lack of definition about what zero means (concept, philosophy, mindset, aspiration, belief,
transformational approach, vision, goal and process). All propaganda relies on a lack of definition and this
enables acceptance without criticism, ‘blind faith’.
• The ‘branding’ of things as ‘factual’ that are without evidence and emotive, iconic and religious. The
attachment of belonging to a ‘feeling’ rather than evidence is a central characteristic of all propaganda.
• The promise of Nirvana-Utopia. The time when all accidents and mistakes will be eliminated. When Utopia
in the workplace will come and fallibility and mortality will be made perfect. The promise of a ‘new kingdom’
and ‘rule’ is essential for all propaganda.
• No evidence of questioning or doubt. This is all global and one needs to get on board. This creates the
political and moral imperative that isolates criticism and turns critics into ‘agnostics’. It’s better to say ‘I don’t
know’ than to commit in contestation to the juggernaut.
• That all of this zero vision is apparently ‘flexible’ and ‘adjustable’ even though the absolute language and
symbology of zero denotes intolerance and the discourse of perfection (http://visionzero.global/sites/
default/files/2017-09/2-Vision_Zero_Guide-Web.pdf p.3)

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• The hidden and unstated binary ideology (http://
Figure 92. Evangelical Zero
visionzero.global/sites/default/files/2017-09/2-
Vision_Zero_Guide-Web.pdf p. 3) that:
• Accidents at work and occupational
diseases are neither determined by fate
nor unavoidable – they always have
causes. By building a strong prevention
culture, these causes can be eliminated
and work related accidents, harm and
occupational diseases be prevented.
• The first casualty of a Propaganda campaign is
the desire for truth telling (https://safetyrisk.net/
investigations-and-truth-telling/). Propaganda
serves to build ‘sunk cost’ and essential to
conversion and political commitment. In this way
it makes it nearly impossible to deny because it
implies a break in belonging and relationship.
Cognitive dissonance is also strongly evidenced
in this campaign (https://safetyrisk.net/new-
video-explains-cognitive-dissonance-and-safety/).
Once a belief system is in and accompanied by
a costly campaign, the chance of questioning or
moving anything is extremely costly emotionally
and psychologically. Even if one has accepted
the propaganda as a passive observer, it makes it
twice as difficult later to question the nature of the
propaganda.
• Many of the strategies invested in propaganda
campaigns were first used effectively by that famous Social Psychologist Dr Josef Goebbels (Ellul). You can
read much more about this here:
• http://psi312.cankaya.edu.tr/uploads/files/Welch,%20Third%20Reich--Politics%20and%20
Propaganda,%202nd%20ed.PDF
• http://bths.enschool.org/ourpages/auto/2014/2/4/34651180/Goebbel_s%20Principles%20of%20
Propaganda.pdf
So much of this propaganda machinery is marshalled because the industry has no vision. As such it only has its
own evangelicalism to assert itself and its ideology. See Figure 92. Evangelical Zero.
Of course, if you oppose Propaganda the response will be: ‘Do you want people harmed?’ or ‘how many do you
want killed today?’. The same binary questions common to all propagandist rhetoric. This is where propaganda
shifts the ideology from complexity to simplistic thinking. For example, the kneeling protests in the USA were
shifted from a mature approach to debate about prejudice to an either or choice about loyalty to the flag and
patriotism (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-29/bend-the-knee-protests-are-an-act-of-patriotism-stan-
grant/9001782). Fake news, misdirection and Misinformation are critical tools of Propaganda.
Thus the real issues and ideology is ‘hidden’ by the propagandist in binary simplistic logic.
The truth is, you don’t need the language and discourse of zero absolutes to care about people or prioritize safety.
Indeed, the trajectory of zero language is ultimately the dehumanizing of others and offers no Hope-Love-Faith
or Justice for fallible humans in work.

134 Envisioning Risk

There is no evidence that any of this propaganda is either meaningful or connected to effectively tackling and
managing risk. Declaring that you are ‘loyal’ to zero or a ‘zero visionist’ or a ‘believer’ doesn’t change anything.
Indeed, it creates a more dangerous culture (Dekker (2017, Zero Vision: enlightenment and new religion. Policy
and Practice in Health and Safety, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14773996.2017.1314070)
Zero vision has now become a socio-psychological ‘coordinate’ that locks and ‘anchors’ language of risk into a
social contract of absolutes and sets up the denial of fallibility. The discourse of zero creates a ‘me-connaissance’
(a misrecognition, further read Lacan http://faculty.wiu.edu/D-Banash/eng299/LacanMirrorPhase.pdf ) and a
culture of misrepresentation built on the false anthropology of the perfect human.
So, what is the reality?
The reality is: in this life you will be harmed, you will get sick, you will suffer and one day will die. The world
is not a safe place. This need not be fatalistic, but its denial is delusional. How we speak in denial of fallibility
creates nonsensical language, nonsensical symbols and absurd ideology that needs a Transdisciplinary code
to break it, a social psychological knowledge that has the mental equipment to critique social psychological
problems. Propaganda is a social psychological problem. Unfortunately, training focused on compliance,
obedience, regulation, policing and golden rules simply doesn’t have the equipment to ‘discern’ the indicators of
Propaganda nor its religious worldview. All of these propagandistic tools simply quash Hope for vision.
The reality is that every day we affirm our fallibility and fundamental necessities that cannot be denied. Humans
need everyday: sleep, water, food, shelter and belonging. Without these humans will very quickly get sick and die.
Every time you need to eat, you affirm the necessity of your own fallibility and mortality. The denial of necessity
is the propaganda of zero.
The problem with zero however is not just its propaganda but the fact that zero is founded on a mistruth, on the
possibility of infallibility. Any activity founded on the denial of fallibility can only ever be brutal, unethical and
unjust.

The AIHS BoK on Ethics, Check Your Gut!

One of the best ways to be ethical about Ethics is to declare your worldview/methodology (ethic) from the
outset. It is from one’s ethic (methodology-ontology) that one’s method emerges. In my case whenever I
undertake education and learning modules such as the module on Transdisciplinarity and Ethics (https://
spor.com.au/home/one-week-intensive-2-modules-february-2020/) I make it very clear that my bias is one
of an Existentialist Dialectic. I also make it very clear that there are many other competing worldviews (and
I map them, see Figure 93. Mapping Schools of Ethics) and that most people construct combinations of these
(unconsciously), eclectically.

Unfortunately, people either don’t know their worldview (ontology) or don’t disclose it when they develop
discussions on knowledge, learning and ethics. This is the case with the Australian Institute of Health
and Safety Body of Knowledge (BoK) Chapter 37 on Ethics (https://www.ohsbok.org.au/wp-content/
uploads/2019/11/38.3.-Ethics-and-professional-practice.pdf ).
One thing is clear from analysis of the BoK on Ethics is that its worldview is one of Deontology (https://miami.
pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/the-problem-we-all-have-with-deontology; http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/
introduction/duty_1.shtml) enacted in a Masculinist and Utilitarian method. These are not declared in the BoK
but are hidden in the text. We can see this even with a simply analysis of language. The most important and
repeated language in the BoK is about ‘duty’ (21 times) clearly connected to Deontology and Kantian ethics. Of
course, the language of ‘wisdom’ appears nowhere yet the language of ‘obligation’ appears 30 times. The language
of ‘compliance’ appears 10 times and yet the importance of relationship appears 5 times and uncertainty 4 times.
There is no discussion of the ideology of zero, dehumanising method or brutalism in safety in the chapter.
There are many comparisons like this that show that the ethics of the BoK is Deontological, Masculinist and

Chapter 4: Zero Vision 135

Utilitarian. It’s all about power for the industry of safety. For example the language of ‘humble’ and ‘humility’
appear nowhere in the text! Yet the virtue of respect and an orientation of humility are considered by many to be
essential to act professionally and engage in discourse with others.

Figure 93. Mapping Schools of Ethics

Schools of Ethics

Care Existential Normative Situational

Behaviourist Deontological Natural Law Pragmatic Utilitarian Virtue
Feminist Dialectic Constructive Relative

Humans as not
Sum of inputs and As Beings under Humans as Humans under Humans as Humans as Humans as
View of Humans Humans under divine command absolute, Humans as utility
outputs power Intersubjective god’s law instruments rational, logical actors
antinomian

Jacques Ellul Combination of any Joseph Fletcher Bentham

Skinner Carol Gilligan Kantian Ethics Aquinas Alasdair
Agents Merleau-Ponty ethic of John Dewey R.M. Hare J.S.Mill
Watson Nel Noddings Hobbes, Locke MacIntyre
consequentialism Richard Rorty Peter Singer

Social action,
Science Response to
Positive and rationality, Interconnectivity Jurisprudence Ends justifies the Human
Language Obligation, duty, compliance What is moral? objectivism context, meta-
negative reward embodied Interaffectivity self-evidence means flourishing
moral ecology ethics
experience
Modification of
Ethics as experiences Human rights are Categorical Inquiry and truth, Exercise of skills
behaviours. Science Vulnerability to Greatest good for Happiness for
Culture of worldview and ‘the Motives, things intrinsically ‘good’ natural and known, imperatives, binding rationality and and knowledge
of action and power greatest number the majority
other’ social contract forces good for society of virtue
controls

What is the Where is What and who is What is good for What is good in What is best for
Key Question What is the rule? What should I do? How should one act? What is virtuous?
behaviour? benevolence? personhood? society? time? the majority?

Decision based
on the utility of
Based on what
Based on the Centers on Based on the so Takes into account the moment.
Founded in the people do. Emphasis on
assumption that interpersonal called ‘laws of the social- Tends to view
dialectic between Therefore, an ‘virtues’ and
humans as objects relationships and Emphasizes generalizable nature’ this ethic psychological and humans as
being, embodiment ethic is validated moral character.
are the sum of inputs care or standards, duties, rules and proposes an Based on rationality cultural objects in a
and not being, on what is To be virtuous is
and outputs. A benevolence as a impartiality. Founded in the myth objective standard and what is deemed context.This system. The
Focus consciousness and dominant at the to possess a
mechanistic ethic virtue. Feminist, of verifiable scientific objectivity of being that all ‘normal’. approach argues most common
unconsciousness. An time of analysis. certain mindset
that has a trajectory post structuralist and Positivism.Consequentialism humans share that there is no mantra for
experiential ethic So, society by its or disposition in
of dehumanising and awareness of (universal) and is objective moral or utilitarian ethics
established in i-thou actions declares relation to the
others. power in relations. ‘god given’. universal standard. is ‘the end
and intersubjectivity morality. world.
justifies the
means’.

What is best moves Focus on

Increase and Make care Living ethically through Love god and obey Being disposed to The collective Be of good
Solutions Make rules clear in time, context and happiness for the
decrease rewards normative interconnectivity His laws moral good good character
society majority

However, we need to do more than just a word search of the chapter on ethics. Although it is important to
remember that language, symbols and grammar are often indicative of an ideological disposition. There are many
other indicators in the BoK on ethics that signal alarm bells for an Ethic of Risk. The elephant in the room for
the global safety industry is the ideology of zero. Here we have a publication, a so called ‘body of knowledge ‘
for WHS, and there is no mention of zero! This is despite the fact that zero is now the global ideological mantra
(http://visionzero.global/node/6) for an industry consumed with counting, numerics, metrics and the disease
of paperwork! Indeed, it is clear the BoK on ethics is anchored to the INSHPO declaration and framework, all
informed and shaped by the ideology of zero!
It doesn’t matter what words, systems or structures, procedures or language, symbols or gestures one choses, all
carry an implied ethic. There is no activity, mantra or position that is neutral or objective. All humans carry a bias
that ought to be declared as an essential to being ethical, also an essential to any safety investigation. Hiding one’s
ethic is essentially dishonest and therefore unethical. Such is the nature of the BoK on Ethics.
The Deontological ethic of the BoK is clear in discussion about the certainty of objectivity. Therefore if
knowledge is certain then duty can be certain. Yet, in the BoK itself this is quite contradictory. We are told on
p.31 that humans are biased and subjective yet on pages 18, 32, 55 and 82 we are told that safety people can be
objective with ‘facts’. Similarly, by not raising the most important and contentious ideology in the industry - zero,
there is a fundamental dishonesty in hiding such a discussion. The implications of hiding zero in a discussion

136 Envisioning Risk

on ethics for the industry is significant and yet the BoK is silent on such. So, zero has nothing to do with being
professional! What an amazing silence, for it is zero that drives: numerics, data obesity, fixation on minutia,
metrics, counting and connected paperwork and associated ethical problems of: ‘tick and flick’, flooding, fake and
dishonest recording, underreporting, blaming and attributions of safety to numerics.
When working through the SPoR module on an Ethic of Risk we always have safety people in the room when
we spent some hours critiquing the AIHS BoK on Ethics. What emerges from the discussion with safety
people on ethics is their concern that the very fundamental ethical dilemmas of being a safety person receives no
mention in the BoK on Ethics. The discussion raises issues that people considered critical for day to day moral
dilemmas for the safety person for example, challenges with:
1. Uncertainty with ALARP and subjectivity
2. Speaking up, whistleblowing and authoritarianism
3. Privacy and mental health (The BoK argues that safety overrides confidentiality and privacy)
4. Ambiguities with Due Diligence and inadequate legal knowledge
5. Lack of holistic training in critical parts of safety work eg. pastoral care
6. Conforming to the power of superiors and demands to be unethical about: data, reporting, recording and
time
7. Dishonesty associated with ‘turning a blind eye’, prioritizing risks, politicizing risk and dissonance in
performing professionally
8. Power and policing and dissonance with care and understanding others, particularly with mental health
issues
9. Bullying, and demands to be brutalizing in ‘enforcing’ systems, procedures and controls (zero)
10. KPIs linking safety to performance, payment of reward for under-reporting and incentivizing dishonesty
These and many more ethical challenges are raised whenever safety people discuss ethics and yet none of these
get a mention in the AIHS BoK on Ethics.

Why Discuss the AIHS BoK on Ethics?

Without an Ethic of Hope there can be no vision. One cannot envision anything from the foundation of an
ideology of zero. The quest for zero is the quest for stasis, and there can be no vision without movement, learning
and hope. Further discussion on why zero ideology quashes vision and chokes imagination will be put forward in
the next Chapter.
There is so much missing from the BoK on ethics, so many issues of a critical nature to safety people for acting
professionally that are not discussed. No mention at all of the challenges of heuristic, implicit thinking as an
ethical dilemma with accountability yet, gut thinking is framed as the final step in ethical decision making at
section 9.1! No mention of the challenges of social psychological influences and the nature of responsibility. Yet,
profound admissions in the text that Safety has no remedy for its open declared Machiavellian character and
unscrupulous culture!
Also an admission that there is no plan for education and learning in ethics in the WHS curriculum! (p.30, 31)
Yet, ethics is the soul of professionalism! (p.1). Indeed, the concept of learning gets scant mention within the
admission that safety people are not qualified for what they do. Of course, the issue of learning poses a significant
moral dilemma for safety, especially in its quest for stasis and objectivity through the ideology of zero.
We also learn in the ideology of the BoK that safety people are somehow (and naturally) ethically committed.
Somehow magically, safety people ‘have an inbuilt desire’ (p.9) (read natural law ethics) to know how to act

Chapter 4: Zero Vision 137

professionally and ethically without any learning about Ethics. What? What an assertion after already admitting
that the industry is entrapped in an unethical cycle of unscrupulous Machiavellian culture (p. 22, 27).
The AIHS BoK on Ethics comes together in a model for ethical decision making in section 9.1, what an amazing
linear model. Here is the model for objective ethical decision making starting with ‘gather the facts’
(what are they?) and finishing with ‘check your gut’. Well, you can’t get any more contradictory than that and
without any discussion of gut (implicit) knowledge in the text. So, your gut tells you whether something is right
or wrong, the ultimate in a Deontological ethic. Rightness, handed down from god and wrestled in the human
unconscious and conscience (not discussed in the text). So, in the end I guess one doesn’t need a curriculum on
Ethics if one is innately morally qualified and simply needs to ‘check the gut’ to get it right.
I see so many texts and books about visionary leadership, leadership with vision and vision statements in
organisations and there is nothing visionary about them. There is neither an Ethic of Hope or an Ethic of
Personhood in what is being proposed. What is often projected as a vision is in fact the opposite. Particularly,
in the business world and management what is often projected as vision is nothing more than a mask for greed,
accumulation, consumerism, ambition, self-ego, power, wealth, money and control. Many of the pop-presenters
on the management and marketing circuit like Simon Sinek, Tony Robbins etc often mask themes of self-ego in
the language of well being and community, but this is not their foundational discourse. In order to see what these
so called visionaries are about one has to understand the metaphors, symbols, myths and discourse ie. how power
is hidden in their language.

Transition
This concludes the discussion of the problem of zero vision and how an ideology of zero quashes vision. We have
systematically explored the ten primary dynamics that quash any Hope of envisioning risk. These ten dynamics,
principles and forces hold back an industry that can never have a vision for the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice
dialectic.
This brutalist industry fixated on a number can never see the fallible human. The human in learning is never in
the gaze or panopticon of zero and so qualitative being is quashed whilst the primacy of a number rules. and as
long as this industry lives by zero, it can never develop an Ethic of Risk or act professionally.
Whilst the risk industry parades about its ‘vision statements’ that have no vision, those who feel the outcome of
zero vision testify to its brutality. What is more, the ever growing bureaucracy in risk and safety management that
engenders distrust and actually doesn’t manage risk only makes people Papersafe (Smith 2019).
In the next chapter we look at mechanisms and skills that encourage vision, that help in improving physical
vision, existential vision and prophetic vision that enables one to grasp the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice dialectic.

138 Envisioning Risk

CHAPTER 5
The Dynamics of Vision 5
Very often, the risks that concern us are not the risks to the status quo, but risks to our
plans to change the status quo. - Kay and King - Radical Uncertainty.

Religion is not in books, nor in theories, nor in dogmas, nor in talking, not even in reasoning.
It is being and becoming - Swami Vivekananda

The perception of other people and the intersubjective world is problematic only for adults.
- Phenomenology of Perception - Maurice Merleau-Ponty

And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and
your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall
see visions. - Joel 2:28

The purpose of this chapter is to explore some mechanisms that enhance vision, how we see the world and how
we approach the challenges of risk. We will explore the power of Cartooning, Photography and Street Art. All
these visual tools can help enhance the way we envision risk. We have to learn how to be sensitive to all Semiotics
in the semiosphere, something we will explore further in the following chapters. What this chapter seeks to do
is show how visionaries in the visual arts in cartooning, photography and Street Art engage in the Faith-Hope-
Love-Justice dialectic. But let’s first expand again our understanding of vision beyond the physical.
The word ‘vision’ has always had many meanings particularly in religious circles. Vision in religion has always
been about looking through faith. It was the apostle Paul who said ‘we live and walk by faith not by sight’ (2
Corinthians 5:7). This is foundational to all religions and the notion of faith is associated with a vision through a
different way of knowing.

Visions
Metaphorically, visions are often evocations of a scene – whether sordid or sublime. Whether they be of syphilitic
agony, paradise, or bliss, the word ‘vision’ is wedded to an infinitude of metaphor. More prosaic still, visions may
refer to nothing more than mere hallucinations or the faculty of sight itself.
But in the history of religions, visions are inspirational renderings of insight, often experienced by shamans or
prophets, that serve to guide and gild communities of faith. Bruggemann names the religious way of knowing The

Chapter 5: The Dynamics of Vision 139

Prophetic Imagination. In such a hermeneutic one needs to understand the nature of symbols and myths as a way
of reading ancient texts.
The Bible is replete with descriptions of visionary encounters. Ezekiel dramatically recalls his experience
of witnessing a chariot wrought of living creatures with four faces and calf ’s feet. The Apocalypse of John
(canonically known as the Book of Revelation) describes in phantasmagoric detail the final struggle and apotheosis
of the faithful. The previous two examples, along with Paul’s vision of Christ while on the road to Damascus, are
but three of many visions recorded in the canonical Old and New Testaments.
In later theological developments, the concept of the Beautific Vision came to be of central importance. First
expounded upon in painstaking detail in the thirteenth century by St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summae Theologiae,
the Beautific Vision is understood to be the undistilled perception of the unrefracted light of God.
Visions suffuse the literary legacy of Western Esotericism as well. Emanuel Swedenborg’s complex theology was
both born from and unfolded through a series of visions in which he vividly witnessed the wonders of Heaven
and the horrors of Hell. Jakob Bohme (another central figure in the history of Western Esotericism) similarly
experienced an ecstatic vision of light reflected in a pewter dish that led him to construct his own mystical
philosophy.
Vision quests are integral to the mechanics of shamanistic societies; in many tribal cultures, they herald one’s
transition from boyhood or girlhood into the arena of adults. Often, this unfolds along the following axes: He or
she, upon reaching puberty, sets off into the wilderness to seek a vision, a vision that will direct his or her path
for the duration of life. Frequently, these visions appear in the form of animal teachers, or totems, that become
private spiritual guides and shape, in effect, the future of their charges. Once the newly minted man or woman
reintegrates him or herself into the tribe, they are seen as extensions of the vision they experienced, and their life’s
work will unfold accordingly.
Various theoretical apparatuses have been advanced within the field of psychology to account for the occurrence
and persistence of visions. Psychoanalysis tends to view them as externalizations of neurotic conflict or simply
wish-fulfilling fantasies. Cognitive theories hold them as aberrations of normal mental functioning. Jungian
psychology views archetypal images that are regarded as visions crucial to the process of individuation. Newer
non-reductive psychoanalytic approaches view visions as transformative and psychically integrative within the
interpretive paradigm of psychodynamism.
Further still, we know that people have visions that are drug induced such is the story of many musicians, artists
and ‘seekers’ who find visions in psychedelic experiences that enhance how they see, innovate, imagine and
composed vision.

Vivekananda and Mystery

I don’t want to spend too much space on religion and mystery except to discuss the level to which Eastern
religions, yoga and non-materialist philosophies show up time and time again in the journey of visionaries. It is
also unfortunate that modern approaches to risk are consumed with predictive probabilities and reject fallibility
and Radical Uncertainty (Kay and King 2020).
We have already become acquainted with the connection of Theosophy and Athroposophy (and their connection
to Eastern religion) to several of our visionaries in the previous chapter. We have also witnessed the adoption
of Indigenous ways of knowing in the way politicians and science organisations accept Welcome to Country
and Smoking ceremonies. We also know just how much Eastern religions and philosophies have played a part
in some of the greatest musical visionaries of our time eg. The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Beach Boys, Hendrix etc.
(http://web.colby.edu/ar120/2014/04/24/eastern-religion-in-psychedelic-rock-culture/). and we don’t wish to fall
down the trap of the Dekker myth that risk is better worked out by faith in Science than faith in Faith (2017).
Rather than dismiss what we don’t understand why not ask the question: What can STEM learn from the
transcendent? We act as-if we know so much, when in fact we know so little.

140 Envisioning Risk

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) is considered a spiritual genius of commanding intellect and power (https://
vedantasociety.net/vivekananda). Vivekananda was an Indian Hindu monk, a chief disciple of the 19th-century
Indian mystic Ramakrishna. He was a key figure in the introduction of the Indian philosophies of Vedanta and
Yoga to the Western world. He introduced Vendanta Hinduism at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in
Chicago in 1893.
Vivekananda stressed the universal and humanistic side of the Vedas, the oldest sacred texts of Hinduism, as well
as belief in service rather than dogma. Vivekananda was a social reformer and founded the Ramakrishna Mission
at the monastery of Belur Math on the Ganges (Ganga) River near Calcutta (now Kolkata). Vivekananda’s
influence over the awareness in the West with Hindu spritualism cannot be underestimated. Many Vendanta
societies exist in the USA and UK directly originating from his visits in the late 19th Century.
Whilst many in the West find help, comfort and sensemaking in Eastern religions in many ways we don’t have to
be on some ‘higher plane’ to experience or have vision. Vision in the sense we discuss in this book is about being
down-to-earth not necessarily ‘up in the clouds’. However, it is helpful to consider that many of the religions and
Indigenous spirituality claim ways of knowing that contradict the claims of Positivism. One thing is for sure we
dismiss ways of knowing we don’t understand as an act of Western so called ‘scientific’ arrogance.

My Mum’s Hunches and Dad’s Skipping

As a kid I was always amazed how my Mum seemed to have a sixth sense. I would walk into the kitchen
after school and Mum seemed to ‘know’ something was wrong. She didn’t need a 3 year course in body
language or psychology, she learned to read signs in disposition simply by knowing her children. This was
never a rational thing but always a ‘felt’ thing. Similarly, she could always have a stab at the fact that we
were in trouble or had done something wrong. Amidst the busyness of a kitchen and 8 mouths to feed
she somehow knew that she needed to put down a saucepan, spoon or ingredient and listen.
Now I’m not going to make this a sexist thing but to simply say that from my experience Mum was
better at this than Dad. However, both Mum and Dad had a sense of vision but it was different.
Both could see things that weren’t present in the moment and both had a good sense of the visible
and invisible. I guess this is where my early lessons in the ways of the unconscious and Collective
Unconscious started. Whilst Dad influenced me into the semiotic world of signs, visions and symbols,
Mum introduced me into the world of implicit knowing and head, heart and gut knowing. Both Mum
and Dad claimed to have had visions, spiritual experiences and epiphanies.
Some of my best childhood memories were being with Mum as I licked the spoon or mixmaster spindle
whilst being comforted by her soothing counsel and wise words. With Dad, it was so special when he
took me out of school for a day to be with him and skipping down George St Sydney to Coles to have a
pie for lunch.
The tough part was when Dad prayed or did evangelistic preaching in public. He used to do this in the
Domain in Sydney whilst at the same time running evangelistic campaigns all over Australia and ‘Tent
Missions’ and ‘planting’ new churches. This was in the 1950s and 1960s and it was a different world pre TV.
It’s difficult to describe the uniqueness of being raised in the house of a clergyman. Dad never feared
ridicule for what he believed. Whilst his and Mum’s experiences were not mine, who was I to claim they
were deluded or didn’t have such visionary experiences? They certainly lived the genuine nature of what
they claimed till the day of their death.
One thing Dad did do was give me a passion for Semiotics and vision, just not his notion of vision.

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Implicit Knowing
One of the benefits of experience, repetition and habit is developing heuristic knowing. Once humans have
repeated and learned patterns they become so efficient they no longer need detail to fulfil tasks. In many ways
humans in heuristic knowing do most things intuitively. In other words tasks are undertaken by feeling. We feel
our way through activities and in many ways don’t need to pay attention to detail. In such a mode of thinking our
perception works on automatic.
Implicit knowing is the same as tacit knowledge and is the type of knowledge we have and use but find
difficulty to express. Polanyi stated: ‘we know more than we can say’ (The Tacit Dimension - https://monoskop.org/
File:Polanyi_Michael_The_Tacit_Dimension.pdf). Polanyi’s work is really the best place to start but if you find it a
bit heavy going you can try Blink by Malcolm Gladwell or unthink by Chris Paley.
Explicit knowledge on the other hand, is the type of knowledge we find no difficulty to express whereas tacit
knowledge is not available in text books but each of us develops it with experience. Computers are a good
example of the problem. Computers can only follow explicit rules because they have no feeling capacity and
cannot transfer explicit knowledge to ‘felt’ knowledge and so cannot make decisions by feeling. This is why
computers can never ‘learn’ and why there is no such thing as ‘machine learning’.
Polanyi opens his book with an example, recognition of a person’s face. We can recognise a person’s face amongst
millions instantly yet we don’t know how we do it or can we put such knowing into words. What is unique to
human is this knowledge we cannot tell. If a machine cannot tell us its knowledge we consider it broken. Implicit
knowing transfers knowledge to feeling and emotions, we embody knowledge so that it doesn’t require brain
processing. In this way our perceptions are instant and felt, sometimes we call this ‘gut knowing’. As Polanyi
states (p.15) ‘Our body is the ultimate instrument of all our external knowledge’ and even then I would not use
the word ‘instrument’. The best way to understand implicit knowledge is to NOT use mechanical metaphors.
Polanyi also calls implicit knowing ‘indwelling’. That is, we interiorize knowledge in our bodies so much that
decisions become ‘felt’. The more we repeat things the more they become part of our ‘being’ so that we don’t have
to process ‘thinking’ to walk and talk, we just do it. Damasio (The Feeling of What Happens) calls this non-rational
processing. This is why we use language such as ‘pay attention’ and ‘be careful’ because we know so much of our
decision making is not rational or enacted rationally. This is why the One Brain Three Minds (1B3M) model is
such a helpful model and metaphor to understand human decision making.
The idea that there is an objective rational dispassionate and detached form of knowledge may be a useful way in
understanding computers but it is completely inappropriate for understanding humans. Vision doesn’t come by
computing knowledge but by discovery, experimentation, imagination, play and exploration, all actions that rely
on the indwelling of implicit knowledge.
So it is from understanding implicit knowledge that we explore works of visual knowledge that help spark
vision and draw us into the Love-Faith-Hope-Justice Dialectic. The rest of this chapter will explore the work of
cartooning, photography and Street Art.

Inked, Cartoonists as Visionaries

The work of cartoonists and political cartoonists in particular have provided vision throughout the ages. Well
before there was photography, newspapers or the printing press, there has always been drawing and cartooning.
The walls of caves and the Catacombes of Rome (https://www.romaexperience.com/rome-catacombs/) testify
to the power of presenting images. This was highlighted at an Exhibition in Canberra in 2019 called ‘Inked’
(https://www.nla.gov.au/inked-australian-cartoons). For the purposes of this discussion I will just focus on
Australian cartooning (https://www.nla.gov.au/content/explore-inked-australian-cartoons) but the reflections
and points made can be applied across the genre globally.

142 Envisioning Risk

So before we embark on exploring some of these visionaries let’s briefly look at the tools they use to create vision,
insight and prophetic voice through their images. For further interest our local museum provides a wonderful
workbook for children to help them analyse and think critically about this genre (https://www.nma.gov.au/__
data/assets/pdf_file/0016/19141/laughing_with_knives_colour.pdf ). Although Laughing With Knives is designed
for children it does help us take a view into the art, craft, creativity and prophetic imagination of the cartoonist.

The Cartoonist’s Tools

Symbolism/Semiotics
The cartoonist is not just a master of drawing but also the master of Semiotics. Understanding how
images, signs and symbols communicate to the conscious and unconscious is critical for conveying the
content and emotion of an issue. The cartoonist knows how to use symbols eg. flags, knives, ships, dress
and religious objects to anchor the viewer to critical contrasting objects and icons.
Point of View - Vision
The principle purpose of the cartoonist is to convey their point of view. This is their vision for what could
be but is not. Often the cartoonist shows the trajectory of an issue and makes plain something that
seems hidden to a population or society.
Unorthodox
Most often the cartoonist is not fond of orthodoxy and perhaps is drawn to this medium due to the
medium itself. Cartooning seems to allow for offensive material to be put forward that perhaps cannot
be said by voice or other images. Often the cartoonist presents work that some see as defamatory but
they do tend to sit on the borderline of what can be presented and what is offensive. No one quite
knows the limits of a cartoon until it is often been put into circulation.
Irony/Satire
One of the strategies of the cartoonists is juxtaposition and contradiction associated with a central idea.
The use of irony, satire and exaggeration are usually the first things that shout at you from the narrative
of the cartoon.
Backgrounding and Foregrounding
The cartoonist knows how to use visual metaphor to convey ideas subversively. Sometimes the most
important point to be made is a small comment in a corner made by a dog or a subtle image far in the
background.
Exaggeration
Exaggeration is the craft of the cartoonist. Often the person they draw is identified by prominent
features such as a large nose, ears or eyebrows to capture the resemblance to the central character/s.
With only one static image to make a point, the cartoonist has to capture a central idea and cannot
flood the cartoon with all the ideas associated with an issue. In this way the central idea is often overly
simplified and tends to make the issue binary black and white.
Caricature
Cartoonists are often good at creating a caricature of someone often tying identity to a mistake, foible
or error made in the past.
Archetypes
Often cartoonist don’t attack individuals but rather governments, collectives and archetypes.

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 Labelling
Often the labelling of objects uses substitution in metaphor to make something anchor to something
else, usually an ethical, political or moral problem. The cartoonist is usually quite subtle and clever about
drawing attributions and associations to objects identified with a central characterisation. Fallible
politicians and public figures are easy targets for the cartoonist.
Analogy
This is the way the cartoonist uses suggestion to draw together or pose ambiguity by association.
Generally one central analogy and symbol is used so as to make a single point. It is through analogy that
the cartoonist usually presents an argument in a strategy of persuasion.
Series
Sometimes cartoonist use a series of frames to build a story to prime and anchor viewers to a narrative,
point, argument and message. In this way the cartoonist uses compare and contrast to make a point.
Target and Target Audience
Often a cartoon relies upon a certain level of political and ethical literacy to understand the vision of the
cartoonist. One has to be familiar with some issues in order to perceive the meaning of the cartoon.
Style
Each cartoonist tends to develop their own style and identity according to the issues that provoke them
and the issues with which they are interested.
Power
Often the cartoonist draws attention to the abuse of power or the overpowering of others in arguments
of ethical importance to a society. In this way the cartoonist often takes the role of being a voice for the
vulnerable or silent minority on critical ethical, communal and political issues.
Propaganda and Spin
Cartoons have been used to make a point about propaganda or as a tool of propaganda, particularly in
times of war to demonise oppositions or to create caricatures of enemies.

Inked Figure 94. Muscle Kangaroo

The following selection of images and commentary
come from the Inked Exhibition. All the images that
follow were taken by me from the Exhibition.
We see in Figure 94. Muscle Kangaroo (complete
with tattoos) the exaggeration of the most common
Australian icon. The kangaroo is often used to display
Nationalism, jingoism or Australian identity in
cartoons.

144 Envisioning Risk

In Figure 95. Racism as Nationalism we see a cartoon
Figure 95. Racism as Nationalism
of a Mongolian Octopus presented in The Bulletin
in 1886. The idea of the invading ‘coloured’ hoards
has always been an issue in Australian culture made
popular by the rise of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation
Party in 1997 (https://www.onenation.org.au/)
and carrying weight in the balance of power in the
Australian senate. Just as Hanson was elected on a
simplistic blatantly racist platform so too was the
White Australia Policy (https://www.sbs.com.au/
nitv/nitv-news/article/2017/04/10/what-was-white-
australia-policy-and-how-does-it-still-affect-us-now)
that was instituted in legislation at the formation of
the Nation in 1901. Racially discriminatory legislation
was finally dissolved in 1973 under the Labor Whitlam
Government and the The Racial Discrimination Act made it illegal to ‘offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate’
someone because of their race. Those words are from Section 18C of that Act as being targeted for amendment
by the Conservative Government of 2020.
The image and symbol of the Octopus conjures up the sentiments of its tentacles overtaking and grabbing
everything. In this way it plays on the emotions of loss and possession and the slimy nature of the animal. As
the formation of Australia approached, bringing
together the colonies, The Bulletin was the strongest
Figure 96. The German Monster
source of such xenophobia. Similarly in 2020 the same
xenophobia about the Chinese dominates politics
demonstrating that nothing has changed and that
the element of fear is just as effectively utilized by
conservative commentators.
In Figure 96. The German Monster we see the work
of Norman Lindsay (1918) who uses the caricature
of the ape/King Kong monster to pose the question
about global take over. Lindsay was commissioned to
draw many posters for the World War One campaign
particularly on the emotional call for conscription and
emotive posters targeting recruitment. The use of the
monster image and the red with blood on his hands
carries all the emotion of fear required to simplify
World War One into a binary simplistic argument.
Posters are often used to draw maximum impact and
support during conflict. Cartoonists like Lindsay were
paid to do such work in support of the Empire, even
though his radical art and lifestyle were a shock to
those in orthodoxy.

Normal Lindsay - Visionary

Norman Lindsay (http://www.normanlindsay.net/index.htm) was seen as a Renaissance-like painter,
writer, sculptor, landscape designer, etcher, cartoonist and book illustrator in the 1920s in Australia.
Lindsay wrote for the Sydney Bulletin for 50 years. He remains one of the most noted cartoonists in
Australian history.

Chapter 5: The Dynamics of Vision 145

 The Reverend Thomas Williams, Norman’s grandfather, was influential in encouraging the children’s
interest in art, escorting them to the Ballarat Fine Arts Gallery. Here Norman was entranced by Solomon
J. Solomon’s work Ajax and Cassandra. The painting was inspired by Virgil’s Aeneid and depicts the rape
of Cassandra by Ajax, a hero of Greek mythology. It was to form the basis of Norman’s interest in nudes
in his art.
Lindsay married Catherine (Kate) Agatha Parkinson, in Melbourne on 23 May 1900. Their son Jack
was born in Melbourne on 20 October 1900, followed by Raymond in 1903 and Philip in 1906. They
divorced in 1918. In 1903 Norman was introduced to 16-year old model Rose Soady, with whom he
began an affair.
Norman was a radical for his times and condemned by orthodoxy as vulgar, indecent, blasphemous and
lacking imagination. The conflict with orthodoxy is captured well in the movie on Lindsay called Sirens
(1994). With the cast of Hugh Grant, Elle Macpherson, Kate Fisher, Sam Neill and Tara Fitzgerald and
a salacious script the Director was able to capture the emotion of Lindsay’s controversy and obsession
with freedom in the movie.
Lindsay’s paintings of nudes were highly controversial. In 1940, Lindsay took sixteen crates of paintings,
drawings and etchings to the U.S. to protect them from the war. Unfortunately, they were discovered
when the train they were on caught fire and were impounded and subsequently burned as pornography
by American officials. His novels Redheap and Age of Consent were banned. Age of Consent later became a
hit movie in the swinging 1970s.
Early in 1917 Norman learned of the death of his brother Reginald who had been killed on the Somme
and he later received his blood-stained notebook. Norman turned to spiritualism and with the aid
of Rose and a Ouija board communicated, as he believed, not only with Reginald but such departed
celebrities as Shakespeare and Apollo. Postwar Spiritualism was booming in the 1920s in Sydney
evidenced by the building of the Theosphy Amphitheatre in Balmoral (https://mosman.nsw.gov.au/
file.../The-Star-Amphitheatre-Balmoral.pdf ) by the Theosophists discussed in book three of the series
on risk: Real Risk, Human Discerning and Risk (pp. 10-12). Arthur Conan Doyle toured Australia in the
1920s, lecturing on spiritualism. Norman and his artistic brother Lionel were estranged after Norman’s
increasing interest in spiritualism.
From 1914, one of Theosophy’s most controversial leaders, Charles Webster Leadbeater, was based in
Sydney and lived in Mosman. The Sydney Theosophical Lodge was the largest and wealthiest in the
world owning an eight story building in the middle of Sydney. It is not quite known how Norman
and Leadbeater crossed paths but Lindsay’s son Jack refers to the connection to Leadbeater in his
autobiography. Leadbeater was as controversial as Lindsay with his association of masturbation
with Occultic energy and his penchant for young boys (https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/
leadbeater_charles)
Lindsay rejected Christianity, and his art depicts Bohemianism and Arcadian pantheism madly mixed
in a fantasy world. Nietzsche became the leading influence in Norman’s philosophy of art and life,
reinforcing his rejection of Christianity and the Puritan values of his mother who he believed had
constrained his childhood and been repressive.
Following WW1 Lindsay gave away the idea of focusing on Australian themes and in 1923 set up
a literary magazine called Vision. Lindsay’s art and writing emphasised the notion of free spirit and
liberation from convention. He loved the work of Rubens and pre-Raphaelites which one can see in his
work and enjoyed the bush as an enchanted garden.
Lindsay as a writer gives an intense insight into childhood and his works like The Magic Pudding (1918)
and Cats demonstrating his creative flair and psychological insight into the world of children and
imagination.

146 Envisioning Risk

 A large body of his work is housed in his
Figure 97. The Witches Sabbath
former home Springwood at Faulconbridge,
New South Wales, now the Norman
Lindsay Gallery and Museum (https://www.
nationaltrust.org.au/places/norman-lindsay-
gallery/), and many works reside in private and
corporate collections. The house and museum is
definitely worth the visit. His numerous visitors
at Springwood included Dame Nellie Melba
and author (Stella) Miles Franklin.
Lindsay’s work experienced a revival in the
1960s and 1970s in the search for psychedelic
art in search of Art Nouveau. We can see
in Lindsay’s Figure 97. The Witches Sabbath
(1917) his radical rejection of Christianity,
his fascination with cavorting nymph-like
nudes, spirituality, the Occult, the mocking
of priesthood, symbology and Greco-Roman Figure 98. Pollice Verso
mythology, enough to earn the vitriol of
orthodoxy and conservativism in Sydney in the
1920s. Just think of the shudders in orthodoxy
when the risky Figure 98. Pollice Verso was
put on show! This was actually his first major
controversy of his career that erupted in
Sydney in 1904 when the pen and ink drawing
was displayed in the twenty-fifth Annual
Exhibition of the Royal Art Society of New
South Wales.

It’s Just a Cartoon?

On January 7 2015 two brothers Said and Cherif
Kouachi, forced their way into the offices of French
satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris,
Figure 99. He Drew First
killing 122 people and wounding 11 others. Charlie
Hebdo was targeted because of a cartoon that
expressed satirical sentiments about the Prophet
Muhammad. Cartoonist David Pope with the
Canberra Times published the cartoon at Figure 99. He
Drew First went viral on social media and one of the
most viewed cartoons in history.
The cartoon plays on the language of drawing to
satirise the tragedy and demonstrates the power and
influence of cartooning.

Chapter 5: The Dynamics of Vision 147

Cathy Wilcox Figure 100. Grenfell Tower
For some strange reason the tradition of cartoonist
seems anchored to the male gender (eg. Bruce Petty,
Larry, Pickering, Martin Sharp, David Rowe, David
Pope, Matt Golding, Geoff Pryor etc), not so for Cathy
Wilcox cartoonist for The Sydney Morning Herald and
The Age newspapers (https://behindthelines.moadoph.
gov.au/cartoonists/cathy-wilcox; https://www.
cathywilcox.com.au/).
Wilcox lives and works in Sydney, studied at Sydney
College of the Arts then for a short time lived in
Paris from 1985-87. She has illustrated picture books,
theatre productions and done a TEDx talk (https://
tedxsydney.com/talk/lazy-and-outraged-dont-take-
it-personally-cathy-wilcox/). Cathy is a member of
Cartooning For Peace and a keen observer of society
and politics, and has won many awards for her work,
including Political Cartoonist of the Year 2016 and
three Walkley Awards.
One of her most noted cartoons concerned the Grenfell Tower Tragedy a 24-storey public housing tower block
in North Kensington, London, caught fire on 14 June 2017, 72 people died and 70 were injured in the fire
(https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40301289).
There are several significant learnings about this tragedy not least of which is that more died because they
followed safety instructions (The fire safety policy for Grenfell Tower was that residents were advised to stay in
their flats (‘stay put’) if a fire broke out in the building)! This is reminiscent of the Piper Alpha disaster (https://
www.theguardian.com/business/2013/jul/04/piper-alpha-disaster-167-oil-rig), such is the command of the
compliance mindset.
The other point of significance is one of social justice that Wilcox draws out in her cartoon. In Figure 100.
Grenfell Tower we see the cost of ‘low cost housing’ and the way it is justified by the powerful over the vulnerable.
The reason why so many died is because the construction of the tower used ‘cheap’ combustible polyethylene
polymer cladding. Wilcox was struck by the lower standard of safety for the less fortunate. The image also recalls
Brett Whiteley’s ‘Almost Once’ sculpture, as Wilcox mourns the tragedy of the Grenfell Tower fire and questions
the class divide that allowed it to happen.
Wilcox is one of many cartoonists that produce their work for the Twitter/social media age. Wilcox has 42.6
million followers on Twitter. With such a reach her work has profound effect on the social-political landscape.
Moreso as she uses her cartoons to draw attention to political, justice and ethical issues. In Figure x. Small Boy we
see Wilcox draw attention to one of the photos that changed the world.
The images of a small boy dead on a beach in Turkey (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/02/
shocking-image-of-drowned-syrian-boy-shows-tragic-plight-of-refugees) changed the way the world perceived
the Syrian Refugee crisis. In a similar way to the photo that changed the course of the war in Vietnam (https://
www.forbesindia.com/article/recliner/i-took-the-picture-that-changed-the-war-nick-ut/51441/1) this photo
captured the inhumane nature of the Syrian conflict juxtaposed against the innocence of childhood.
Wilcox was able to capture the image of the boy from the photo and with Poetic power draw attention to the
key issues associated with the conflict. Until this photo the world was less empathetic with the enormous cost to
refugees (approx 6 million Syrians have fled the war) and the outcomes of the civil war in Syria. See Figure 101.
Small Boy.

148 Envisioning Risk

Cathy is featured along with many other cartoonists in
Figure 101. Small Boy
the Behind the Lines annual exhibition at the Museum
of Australian Democracy (https://behindthelines.
moadoph.gov.au/cartoonists/cathy-wilcox)
The third cartoon Figure 102. How Dare You! captures
the famous speech by Climate activist Greta Thunberg
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greta_Thunberg) at the
UN Climate Action Summit 2019. Wilcox so easily
demonstrates the outrage of orthodoxies against her
and the real issue at hand.

Michael Leunig
The work of Michael Leunig spans 5 decades (https://
www.leunig.com.au/) and like most cartoonists is a
philosopher, painter, poet and writer. His work like Figure 102. How Dare You!
Wilcox appears in the Sydney Morning Herald and The
Age. His website states:
He describes his approach as regressive,
humorous, messy, mystical, primal and
vaudevillian - producing work which is
open to many interpretations and has been
widely adapted in education, music, theatre,
psychotherapy and spiritual life.
His first book of collected cartoons was published in
1974 (The Penguin Leunig). Leunig left behind formal
education at a young age and worked as a factory
labourer and meatworker where he engaged in the raw Figure 103. More
nature of life and work. He created a few characters
that speak his narrative namely, Mr. Curly and Vasco
Pyjama. Perhaps Leunig like no other cartoonist
exposes the futility and despair of Technique. Leunig’s
stark criticism of consumerism, commercialism, the
mantra of business, greed and corruption and, the
dehumanisation of persons are common themes, so
clearly represented in Figure 103. More.
Yet despite Leunig’s criticism of Technique he advocates
for happiness in some of life’s simplest experiences,
enjoying the stars, trees, ducks and life.
In 1999 he was declared a ‘national living treasure’ by
the National Trust and awarded honorary degrees from La Trobe and Griffith Universities and the Australian
Catholic University for his unique contribution to Australian culture. Leunig fits every definition of what makes
a visionary.
Like many cartoonists he captures the nature of injustice, power and hypocrisy in society. A watershed came
in Leunig’s cartooning work with the advent of the ‘war on terror’ following the 9/11 atrocity. As a pacifist his
cartoons brought him into direct conflict with orthodoxy. See Figure 104. War on Terror. Of course, pointing out
to church and Christian orthodoxy the hypocrisy of their stand on the war on terror.

Chapter 5: The Dynamics of Vision 149

Leunig lives in the bush in Northern Figure 104. War on Terror
Victoria and takes a strong stand
against the STEM-only Technique of
Western living, he has no TV. Many of
his cartoons capture the sorrow of the
West in its accumulation, commercialism
and re-definition of living as ‘business’,
so beautifully illustrated in Figure 105.
Business. His cartoons often capture the
despair and dehumanising nature of society
in its quest for capital and the nature
of personhood juxtaposed to alienating
forces. His work utilises everyday symbols
like ducks and teapots to demonstrate
how ordinary life is demonised by
forces of power and greed (https://
www.portrait.gov.au/magazines/17/
the-philosophy-of-teapots-and-ducks). Figure 105. Business

In 2019 his stand against Technique brought

him into controversy with feminists and
orthodoxy for his portrayal of a woman
neglecting her child for the fixation on a
phone (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-
11-01/leunig-mother-phone-cartoon-
backlash-column/11663936). See Figure
106. The Phone.
What the cartoon sought to demonstrate
was not the neglect of the mother but the
fixation of Technique. Unfortunately, this
brought him into conflict with Feminist
orthodoxy and was interpreted as judgment
on mothers, Clementine Ford the noted
feminist commentator attacked him in Figure 106. The Phone
social media. Such is the subjective nature
of cartooning. Strangely, Leunig has much
more in common with Feminists than
orthodoxy. As a strong critic of power,
corruption and masculinist narrative in
society and his interest in spirituality puts
him in much greater alignment with Post-
structuralist feminists than this controversy
portrays. The iPhone for Leunig is often
the symbol of consumerism and Technique
as in Figure 107. Phones.

150 Envisioning Risk

Leunig also presents his work in animation, Figure 107. Phones
documentary, film and TV but much better
to see what Leunig says about himself and
his philosophy here:
https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=nnP0Czj08B4
https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=-Nz9Am0VyrE
https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=mC12EBX0qiQ
If anyone was a visionary against Technique
on a par with Ellul, it would be Leunig.

Photography
Photography skills are critical for understanding SPoR.
Simply speaking, a camera is a machine that produces a two-dimensional representation of a three dimensional
scene/moment. A camera is just a box with a hole in it. When the photographer uses a camera creatively, it
changes from a simple, mechanical machine into an artist’s tool. Instead of making random copies of things, it
begins to say something about them.
Photography is not only a tool for observation and visualisation but a lens for seeing the world semiotically. It
is important to remember that pictures and photographs are not objective. All pictures, like all Semiotics are
subjective and require interpretation. Whilst some things in pictures can be observed as objects there are many
aspects of photographs that are hidden and missing in order to understand the subjectivity of the image and its
meaning. I will get back to the subjectivity of photography and some tools for photographic conversation after
this discussion on the critical elements of photography.
One thing is for sure, entering into the world of photography can expand your semiotic vision.

Critical Elements of Photography

I have discussed critical elements of unconscious communication in previous books, these are:
• Framing
• Pitching
• Priming
• Anchoring and,
• Mirroring
Let’s have a look at these again but in the context of pictures, images and photography.

Framing
The frame format delimits everything you can express in a photo. All the elements of the photograph are set by
the frame. Framing is closely related to focal length and the angle of vision. In the philosophy of perception and
vision, your frame is both your worldview and the lens through which you see the world.
What are you focused on? What is out of the frame? Why is it excluded? What is in the background? Why is it
blurred or not blurred? The photographer decides what is in the frame, this is the subjectivity of framing, context
and Socialitie.

Chapter 5: The Dynamics of Vision 151

Framing influences the perception of the scene Figure 108. Cuppacumbalong Graves
and what is in focus. The photographer also makes
judgements about subjects and objects and how
they will be presented. The type of framing is going
to generate a perception of a composition. What is
the photographer and the picture trying to tell us,
even though it is a moment captured in time. Of
course, there is no audible voice to who or what is
in the frame and so the viewer speculates, observes
and guesses meaning by their own hermeneutic.
This however doesn’t nullify the frame of the
photographer for once the frame is set then what is
in the frame becomes the focus of conversation. That
subjective exploration is where the learning takes
place.

An Example of Framing
Take for example the following series of photos. This
series of photos is of the graves at Cuppacumbalong
Canberra, a place where I often take people for a
‘semiotic walk’. The walk is rich with images and
smells that stimulate the senses, the smell of the
river, earth, wood and leaves, the dappled light
through the poplars and the sounds of birds, the Figure 109. Cuppacumbalong Graves at a
levels of track and evidences of wildlife and at the Distance
end of the walk the sensation of the raised grave
area. This semiotic walk is more fully featured in The
Social Psychology of Risk handbook pp. 132-134.
From the air one can see the physical dimensions
and shape of the grave area, interestingly like the
shape of an eye, perhaps the eye of Horus. See
Figure 108. Cuppacumbalong Graves. In this ‘frame’
one situates houses, trees, fencing, tracks, river and
landscape but cannot make out the elevation of the
grave area or indeed that it is a cemetery.
As one walks the track towards the cemetery one
really cannot make out what the space and place
is about, up ahead it looks like the farm fence
Figure 110. Raised Ground Area and Rock Wall
reaches a corner and at best it looks like a raised
bed of rocks, perhaps a stone fence. See Figure 109.
Cuppacumbalong Graves at a Distance.
Then as one approaches one can see the stones as
it becomes clear they are not a fence but rather a
purposefully stacked retaining wall. See Figure 110.
Raised Ground Area and Rock Wall. It is then that one
notices shaped stones and an obelisk jutting up from
the source of the raised area but still it is not clear
what is in the frame.

152 Envisioning Risk

Then as one gets closer there is a sign Figure 111. Instead of Digging Down
explaining the area. See Figure 111.
Instead of Digging Down and still one
doesn’t really ‘get’ the experience of what
it’s all about. Then there is a step across a
little bridge as one is in and on the raised
cemetery. There one can see grave stones
at a distance and assembled in order and
then another raised area of white granite
stones. It is pronounced and obviously by
its prominence quite special.
As on gets closer each grave is unique and
bears symbols, shape and text that tell
more of their significance. Then as one
approaches the white rocks one notices
that inside the rocks is a dark granite Figure 112. The White Circle
obelisk standing out in stark contrast to
what one knows are white granite stones.
See. Figure 112. The White Circle.
Even then, as one leans on the white
fenced circle one notices that it is not
a raised rock wall but rather a fence to
separate off one object from the rest. On
the obelisk positioned to the western side
of the circle are the names of the members
of the De Salis family, the owners of the
property at the time. See Figure 113.
Buried to Social Standing
One is then invited by the affordance of a
bridge (seen in the centre of Figure x The
Figure 113. Buried to Social Standing
White Circle) to enter into the white circle
and participate in the grave area where one
can touch the obelisk. It would appear that
this bridge has been created by the carers
of the cemetery (ACT Government) but
such separation was intended originally
by the social class of the time. Several
unmarked graves of the poor and servants,
some Indigenous perhaps, are also on the
site.
One walks around the whole site and
experiences the huge effort taken to ensure
that people would be buried according to
religious conviction/superstition (6 feet
under, facing East to West) . See Figure
114. Walk Around.

Chapter 5: The Dynamics of Vision 153

The more one explores this area the more comes Figure 114. Walk Around
into frame, the more one ‘sees’ and gets a vision
for the vision of the pioneers, the more one
understands the frame of those 19th century
settlers in Australia - Canberra - Tharwa
- Cuppacumbalong.
Such a vision may not be appreciated or understood
by all. Indeed, those without any sense of the sacred
or religious significance can view this place as just a
place to see and adventure. This is how our ‘frames’
of the world vary. One ‘sees’ a grave and other ‘sees’
a stone to hang off. See Figure 115. Girl on Obelisk.
One’s affordance depends on one’s worldview.

Figure 115. Girl on Obilisk

Gestalt Preception
It is here we just need a brief interlude in thinking,
not just about photography but about how we
Frame, Prime, Pitch and Anchor to the world.
Our subjective experience of the world is not only
‘framed’ by our experience and worldview but also
the way we put together our understanding - our
Gestalt (meaning viewed as a whole or assembled
holistically). The idea of a Gestalt is from the
German/Austrian meaning the whole is greater
than the sum of parts. The idea is that we don’t get
seduced by individual elements but understand
something as best we can in its entirety.
So, we can see an image and focus in on it, even blur the background in Depth of Field but at the same time
know that it forms only a part of a whole. There is no exact translation of the word ‘gestalt’ in English but it refers
to the way we put things together, and a such a hermeneutic of perception.
In this way Gestalt opposes the atomistic, reductionist and iterative way that computers and cameras investigate
images and ideas. Reductionism is the way of STEM-only and Technique, with a view to control.
Gestalt Principles are critical when the seduction of the part seeks to override the whole. These are:
• Proximity: Visual elements can be grouped in the ‘Mind’ according to how ‘close’ they are to each other.
• Similarity: Elements that are similar can be grouped.
• Closure: The Mind seeks closure and completeness where possible.
• Simplicity: The Mind tends to simplify where possible. Organised lines, curves and shapes are preferred as
are balance and symmetry.
• Commonality: Grouped elements are assumed to be together.
• Continuation: The Mind can imagine the continuation of lines and shapes.
• Segregation: The Mind can focus on one thing and make it stand out from the background, depth of field.
• Invariance: Objects can be recognised regardless of orientation, rotation or aspect.
• Reification: The Mind fills in shapes where space is inadequate.
• Multistability: In some cases when there are insufficient clues, objects can be inverted. eg. Escher, Dali.

154 Envisioning Risk

• Emergence: Parts of an image that lack information tend to ‘popout’ as a result of extensive looking.
• Wickedity: Visualisation is a ‘wicked problem’ because perception is fallible.
One of the values of taking up photography is the practicing of these gestalt principles. Sure one can experiment
and work with a host of photography skills but photography nonetheless is a semiotic activity and helps one see
the world as a semiosphere.

Pitching - Point of View

Pitch refers to the position from where a photograph is taken, it is the angulation in which we take a photo, and
also considers who the picture is taken for, for whom it may be presented. The point of view, in conjunction with
the frame, reinforces or magnifies the way we perceive a subject/object. This is how we capture our subjective view
and expose that view to ourselves and others. We also consider in our point of view what is outside of the frame
and what we want to be known and unknown. In other words, the pitch of the photo hides our bias which can be
discovered through a conversation about the photo, especially if the inquiry uses open questions of inquiry.

Temporality
Part of taking a photo is considering what aspect of action will be frozen in time. In this case one considers
shutter speed and what one wants to ‘capture’. Even the choice to blur or give ‘effect’ to the moment changes
what one wants to capture and say. Taking shots at low speeds results in ‘sweeping’ or ‘panning’ and other effects;
sometimes useful but also needs to be anchored to the purpose. Semiotically, we can use effects for emotive effect
suggesting: violence, ambiguity, vertigo, continuity, instability, action, dynamism, etc. Semiotic effects are mostly
dependent on the position objects hold in reference to the frame.

Depth of Field
Figure 116. Fence
One of the most profound effects in using a camera
well is with Depth of Field. Depth of Field varies
primarily with the lenses’ aperture and, in turn,
depends on the format and distance of the focus.
Using Depth of Field requires a good sense of
aperture setting, speed, ISO, shutter speed and what
one wants to make the focus of attention. In Figure
116. Fence, I wished to emphasise the joining and
pointing of the gate fence and blur the background.
In this way the photo has no external or background
other than colour, to detract from the object.
The semiological aspect of a low depth of field can be related to diffuse, soft, unfocused photographs, and tend to
connote a state of dreaminess, memory, hallucination, or some other kind of fiction.
As for high Depth of Field—where most of the image is sharp, the details or texture are very evident; sometimes
the excess of sharpness can have connotations of violence, bluntness, but of course, everything is in relation to the
figures and their context or background.
The gate fence photo was taken at the Cuppacumbalong Cemetery and is opposite the open bridge to the graves.
The gate separates the open space to the current owners of the property with links through the raw wood and
simple structure in joinery to the way in and out of things. The church like symbolism was something that just
came to Mind at the time of the visit.

Chapter 5: The Dynamics of Vision 155

Focal Length
Focal length is the distance between the optical centre of the lens and the focal point. The focus is the point
where the rays of light are concentrated. We often refer to focal length as ‘zooming’. By having a sophisticated
zoom lens we can modify the focal length and change the field of view. In this way we modify the proportion of
the objects that fill the frame.

Grain or Noise
In photography ‘noise’ means pixelating or graininess. The grain or ‘noise’ visibility allows us, in many cases, to
emphasize the degree of artificial construction of the graphic representation itself. In some cases, it provides the
photograph with a pictorial texture connoting dreamlike images, surreal, etc., and in other cases the non-visibility
of the grain can perceive an effect of reality. In many cases where graininess is intended it is achieved by raising
the ISO speed setting.

Lighting
Light is one of the most important elements in photography and perception. There are two types of lighting,
natural, and artificial, and these can be soft or hard, thanks to a variety of light modifiers. The texture of light can
make all the difference in what one wants to focus on or draw attention to. The more one practices the more one
becomes aware and sensitive to light.

Semiological Analysis
Semiological analysis in the hermeneutics of photography is all about the subjectivity of the photographer,
the dialectic and the interpretant (receiver). Awareness of this dialectic affects what you want photos to do.
Semiological analysis is all about vision and perspective. A Transdisciplinary attitude to photography allows other
disciplines such as History and Sociology to affect the way one understands one’s purpose in taking pictures.
It is important to clarify that the actual meaning of a photograph as art or design is physically coded in
the composition, in the relations between its visual elements. This is in contrast to the other hermeneutical
perspectives such as the social and cultural context of the artist eg. their philosophical view.

Semiotic Analysis for Photography

The emotional reading of photography consists on the emotive reactions to a piece, caused by all of the factors
already discussed. There are many functions associated with Photography discussed as follows:
Aesthetic
The emotive subjectivity identitied with signs in the piece eg. cheerful, hostile, romantic, mysterious, fresh, etc.
Phatic
Looking at formalized or ritualized behaviours in the picture eg. religious acts, sporting events, couples during
courtship, etc.
Denotative
What is the photographer and the picture trying to say.
Connotative
What is communicated unconsciously in the photo whether intended by the photographer or not

156 Envisioning Risk

Interpretive Figure 117. Fortuna
Sometimes interpretive information is used to ‘tell’
the receiver meaning eg. explanations to works of art
in museums, or hand-held programs in the theatre.
Commanding
It consists of messages that have the direct
purpose of causing the receiver to do or stop doing
something.
Subjective
It is an aspect of communication where the
issuer gives us information about himself in an
unintentional way eg. cultural origin, ideology,
gender, etc.
Semiotics
An understanding that all images are significant and
represent some aspect of the semiosphere.

Being Told How to Think

The following picture (Figure 117. Fortuna) was part
of a travelling display in 2019 called ‘Rome’. I took
the photo of this artefact because it has relevance to
the issue of risk but also to highlight the interpretive
factor and trust required in understanding things, Figure 118. Interpretive text
particularly things in which we have not been
educated. eg. religions, Semiotics, history, bias
and hermeneutics. All these factors are present in
this photo.
The interpretive text often given in museums is the
perspective of a writer and their interpretation. See
Figure 118 Interpretive Text. Such information must
make assumptions of what the viewer knows and can
see. In this exhibition and full audio was provided
that gave a full but not complete understanding of
each artefact in the display.
It must also be remembered that this artefact is ‘out
of place’ from where it was taken in Rome and so
lacks context. Much is left out of the frame.

A Picture Tells a Thousand Lies

‘A picture is worth a thousand words’
‘Seeing is believing’
These are common aphorisms about photographic media and images. Unfortunately, these aphorisms have never
been true. No image is objective or neutral but rather carries a story that must be interpreted.

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Now, more than ever with applications and devices Figure 119. Mithras
that can manipulate images, we need to be more
aware about what we think images do and the nature
of photographic evidence.
I have written before about naivety about evidence
(https://safetyrisk.net/evidence-proof-and-
paperwork-in-safety/) and the nature of proof.
Despite the reality that the risk industry trains people
about regulation, legislation, standards and systems,
it doesn’t help people understand the subjectivity of
evidence. This is often discovered the hard way when
a person for some reason or other ends up in court.
The court and lawyers don’t think about evidence as
most people in the risk industry do.
So too, when it comes to images or paperwork in Figure 120. Comment on Mithras
themselves they do not comprise objective ‘facts’ or
neutral ‘evidence’. Indeed, often the paperwork that
is trusted by the industry as a protection is used
against you in court.
Images and documents require interpretation and
testimony to verify their authenticity, validity and
accuracy to a court. Now that images can be so
easily manipulated and ‘doctored’ with Photoshop
(or Picasa), we need to be much more aware of
how images that we might trust can be challenged.
Similarly for the volumes of paperwork we think are
a defence.
One of the indicators of naivety in the risk
industry over time has been the constant parading
of photographs of people doing crazy things.
The photos are often used to create a climate of
superiority for the industry so it can parade its superiority (often associated with professionalism) about risk in
the face of unsafe behaviour. These photos are often paraded about as ‘shocker of the week’ or ‘idiots at risk’ or
similar posts. Many of these are clearly ‘Photoshopped’ and bury the industry in an unhelpful climate of blame
pointing and arrogance. The more these are paraded the dumber it makes the industry.
Digital cameras are everywhere and even the simplest of cameras and a phone can allow editing in the phone/
camera even before it gets to Photoshop. Even then, photographers have known for years how to change the
emotion of a photographic image through Depth of Field, shutter speed, aperture setting and angle/point of view.
Photography has been a hobby of mine for over 50 years and I can do all of these things but I am certainly no
professional. Photography helps one to see the world semiotically.
When a professional Photoshop expert takes to an image it is nearly impossible to detect its manipulation,
even to another expert (https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/DIGITAL-MANIPULATION-
AND-PHOTOGRAPHIC-EVIDENCE%3A-THE-Parry/60feb88e68e053ae90fc1db2142b56a5042
76b85).
Unfortunately, people in general are naïve about digitally enhanced images and photos. Similarly in the
risk industry, understanding Real Risk and developing discernment seems in short supply (https://www.
humandymensions.com/product/real-risk/).

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The prevalence of Instagram and other social media image platforms demonstrate that people tend to believe
the story of the picture is matched by a narrative attribution. Rather than question the veracity of the story, if
the image matches the story then we tend to believe that it’s true. We see this kind of thing done all the time
in museums and art galleries. We see an image and then underneath is an explanation given by someone. For
example: I went to an Exhibition recently and the two photos below (Figure 119. Mithras. Figure 120. Comment
on Mithras) demonstrate the way we make associations and attributions about images.
I took these 2 photos but you have to accept my testimony on that. The little statue was part of a travelling
exhibition called Rome, City and Empire (https://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/rome-city-and-empire). But these
two comments still don’t make my story true. You still have no evidence that I was there or that I took the two
photos other than my corroborating testimony or perhaps you have been influenced by the previous pictures of
Fortuna. This is how Framing, Priming and Anchoring affect us.
Then when we come to the photos themselves you also need my testimony to accept that the explanation
and photo were situated together. Even if true, we still need to trust the explanation given by the comments
underneath the statue as a true representation of the statue. We then need to trust the testimony of the museum
employee, historian or curator and then attribute the connection. The statue may not be of Mithras and it
certainly is dislocated from its context so, there is a lot of trust and faith placed in the testimony thus far.
This is how all images are ‘used’. In Semiotics the study of subjectivity and interpretation is called ‘hermeneutics’.
The beginning of wisdom in risk is accepting rather than fearing its subjectivity.
Even in the courts we know that effective storytelling and skills in narrative connected to evidence can sway a
magistrate or jury (Amsterdam, A., and Bruner, J., (2000) Minding the Law, How courts rely in storytelling, and
how their stories change the ways we understand the law - and ourselves. Harvard University Press, London; Bruner,
J., (2002) Making Stories, Law, Literature Life. Harvard University Press, London).
Whether it be paperwork or images the problem is not in the image but rather in the fallibility of humans as
witnesses, lawyers, magistrates and juries. Neither the courts nor the Law are stupid enough to believe in zero!
Often testimony is required years after people were present on the scene. Sometimes stories are then embellished
or change over time. It is up to the court to decide what testimony or evidence is valid.

Fauxtography
Fake photography and fake multimedia are such a challenge for the undiscerning.
I have already demonstrated how commentary attributed to images can be easily manipulated and distorted
(https://safetyrisk.net/lemmings-for-lemmings-in-leadership-and-risk/). The story of the Dancing Guy at a folk
festival has been misused by leadership speakers for 10 years. The TED Talk video has had 14 million views and
it’s all false! Similarly we saw a President pose for a photo in front of a church he never attends holding a book
he doesn’t read (https://www.ft.com/content/f0623663-34b5-46fc-981b-8765a44076ed). But he knows just how
gullible and lacking in discernment the general public are, such is the misattribution and naivety about images.
This is now known as ‘Fauxtography’ or ‘Hyper-realism’.
We do know that any form of proposed evidence (and photos), are challenged in court. If an image or some
paperwork can’t stand up to cross examination it doesn’t last long. Often a lawyer will advise their client NOT
to submit some pieces of risk assessment paperwork or images because they know how the court will treat them
unfavourably eg. a risk matrix (https://vimeo.com/162034157). Greg Smith nominates this coloured tool (that is
trusted so much in the industry) as his ‘go to’ for discrediting a risk assessment in court.
You can hear Greg and I in conversation about Risky Conversations here:
• https://spor.com.au/podcasts/risky-conversations-talking-book/
• You can watch the Risky Conversations videos here: https://vimeo.com/showcase/3938199
So, where does this leave risk? Some things to consider:

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1. We should not be so naïve about paperwork and images in which we trust. Perhaps read Papersafe by Greg
Smith as a start (https://www.waylandlegal.com.au/post/paper-safe)
2. We should always keep a journal or daily diary that describes in brief detail our experiences for the day.
These may become key triggers for memory should anything go pear shaped.
3. We need to develop critical thinking skills about documentation, evidence and images and be more wary of
attributions and narrative connected to such images.
4. Unfortunately, it is outside of the risk curriculum that one will find critical thinking, the risk curriculum
only empowers checklisting. A study of History, Politics, Law, Literature, Anthropology or Semiotics is
needed to help shape critical thinking. It is only in a Transdisciplinary approach that one can step outside of
the risk industry bubble and the limitations of the AIHS BoK or SRMBoK.
5. Do some research on how images are currently being challenged in court (https://criminalcpd.net.au/
wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Identification-Evidence-March-2018-Edition-Mark-Dennis.pdf )
6. Stop seeing the world as some kind of objective platform, step outside of the STEM-only bubble and start
to question the biases and subjectivities of science (eg. https://www.lri.fr/~mbl/Stanford/CS477/papers/
Kuhn-SSR-2ndEd.pdf ) Similarly, the delusions that paperwork as objective.
7. Spend some time exploring the challenges of perception and vision, especially collective attribution
and social psychological dynamics that shape vision (http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/
ALRCRefJl/2007/32.pdf ).
8. Perhaps start your journey away from naivety by studying an Introduction to the Social Psychology of Risk.
(https://cllr.com.au/product/an-introduction-to-the-social-psychology-of-risk-unit-1-free-online-module/)
9. Start to think of paperwork and photos more as artefacts. Artefacts are a critical part of a study of Culture
that is ignored by the behaviourist focused risk industry. ‘No object is objective’ is a good mantra to have in
the front of your journal or another good aphorism is ‘everything has significance’.
10. Perhaps take up the hobby of photography there is so much free on the internet (https://phlearn.com/
magazine/best-photography-blogs/). An important lesson is: just as the brain is not a computer so too are
the eyes not like a camera.
One blog I have found helpful in photography and in thinking about evidence is https://thelawtog.com/blogs/.
Although American there are some good tips for thinking about photography and law.
Of course, when taking photos always seek permission and if needed get that permission release in writing
especially if undertaking an investigation. We cover all of this in our SEEK Module (https://cllr.com.au/product/
seek-the-social-psyvhology-of-event-investigations-unit-2/) on investigations.

Banksy and Visions in Street Art

Banksy is an anonymous England-based street artist, vandal, political activist, and film director, active since the
1990s. The best introduction to radical Art, Street Art and Banksy is Banksy And The Rise Of Outlaw Art 2020
(https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11393026/). Bansky is located in Bristol UK. More on Bansky later. Banksy
emerged out of the development of Street Art. Street Art is generally produced on private property not owned by
the artist and without permission but in time has entered the mainstream.
The idea of graffiti goes back to the dawn of human civilization. Cave drawings, images on walls, icons and
symbols on surfaces have been around for millenia. It is a truism about humans that communication visually is
just as prominent as communication verbally. Whether carving initials into a school desk, a tree, a love heart on a
lookout wall, monikers in cement or icons on a building site, graffiti has been with us forever.

160 Envisioning Risk

Graffiti if controversial because it is usually Figure 121. Graffiti Opera House
undertaken without permission on surfaces one
doesn’t own. The early Christians under Roman
persecution drew on the walls of the Catacombs
which is how we know so much about first
Century theology but it was nonetheless a form of
vandalism. Without doubt graffiti has always been
an expression of ideas and a visualisation of political
and cultural power.
Modern graffiti emerged with hip hop sub-culture in
New York in the 1970s and 1980s. It initially came
from economic and social oppression of minority/ Figure 122. Graffiti Opera House Wall
ethnic groups in South Bronx but quickly spread as a
general expression of hip-hop issues. Initially graffiti
was typographical and was represented by large
works, ‘tags’ or single symbols-as-text. When I was
doing work for the Sydney Opera House there was
plenty of graffiti about on the inside by workers that
is now of heritage significance. Figure 121. Graffiti
Opera House and Figure 122. Graffiti Opera House
Wall is an example.
I’m sure there are initials and names inside many
of the tunnels and concrete walls of the Snowy
Mountains Scheme written in Finnish, Greek and
Italian.
However, graffiti is also a mark of adolescent power. Figure 123. Street Art 1980
Whether on toilet walls, underpasses, paths or
bridges, graffiti is everywhere - putting your ‘mark’
on the world is exciting, subversive and secretive.
This is the meaning of saying ‘make your mark’.
Modern Street Art started by looking something
like this: Figure 123. Street Art 1980 and Figure 124.
Graffiti started in a phase of marking subway cars
but quickly moved to all kinds of surfaces. The
challenge was always not to get caught. You can see
many more of the graffiti of the 1970s and 1980s
here: https://www.pinterest.com.au/fredo924/1970s- Figure 124. Steet Art 1980
and-1980s-graffiti/ You can read about the evolution
of Street Art here https://www.artsy.net/article/
artsy-editorial-hip-hop-punk-rise-graffiti-1980s-
new-york
Darryl McCray, better known as Cornbread, is
the man who is often credited with being the first
graffiti writer in the late 1960s, tagging his name
all over North Philadelphia. While hip-hop was
closely linked with graffiti culture, punk also adopted
the idea of graffiti to help spread messages. UK

Chapter 5: The Dynamics of Vision 161

anarcho-punk band Crass regularly had stencil-like images on their releases and undertook a graffiti stencil
campaign on the London Underground system in the late 1970s and early 1980s, with anti-war, anarchist,
feminist and anti-consumerist messages being popular.
Banksy is said to have been influenced by one of the first stencil artists that appeared and known as the father of
stencil art, French street artist Blek le Rat, who was stencilling rats on the streets of Paris during the 1980s.

Envisioning Risk
Street Art or Urban Art is illegal in some places but has been made legal in others. In a way making
Street Art legal takes away the risky nature of the process but it has also helped legitimise Urban Street
Art as an Art form.
We know that vision and being visionary often comes outside of orthodoxy and the zero vision of
compliance and this is why Urban Street Art features in this part of the book in particular, the way that
Street Art features in the Justice-Hope-Love-Faith dialectic.
Street Art arose out of sheer desperation by alienated and oppressed youths, minorities and ethnic
groups who were subjugated in poverty by the ruling hegemony. The concerns of Street Art are: Injustice,
Consumerism, Politics, Consumption, Environmental issues, Culture, Oppression, Economic ideologies,
Capitalism, Social Politics, Social Change, Imperialism and Power. These are all consistent issues of Art
throughout History.
Street Art gives Hope to many who are victims of the ruling hegemony. The nature of Street Art is:
subversive, defiant, dangerous, secretive, blatant, confronting and revolutionary, not that different from
Bosch, Picasso, Cézanne, Duchamp, Dali, Warhol or Pollock. So many artists throughout History have
been risk takers, visionaries and non-conformists. In their time they are often pilloried, after their deaths
they are immortalised. Perhaps this is so for Banksy.

Banksy as Visionary
The best way to understand Banksy is semiotically. It is much better to just view Banksy’s works than to have
some art critic thrust forth their expert research on who Banksy is. In many ways Banksy has to be experienced
rather than studied. We will discuss semiotic vision more in the following chapter but for the moment we need
to be aware that the image reaches out to our image-ination and says things to our unconscious that text simply
cannot convey.
Banksy is of course a pseudonym. Noone know who Banksy is or why he is called ‘Banksy’. There is much
mystique, mystery and significance about this anonymity. Perhaps it started because grafitti and Street Art is
illegal or considered vandalism but the mystery of Banksy has grown way beyond that.
Banksy started just like many graffiti artists but quickly generated into stencilling. Stencilling is much quicker
and this saves time leaving less chance to get caught. Many graffiti artists also wear masks, to protect from
camera identity and to protect from the toxic fumes from the spray cans. Street Art emerges out of ‘underground’
sub-cultures and this is where Banksy developed his work. You can see some of his work here:
• https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/05/arts/design/banksy-legacy.html
• https://www.canvasartrocks.com/blogs/posts/70529347-121-amazing-banksy-graffiti-artworks-with-
locations
• https://www.pinterest.com.au/kezza50/banksy/
• http://library.uniteddiversity.coop/More_Books_and_Reports/Banksy-Wall_And_Piece.pdf
• https://www.theartstory.org/artist/banksy/artworks/
• https://sensitiveskinmagazine.com/78-works-by-banksy/

162 Envisioning Risk

Work by Banksy is not like other Art, one can’t just Figure 125. Queen Victoria as a Lesbian
say this is a Banksy and this is not. Banksy himself
will either record/photograph him doing his work
or validate it on Instagram where he has over 10
million followers. Banksy often works through
intermediaries and trusted agents and if he does talk
to media it may be via phone or sometimes in his
movies he appears masked.
Banksy moved away from just graffiti, Street Art and
stencilling to doing work on canvas in 2000. Bansky
started doing formal exhibitions and developing
documentaries in 2001 in cooperation with Bristol
photographer Steve Lazarides. Until 2009 Steve
Lazarides acted as Banksy’s agent.
By 2001, Banksy’s blocky spray-painted signature
cropped up all over the United Kingdom, Vienna,
San Francisco, Barcelona, Australia and Paris. (In
May his Parachuting Rat, painted in Melbourne
in the late 1990s, was accidentally destroyed
by plumbers installing new pipes). His first
exhibition was called ‘Turf War’ where he attracted
attention of the Art World. One of Banksy’s most
significant protests is against the Art World and its
pretentiousness and commercialism.
In 2004 he launched a show called ‘Barely Legal’ in Los Angeles where Keanu Reeves and Jude Law had shown
up at a V.I.P. preview the evening before, as had Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, who bought several pieces. In
2006 Christina Aguilera bought an original of Queen Victoria as a Lesbian and two prints for £25,000. See
Figure 125. Queen Victoria as a Lesbian. In 2007, Sotheby’s auction house in London auctioned three works,
reaching the highest ever price for a Banksy work at auction: over £102,000 for Bombing Middle England. In
the same year Banksy’s work set an auction record
for his work Space Girl and Bird fetching £288,000 Figure 126. Sofa Couch
(US$576,000). Banksy had entered the mainstream,
something he held in contempt.
Artists and visionaries tend not to be concerned
about who or what is offended in their discourse.
Usually orthodoxy, compliance, conformity and
power are their target of communication and such
will be naturally offended. For the visionary, it is
about what they want to see changed or injustice
committed than a lesser value of offence.
In 2005 Banksy made a trip to the Palestinian
territories creating nine images on the Israeli West
Bank wall, risky business indeed. One image of a
sofa couch envisions a fake window with a paradise
view, the opposite of what was the vision Banksy saw
of ruin of Palestinian life. See Figure 126. Sofa Couch.

Chapter 5: The Dynamics of Vision 163

In December 2009, Banksy marked the end of the Figure 127. Son of a Migrant from Syria
2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference
by painting four murals on global warming. One
included the phrase, ‘I don’t believe in global
warming;’ the words were submerged in water
In 2010 The world premiere of the film Exit Through
the Gift Shop occurred at the Sundance Film Festival
in Park City, Utah. He created 10 street artworks
around Park City and Salt Lake City to tie in with
the screening.
In 2015, Banksy created several murals in the
vicinity of Calais, France, including the so-called
‘Jungle’ where migrants live as they attempt to enter
the United Kingdom. One of the pieces, The Son of a
Migrant from Syria, depicts Steve Jobs as a migrant.
Of course in this image Banksy juxtaposes the reality
that Steve Jobs was a Syrian migrant and his image
begs the questions: is a Steve Jobs in this group?
Where would the world be if Jobs was dead in a
camp? See Figure 127. Son of a Migrant from Syria.
As in this piece of Steve Jobs, Banksy often uses satire and juxtaposition to make his point. He often shows the
bizarre hypocrisy of those in power or advocates on the behalf of the oppressed. It is in these images he gives
Hope, demonstrates Justice, shows Faith in both his method and the cause he represents and desires Love rather
than utility and money to guide human relations. The Justice-Hope-Faith-Love dialectic in action.

The Shredding
In October 2018, one of Banksy’s works Figure 128. The Shredding
Balloon Girl, was sold in an auction at
Sotheby’s in London for £1.04m. However,
shortly after the gavel dropped and it was
sold, an alarm sounded inside of the picture
frame and the canvas passed through
a shredder hidden within the frame,
partially shredding the picture. The Banksy
‘shredding’ shocked the art world. In the first
stunt of its kind, the shredding of Girl with a
Red Balloon has become art world folklore.
Usually, if art work is damaged whilst in
the care of an auction house, a buyer would
not normally be expected to go through with the purchase. In this case the art work trebled in value in a
day!!! ‘The urge to destroy is also a creative urge’ said Banksy, quoting Picasso in his recent video showing
how he pulled off such a stunt. Risks surrounding the buying and selling of art often surround the
transportation and storage of art work. See Figure 128. The Shredding.
You can see a documentary on the shredding here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-6jMi4e-0Q

164 Envisioning Risk

On 13 February 2020, the Valentine’s Banksy mural Figure 129. Girl With Slingshot
appeared on the side of a building in Bristol’s Barton
Hill neighbourhood, depicting a young girl firing a
slingshot of real red flowers and leaves. See Figure
129. Girl With Slingshot.
This is how the Banksy image works and like all
Semiotics says numerous things at once, particularly
for those who are discerning, have a social
conscience and who understand the Faith-Hope-
Love-Justice dialectic.
There are other artists and visionaries in the same
school as Banksy, the following are just a sample.

Psychedelic Street Art

https://www.pinterest.ca/chrisflyerdyer/chris-dyers-art-psychedelic-visionary-skateboard-s/
https://www.pinterest.com.au/orangesnowman/visionary-art/

Swoon – A visionary artist

https://www.isupportstreetart.com/interview/swoon-a-visionary-artist/

Joe Dante: Visionary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxxWKFRFz98
https://upliftconnect.com/street-art/

Transition
In this chapter we have explored the nature of vision particularly with reference to cartoonists, photography and
Street Art. We observe in this visual media a way of seeing the world differently, semiotically and mystically.
It seems that these visual media enable a vision for the Faith-Love-Hope-Justice dialectic. So much of the
cartooning and Street Art plough full steam into the injustices of oppression, social politics, abuse of political
power, corruption and prejudice.
If we can recognise the vision in this media we can envision new ways of understanding risk. This depends on
whether we can step outside the confines of conformism, compliance and blind faith so dominant in the risk
industry. One of the skills required to achieve a different vision is to see the world semiotically. We have been
exploring this in the last few chapters, in the next chapter we will look at Semiotics specifically and how semiotic
envisioning enables vision.

Chapter 5: The Dynamics of Vision 165

166 Envisioning Risk
CHAPTER 6
EnVisioning Semiotically 6
If we put together a lot of veal cutlets, we do not obtain a calf. But if we cut up a calf, we
obtain lots of veal cutlets. - Juri Lotman - Universe of the Mind

Speech is the exchange of signals. Juri Lotman - The Unpredictable Workings of Culture

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words - Chinese Proverb

Introduction
The purpose of this chapter is to discuss and help understand Semiotic Epistemology (theory of knowing) and
Semiotic Analysis. Semiotics is the study of signs, symbols systems and Semiosis is the study of meaning making.
Semantics is the study of text and how it integrates meaning in language and the Semiosphere (Lotman) is the
way all sign symbols systems comprise the world we live in and understand.
I have explored the History and nature of Semiotics in previous books so I will not repeat such discussion here.
See further, The Social Psychology of Risk Handbook, i-thou here: https://www.humandymensions.com/product/
the-social-psychology-of-risk-handbook/
There are also many introductory books for free download on the Internet that will help get you started:
• https://monoskop.org/images/0/07/Sebeok_Thomas_Signs_An_Introduction_to_Semiocs_2nd_ed_2001.pdf
• http://www.wayanswardhani.lecture.ub.ac.id/files/2013/09/Semiotics-the-Basics.pdf
What I wish to do in this section is explore the practical power of semiotic analysis and then in following
chapters demonstrate how Semiotic skills can improve communication, presentation, influence and envisioning.

Semiotics and Semiosis

One simply cannot speak of human culture, knowledge, understanding, discourse or being without understanding
how humans express that being through signs and symbols. We know the world through our senses, through
our eyes we see but through our Mind we envision. Envisioning sees much more than what is physically present.
When we have vision we see through, under, in and above things.
We can trace back to times when humans has no formal text or language but still had symbols on cave walls
and signs to communicate. The development of language and text evolved from meaning making through
art,graphics, signs, gesture and icons. Many alphabets are shorthand for gestures and symbols that were once the
foundational way of knowing.

Chapter 6: Envisioning Semiotically 167

We underestimate Semiotics if we understand it as a communication method. Semiotics encompasses everything
in how we live, move and express our being and becoming. Semiosis is how we construct meaning through signs,
symbols, images, imagination and Poetics.

So, before we get deep into Semiotic Analysis and understanding the power of Semiotics, let’s start with some
stories, images and events that demonstrate how signs, symbols, signals, sign systems, text-as-symbol and
meaning creation are intertwined in all that we do and how we live.

How a totem sparked a spiritual awakening

On 22 August 1969, the Indigenous Haida community in the village of Masset in British
Columbia gathered for its first totem pole-raising ceremony in nearly a century. The film, This Was
the Time (1970) documents the rebirth of culture for these Indigenous people. You can view the
documentary here: https://aeon.co/videos/how-a-villages-first-totem-pole-ceremony-in-a-century-
sparked-a-spiritual-awakening?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=1e9ce29c54-
EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_07_20_12_34&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-
1e9ce29c54-71232212
For those confined by a Materialist/Positivist ideology this was just a bunch of Indians erecting a carved
pole. For the Indigenous Haida people, this was a spiritual awakening.
The totem is a semiotic. It stands up as a tall symbol of story, song, presence, belonging, identity and
meaning. We underestimate the power of Semiotics at our own peril.
Here we have a community that had lost its meaning and identity. This is a community that doesn’t get
much value from commercialism, money or Western ideologies but rather is enriched by song and dance.
One doesn’t acquire culture by bank accounts, possessions or qualifications and the Haida community
were in need of something to fill the emptiness and void in their community, and they found it in
a totem. For Indigenous people’s who are acutely aware of spirituality, this all makes sense. For the
Positivist, Materialist, Behaviourist Scientist this is all nonsense.
The Haida community totem pole was not put up by cranes or any lifting mechanics, it was all done by
hand. Whilst cranes were available they were refused. Whilst cranes would have made it safer, they were
refused. In First Nations culture there is much more of importance than the western cult of safety. This is
the reward of risk.
The community had to come together simply to erect it. They looked at it together and the spiritual icons
on it were shared as they pulled on it together in front of each other. As the men called ‘heave’ at each
movement the elders danced, hit drums and sounded instruments. The old people of the community
came out in traditional dress to oversee the process. The very ceremonial act was critical as is all semiotic
gesture. Just like baptism, wedding, funeral or other ceremonies we accept, their is significance in the
rituals, acts and actions in erecting a totem. Later there was food, dance, song, gathering and further
celebrations.
The ceremony involved circling the totem pole, calling chants sounds, many danced with joy and cried
tears that had not been realised for some time, what they had lost was now found.
When you land in New Zealand you realise from the first minute that Maori are people of the totem.
For those who don’t know, a totem is just a pole with symbols on it. For the Maori, this is what they
would die for. From the moment you land at Auckland Airport everywhere you see the totem, the symbol
of Maori meaning. Meaning making in Semiotics is called Semiosis. Fee Figure 130. Maori Totem.

168 Envisioning Risk

Tuggeranong Totems Figure 130. Maori Totem
I live three kilometres from Lake
Tuggeranong where a number of Indigenous
Young People created totems as part of a
project to assist alienated and unemployed
Young People find meaning in their lives
amidst the challenges of substance abuse,
unemployment and poverty. The LIFT
project found a Government Grant and over
the period of 9 months worked together in
planning, carving and erecting these totems.
You can see them at Figure 131. Totem
Corroboree.
There is a gateway made of two totems
pictured at Figure 132. Gateway that leads
to four totems on each corner of a firepit.
Those who know about Australian First
Nations People’s culture know that the
fireplace and often arced shapes about the
fireplace, signify the most important part of Figure 131. Totem Corroboree
First Nations Culture - meeting. Indeed, the
name ‘Canberra’ pronounced ‘Ngabra’ means
‘The Meeting Place’.
There is something significant about the
way humans erect totems of various kinds to
immortalise and sacralise human being.
When one investigates how the English
explorers and settlers in Australian History
discredited Indigenous symbols, icons and
artefacts one is puzzled why the so called
‘civilized culture’ erected their own totems Figure 132. Gateway
by way of obelisks, flagpoles, crosses and
statues.

National Workers Memorial

We have already discussed the uniqueness
of Canberra in this book, the Capital of
Australia and at its centre around Lake
Burley Griffin is a collection of memorials,
obelisks and monuments, many with the
same phallic elevation and protrusion into
the air as totems in Indigenous cultures.
The obelisk has a history dating back to the
Pyramids and has a history associated with
religious observance, ceremony, sacralisation
and memorial symbolism.

Chapter 6: EnVisioning Semiotically 169

 It is interesting to note that one memorial around Lake Burley Griffin is the National Workers
Memorial. A site that draws attention to the number of workers who have died on the job. You can
research more about it here: https://www.nationalworkersmemorial.gov.au/
What is interesting about the memorial is the way it has totems erected each symbolising a different
element from each Australian State. They are spaced apart on a map of Australia but this is only
distinguished be elevation. You can see the sign at the memorial at Figure 133. National Workers
Memorial.
As you walk up to the Memorial you simply observe these 8 poles erected into the air. Each surrounded by circles
emanating out from the centre to each pole. This is very similar to the way Indigenous peoples think about circles and
the centricity of totem-like figures in their imagery and symbolism. You can see the poles at Figure 134. Memorial
Poles.

Australian-American Memorial
Less than 100 metres away from this memorial is the centre of the Australian Defence sector and in the
centre of that area is an obelisk-memorial to commemorate the Australian-USA alliance and sacrifice to
war. Unveiled in 1954 the obelisk towers at 80 metres and on top the American Bald Eagle. You can see
the monument at Figure 135. Australia-USA Memorial.

Figure 133. National Workers Memorial Figure 134. Memorial Poles

Figure 135. Australia-USA Memorial

170 Envisioning Risk

The Aboriginal Memorial to Australia’s Figure 136. The Aboriginal Memorial, 1987–88
Forgotten War
Nearby in The National Gallery of Australia
(https://nga.gov.au/), just inside the entrance
is a memorial to ‘the evil of murder, massacre,
rape and other brutalities’ inflicted on First
Nations People in the name of Colonialism,
Imperialism, conquest and white settlement
(https://www.artlink.com.au/articles/4277/
the-aboriginal-memorial-to-australiaE28099s-
forgotten-w/). You can see the totems at Figure
136. The Aboriginal Memorial, 1987–88.
Each one of the poles in this memorial
symbolise a ‘coffin’ (https://nga.gov.au/aboriginalmemorial/history.cfm) made from hollow wood coming
from Arhnem Land. The 200 poles symbolise each year of English settlement from 1788 to 1988 and this
work was unveiled as part of the Bicentennial activities.
Of course, each one of these installations in this section on totems has been made ‘sacred’ to the memory of those
whose culture wishes to symbolically immortalise in protruding artefact. There is nothing that can be privileged
in one structure over another. Each one is no more or less ‘sacred’ than another and if one tried to ‘de-secrate’ any
of these memorials one would find out very quickly about its importance, significance and power.
This is what humans do when they want to remember sacrifice, loss, death and meaning in community. They erect
things that take on symbolic power, way beyond what the objects and structures are made. Once erected these
objects become ‘sacred’ and take on their own power in the life of a community that gives them significance and
value. This value is invisible and unconscious, one cannot see what has been invested in a structure nor all the
meaning (semiosis) associated with structure as a symbol (semiotic).

The Statues Come Down Figure 137. Black Lives Matter

In 2020 The Black Lives Matter Movement
brought our attention to statues and monuments.
All of a sudden the general population began to
learn why statues matter, why symbolism matters
and how elevating and immortalising the wrong
narrative matters (https://www.bbc.com/culture/
article/20200612-black-lives-matter-protests-why-
are-statues-so-powerful). It was during this period
of protest that people started thinking about who
had been immortalised and why. Pretty quickly slave
trading, Colonialism, massacres of Indigenous peoples,
Imperialist oppression and injustice were brought
to attention and several statues demolished and
thrown into the sea. Some National Parks in Australia
changed name and even the name of products like
‘Chico’ sweets and ‘Coon’ cheese became the targets of
semiotic awareness.
Semiotics matters because symbols carry unconscious power. We can see at Figure 137. Black Lives Matter
how new values in the community have cast judgement on the past values of Imperialism, Colonialism and
oppression.

Chapter 6: EnVisioning Semiotically 171

Understanding Semiotic Dynamics
Elevation
One of the principle dynamics in constructing statues and monuments is the way they are elevated. The
Semiotics of space teaches us that with elevation and space comes power. The fact that statues are lifted up and
we have to look up at them doesn’t just give them physical prominence but the act of bending our neck up gives
them a sense of awe, it takes our breathe away. It’s where the word ‘awesome’ comes from. We all learn how
the words ‘up’ and ‘down’ carry metaphorical significance. We even say we feel ‘up’ or ‘down’ emotionally. When
the stock market is up is good, and down is bad. We feel ‘down in the dumps’ and as ‘high as a kite’. More on
metaphors later. For the moment we should already acknowledge in the stories and images thus far that when we
look up to things generally conveys admiration, worship and power. In a similar way we use the notion of time as
a resource, front as best, behind as deficient, the mind as a container and knowledge as power.

Space Figure 138. Bon Scott

In many ways having space is understood as
an economic currency. If one can leave areas
underdeveloped for ‘use’ as we do with National Parks
and public spaces this demonstrates Governmental
power to not exploit the environment and Nature.
Developers might consider this a ‘waste of space’,
somewhere they would like to make money. When the
priority on greed, making money and consumption
then space and the way it us understood takes on
power as either a commodity or a public service. In
public space the use of memorials, art works and
statues is common. It is in this public space that the
symbolism of past unethical practice has been judged Figure 139. Bon Scott Gates
as requiring revisioning.

Significance
Often those in power in public office give permission
to how public space is used. Perhaps a statue of Bon
Scott on Fremantle foreshore (Figure 138. Bon Scott)
casts another point about statues as symbols and
immortalising people. Bon Scott is hardly the model of
ethical behaviour or someone one should look up to. In
some ways he is a symbol of the larrikin myth, the bad
boy who found success and fame. It is not likely that
this statue of Bon will ever be taken down. Whilst he
stands as a model of crime (imprisoned in Fremantle
Gaol), drug addiction and alcoholism, misogyny and
immorality such seems to be accepted in Australian
culture about rock musicians. Bon’s fan base and that of AC/DC is legendary and he has his own gate to his grave
at the Fremantle Cemetery (Figure 139. Bon Scott Gates).
In rock music culture there is a different sense of value associated with vision and it doesn’t match the Faith-
Hope-Love-Justice dialectic. In many ways the rock industry has a perverse notion of vision. The rock scene is
more about self, indulgence and abuse but these are accepted if one likes the music and performance. Whilst

172 Envisioning Risk

I enjoy the music of AC/DC and saw Bon perform many times and even had a drink with him at a Pub in
Portland, I would not hold him up as visionary.

Symbol/Myths and Ned Kelly

A discussion of Bon Scott highlights the way in which certain sub-cultures are able to transcend the
compliances of orthodoxies. The immortalisation, deification and making of legends is how embodied
interaffectivity generates myth through symbols and makes symbols into myths (Ricoeur). A good
example of this is through a study of Ned Kelly and his Gang. Whilst Kelly is NOT the model of the
Faith-Love-Hope-Justice dialectic, he is perhaps one of the most prominent persons who has been made
legend in Australian culture. The method by which Kelly has been made legend helps us understand more
about the power of: language, icon, symbol, myth, ritual, gesture and semiotic embodiment.
The method for the making of legends is through symbol/myth-gesture/ritual as these are anchored
to Archetypes.
Kelly was an the infamous bushranger
(criminal) in Australia who serves as a Figure 140. Meri’s Illustration
profound example of how myth/symbol
galvanise and are amplified to create a legend.
There is also a strange paradox in the Kelly
myth that helps us understand why myth/
symbol are the same.
There have been a host of His-stories about
Ned Kelly and the Kelly Gang who roamed
the high country of Victoria from 1870-1880
(https://www.slv.vic.gov.au/search-discover/
explore-collections-theme/australian-history/
ned-kelly/ned-kelly-fact-sheet). History like Theology is interpreted and it depends on one’s bias as to
how one interprets the events surrounding Ned Kelly and his Gang. Some of the texts that have sought
to tell his story are listed here but there are many more:
• Dawson, Stuart (2018). Ned Kelly and The Myth of a Republic of North-Eastern Victoria.
• Dunstan, Keith (1980). Saint Ned: The Story of the Near Sanctification of an Australian Outlaw.
• FitzSimons, Peter (2013). Ned Kelly.
• Jones, I., (2010). Ned Kelly: A Short Life.
• Terry, Paul (2012). The True Story of Ned Kelly’s Last Stand.
A list of some of the most prominent articles on Ned and his Gang is here: https://theconversation.com/
au/topics/ned-kelly-3009
The first book I was given on Ned Kelly was in 1966 A Pictorial History of Bushrangers. This book is very
special to me because it was given by a friend who was a wonderful artist whom my Mum and Dad had
taken in to our home to support. Meri was unfortunately a heroin addict and later committed suicide, the
first time in my life I realised that people did such things, I was 12 years old. The inside cover of the book
is at Figure 140. Meri’s Illustration.
Here in Meri’s colourful art she paints Ned as a character of flowers, smiles and sunshine, perhaps a
Jungian shadow for Meri and the terror she lived, in the clutches of a drug. Meri was a nurse.
I remember our home was a place where Mum and Dad welcomed many people who were lonely,
distraught and seeking support and help. Mum and Dad always had an open door and a spare bed despite

Chapter 6: EnVisioning Semiotically 173

 the fact that there were 7 children at home, Figure 141. Sidney Nolan’s Kelly
there was always a place to sleep and a meal to
share if you asked for help.
Ned Kelly was immortalised in the art of
Sidney Nolan who painted a series of works
on Ned Kelly and his Gang and this work is
displayed in Canberra (https://nga.gov.au/
nolan/). Nolan’s work painted in 1946-1947 is
a unique blend of images in style and message.
In many scenes Ned’s helmet is a collage and
raised from the surface of the painting and
some symbolism such as the trigger for the Figure 141. Kelly Armour
gun set backward is painted so the gun cannot
be operated. Nolan suggested in his works that
Kelly was more the victim than the criminal
and a pacifist driven to rebellion by the vicious
dehumanising forces of wealth, orthodoxy,
corruption and power. See Figure 141. Sidney
Nolan’s Kelly.
It was through Nolan’s Kelly series that some
of the Kelly mystique was amplified and made
significant.
The most stark symbol of the Kelly story
is the helmet and body armour made from
old plough shares. You can see the armour
here that is displayed at the State Library of
Victoria Figure 141. Kelly Armour.
When one stands in front of the armour
one can see how creative and commanding
Ned was. The armour weighed 44 kgs. The
armour also made Ned look much taller and
overpowering than he was at 173cms he was 5
foot 8 inches. Ned was the same height as Billy
the Kid.
The Kelly armour serves as a symbol for the story that
in some chronicles pictures Ned Kelly as Australia’s
Figure 142. Iconic Armour
version of Robin Hood. You can see me wearing the
armour at Melbourne Goal where Kelly served time.
Figure 142. Iconic Armour.
Kelly and his Gang roamed far and wide
across Victoria when the gold rush was
still continuing and there are many towns
across high country Victoria that have Kelly
iconography and statues that leverage off the
myth. You can see a Kelly display outside a
shop at Figure 143. Kelly Statue.

174 Envisioning Risk

As with all myths and symbols no-one quite knows Figure 143. Kelly Statue
what is true anymore and in many ways it doesn’t
matter. Once a story carries the power of a symbol/
myth then that symbol/myth become the new truth
such is the power of the myth/symbol dynamic. Those
who seek to then verify the ‘facts’ operate under the
idea that History is objective and knowable. When one
visits Glenrowan, the place of Ned Kelly’s last stand,
the whole town has become a dedication to the legend
of Ned Kelly.
There is however a strange paradox about the
immortalising of Ned, nearby his family home
at Beverage is in ruin, wrapped in a cyclone
fence with just an old rusted sign to indicate
his childhood home. See Figure 144. Ned Kelly’s
Childhood Home. In a similar way when I was
in Linz Austria everyone knew where Hitler’s
childhood home was but no-one would take
you to see it.
So we bring to a close our brief discussion of
semiotic dynamics to discuss the nature of
symbolising myth and the way stories can be
empowered and amplified by symbol, myth, Figure 144. Ned Kelly’s Childhood Home
gesture, ritual, icon, artefact and embodied
semiotic. What we see from this discussion
is how symbol as myth can be embodied in
Poetics - story, objects, icons, places and art-
graphics to amplify something to become more
than itself. This is how legends are created and
how events and processes can be deified and
sacralised.
We see the power of myth/symbol in other
Australian iconography such as the ANZAC
myth or any religious myth that is embodied
with symbolic power. Often the symbolic
power is also enacted with a range of rituals
that further strengthen and amplify the
effiaciousness of the myth.
We see all of this enacted in a range of myths,
symbols and rituals in the risk industry where
an act or ritual is made an end in itself so
that the enactment of the ritual gives off a
sense of effectiveness through attribution
and anchoring when there is no such power
or effectiveness but rather it is all attributed.
Such is the soteriology of the risk industry.

Chapter 6: EnVisioning Semiotically 175

 I have a little area outside my window at home that reminds me of how symbols/myths are enacted and
amplified and how legends are manufactured. See Figure 145. Kelly Garden Gnomes. It’s not uncommon
to see Ned Kelly letterboxes about Benala, Wangaratta, Beechworth, Euroa, Mansfield and Greta. See
Figure 146. Kelly Letterboxes.

Figure 145. Kelly Garden Gnomes Figure 147. Semiotics Cabinet

Figure 146. Kelly Letterboxes

176 Envisioning Risk

Similarly I have a Semiotics display cabinet in my study Figure 148. Percival John Brookfield
that shows many symbols as myths and myths in symbols
that I have experienced over the years, each with its own
story, legend, myth-in-symbol and attribution. These
Semiotics communicate to the unconscious and remind
us that we live in a semiosphere. See Figure 147. Semiotics
Cabinet.

Cemeteries and Significance

Cemeteries are a great place to learn about Semiotics,
signs, symbols, myths, icons and how even in death
people wish to either immortalise themselves or
demonstrate their wealth and power. In cemeteries size
and space cost money, the larger the plot, the larger the
monument the greater the cost. Cemeteries are a lesson
in how elevation and space in Semiotics command
attention. As you cast your eye across the cemetery you
quickly see who had the most money and who wanted
to leave the biggest mark. Some actually build their own
mausoleums to house a family crypt etc.
When you go to the cemetery at Broken Hill NSW
two graves take prominence. One at Figure 148. Percival
John Brookfield, a labour movement leader and the largest
of Pro Hart the famous artist at Figure 149. Pro Hart.
Brookfield’s grave is the tallest by far in this extensive
cemetery and Hart’s is the widest and most ornate, made
of black marble with one of his signature dragonflies
Figure 149. Pro Hart Grave
engraved in gold on top. The ball on top of Brookfield’s
reads ‘Workers of the World Unite’ and one side of the
grave stone Marxist Communist symbolism of the Red
Flag.
Some of the most educative semiotic walks in SPoR
are when we walk cemeteries and burial grounds and
‘experience’ Semiotics and the power of myth/symbol.

Image-in-ation
Vision sees what is and imagines what is
alternatively possible.
There is little discussion in the risk industry about
Imagination or Wisdom. This is because the paradigms of Rationalism, Positivism and Behaviourism that
characterize the industry ‘belittle’ the activity and significance of Wisdom and Imagination.
It is understandable that Risk should dismiss even fear, the importance of Imagination and Wisdom, because
Imagination and Wisdom cannot be ‘controlled’ nor ‘measured’. Nothing is more threatening to the cult of zero
than a lack of control and measurement. It is a strange paradox that this risk industry consumed with compliance
and zero, should be so evasive about the essentials of Imagination and Wisdom when considering risk.

Chapter 6: EnVisioning Semiotically 177

If you want to evaluate a profession you need to analyse what it is noisy about and what its silences are. Noisy
about zero and silent on Wisdom, says much.
The foundation of all risk and uncertainty is bound up in two simple questions: what-if ? If-then? One cannot
engage in these questions without invoking the Imagination and Wisdom. Yet, the risk industry doesn’t seek to
engage in these questions but rather enjoys questions like: what-is? why-then? These questions naturally lead the
industry into a culture of interrogation and blame.
At the root of the word ‘imagination’ is the notion of ‘image’, invoking a semiotic understanding of creating
something symbolic, sign-ificant or meaningful (Semiosis). This is where we get the concept of imagery. All
memory, dreams and perception involve imagery however, not all images are imaginations.
Of course, Imagination takes us into the domain of the real and unreal. I can imagine what it’s like to fall off a
cliff, I can even physically jump in a dream from Imagination yet it isn’t physically real. However, the symbolism/
myth of the dream is real to me, hence I jump as if it is real experientially. The recurrence of such a dream is also
meaningful as a symbol/myth of a fear of heights and dying. We devalue our dreaming to our own mis-education.
Imagination also takes us into its necessity in learning, creativity, innovation and discovery. There is no learning
without Imagination and no Wisdom without risk. This is why there is no such thing as ‘machine learning’,
machines cannot imagine, dream, feel or be wise. Machines have no unconscious, e-motion or imagination, the
regeneration of algorithms is not learning. Without embodiment there is no learning. So, don’t look to Alexa
or Siri (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/alexa-how-will-you-change-us/570844/) for
Wisdom or Imagination.
One of the joys of imagination is to flee the current constraints one finds oneself in. Whilst I can be physically
present in a boring task I can unconsciously imagine and day dream (lucid dream) in another bodily state whilst
undertaking a high risk task. Both unconscious and conscious states coexists in dialectic in most tasks that are
repetitive and routine/habitual. This is captured in the principle of One Brain and Three Minds (https://vimeo.
com/156926212). In this way humans demonstrate the coexistence of the conscious-unconscious dialectic in being.
Humans find it hard to be fully conscious for very long, we don’t realize we have ‘drifted off ’ until we jolt ‘back
in’. Most of the time humans are physically in the world but mentally/mindfully out of it, without any reference
to medication, drugs or substances.
Imagination and dreaming share much in common and are associated together in the Wisdom Literature
( Joel2:28, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1476993X17743116). Imagination allows us to
re-shape what is real and to think of what-isn’t but could-be.
In the depths of Imagination we embrace Poetics, song, dance, drama, art and music that allow us to ‘see’ the
world differently. This ‘seeing’ is not so much physical but is more perceptual. In the depths of Imagination we
can experience the could-be’s and might-be’s, even of things that shouldn’t-be. We sometimes play with moral
dilemmas and ethical tensions in our imaginations. Imagination embodies the tendency to flee the world but also
to shape it. How are we able to manage this paradox?
1. The first step in managing the paradox of Imagination is not to deny it nor, to deny the reality of lucid
dreaming. The idea that humans sit or stand at a task hours on end in ‘concentrated consciousness’ is simply
fanciful.
2. The second thing we need to do is not be silent about the Imagination and Wisdom. We need to ‘tune down’
the noise on zero, metrics, numerics, science and behaviourism and ‘tune up’ our discussions on Imagination,
Wisdom and Transcendence.
3. The third thing we need to consider is what constrains Imagination? If thinking about risk relies on
imagining what might happen, then surely it ought to be something we need to exercise and practice.
One thing is for sure, checklist thinking, systems and dumb down thinking don’t foster a lively and

178 Envisioning Risk

 helpful imagination. Of course there is no mention of Poetics, the Imagination or Wisdom in any Body of
Knowledge on risk, such a critical element especially to the consideration of Ethics. What a sad mechanical
activity is risk management. Just imagine what a Transdisciplinary approach to risk might offer the process?
4. The forth (not fourth) thing we need to consider is learning more about play. Why is it that we encourage
children to learn so much through play and then suppress such an approach to learning after the age of
12 years of age? There is something strangely prophetic about the nature of play, it strengthens discovery,
exploration and seeing things differently. Often when things go wrong people express this inability to
imagine as part an outcome they say ‘I had no idea this could happen’. We would do well to think and play
more like children at times.
5. The fifth thing we need to do is embrace the works of Jung, the champion of the imagination. A reading of
Jung is a good starting point for exploring dreams, visions and self-discovery. If the world of risk considered
for a second the meaning of the Collective Unconscious it might get a much better idea of how to tackle the
difficult issues we face in considering culture similarly, Lotman’s Semiophere.
6. The sixth consideration ought to be the ability to visualize. Visualisation is a critical aspect of all risk analysis
and brings the unreal into the real, invoking possibilities and transitions. The safety industry would be far
better for dumping the useless coloured risk matrix that constrains Imagination and spending more time
discussing shared imaginings through an Engagement Board (https://vimeo.com/390609359). Inquiry
through interconnecting imagination across Workspace, Headspace and Groupspace is something all my
clients have found much more helpful than traditional orthodox risk management processes.
7. Of course, when we embrace a Trans-disciplinary approach to risk we develop a new language and discourse.
This is what Ricoeur calls the ‘Hermeneutics of Imagination’. Whilst Ricoeur is very heavy reading we can
understand his critical point. Ricoeur makes clear that society remains captivated by Cartesian reductionist
approaches to knowledge, moreso the risk industry. One of the wonderful aspects of a Poststructuralist
Feminist Ethic is the liberation from Cartesian Ethic to an Ethic of Imagination. One thing is for sure, you
won’t find such an Ethic in the masculinst deontological ethic such as is evident in the AIHS BoK. It is
clear that Feminist Ethics welcomes the Imagination and Wisdom in Poetics as an essential to ontology.
8. An eighth factor associated with Imagination and Wisdom is the true meaning of Education. Training is
not Education and replication of Technique (Ellul) is not Education. One of the greatest challenges facing
the risk industry is a willingness to be open to Education. In Education one needs to step away from the
reproduction of ‘safe’ knowledge and the regurgitation and replication of compliances. Unfortunately, the
industry is yet to be open to Education, building its fortress against all it fears and demonizing anything
that challenges its stasis. This of course is stamped with the imprimatur of zero, the shibboleth of an
absolute that cannot give ground and can only converse once ‘the other’ has compromised with it. Nothing
kills conversation, Education and learning like Zero.
9. The next step in tackling the paradox of Imagination is sharing. An Imagination bottled up is not much use,
but an Imagination shared opens up possibilities and learning however, sharing imagination is a risk. We
don’t share what we imagine with someone who we don’t trust, who holds a punitive framework anchored
in zero. No, in such a culture we keep what we imagine to ourselves closing off any opportunity to learning
socially. Instead Risk anchors to the checklist, the bastion of stasis.
10. The final (but not the last) thing we need to consider are the elements of Faith-Hope-Love-Justice
embedded in the risk to imagine. One of the central aspects of Imagination is its dynamic in facilitating
Hope and Justice. When in the depths of a lockdown, when the liveliness of ‘being’ is shut, when stasis
seems all there is, when ‘marking time’ facilitates depression – we have Imagination however feeble or
poorly exorcised. We realize this Hope and Promise of Justice in the Imagination of musicians and poets
during times of slavery and oppression. We symbolize Hope ‘By the Rivers of Babylon’ (Psalm 137) and
‘Sweet Chariot’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Thz1zDAytzU) or ‘The Times They Are A Changing’

Chapter 6: EnVisioning Semiotically 179

 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8pB9ULvK4w). and so too I imagine a time when the risk industry
might transform and step beyond its current malaise. It won’t do so without a painful conversion and the
embracing of Wisdom and Imagination.

Visual vs Text

Figure 150. LOOK to your LEFT

The following Figure 150. LOOK to your LEFT illustrates Figure 151. You Will Read This
simply how an image can influence more than itself. Similarly
in Figure 151. You Will Read This, you will see how we are so
enculturated in linguistics and the metaphors: up-down, left-
right, front-back, forward-back and big-small.

System Dependent Thinking in Risk

We see in both these very simple experiments just how much
we think top down and left to right, just how much we are
enculturated to see the world as it has been ordered for us.
Whilst there is nothing problematic about being schooled to
a certain order, there is also nothing wrong with imagining or
envisioning something different.
So what do we know about Imagination? Imagination steps
beyond the confines of obedience and submission to standards,
it understands them as a minimum. Imagination comes from experience, trial and error, play, experimentation,
the vitality of faith, inquiry, critical thinking, storytelling, invention, creativity, reflection and the wisdom of what
Weick calls ‘bricolage’. Imagination transcends the immediate and thinks of the unexpected, and knows how to
do so.
Checklist thinking can only think about what’s in the checklist. This is the burden of the risk industry. The
learning and encouragement of Imagination is not on the radar of many organisations that are fixated on the
checklist as saviour and the enemy of Imagination is busyness. What can we do?
1. Understand that systems-only thinking creates systems-dependent thinkers.
2. Change the mindset which tries to ‘engineer out idiots’. The more we keep this myth going, the more we
create people on site who can’t think.
3. Think more about what is not on the checklist that what is in it. And for heaven’s sake, don’t just keep
adding to the checklist.
4. Explore what is unseen just as much that is seen. We must ask the question in our observations: what can I
not see or hear?
5. Limit language which only fosters small picture thinking. Zero talk for example creates micro-factor
thinking.
6. Encourage exercises in imagining the unexpected, what Weick says is encouraging the ‘bad news’.

180 Envisioning Risk

7. Speak much more about how we make sense of risk rather than generating fearfulness which limits
imagination.
8. Take walks and conversation with no checklist but simply a blank agenda and a host of open questions.
9. Spend more time in visual thinking, using concept maps etc. when we tackle problems and issues.
10. Bring people into our work groups who don’t think like us, who are outside the club, even outside our
industry and ask them what they see.

The Hermeneutics of Symbols

The hermeneutic (theories of interpretation) of symbols was founded in the study of religious texts such as
the Bible. The work of Ricouer is foundational in understanding the hermeneutics of symbols (https://www.
researchgate.net/publication/265477825_Paul_Ricoeur%27s_Hermeneutics_of_Symbols_A_Critical_Dialectic_
of_Suspicion_and_Faith).
For Ricoeur all language is sign and signals meaning and hermeneutics is the study of how humans interpret
all signs/symbols in the creation of meaning (Semiosis). Whilst signs tend to be direct, symbols are always
indirect and interpreted. The opacity of all symbols means that meaning must be discerned. It is as if every
symbol is an enigma or puzzle often requiring cultural knowledge to understand and give symbols meaning. It is
Ricoeur who also helps us understand that a symbol is a myth and a myth is a symbol. In this way the process of
demythologizing is a methodology for unpacking symbols and meaning. See further:
• https://www.academia.edu/27024884/Ricoeur_on_myth_and_demythologising
• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/294675657_Paul_ricoeur%27s_concept_of_fallibility_as_fault_
myth_and_symbol
• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233497680_The_Hermeneutics_of_Faith_and_the_
Hermeneutics_of_Suspicion
• https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/9781442664883
Deciphering and discerning meaning in symbols is not straight forward and requires intelligence and the ability
to discern the various ways of analysing Semiotics. Ricoeur states that in approaching symbols we are caught
between the ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ and the ‘hermeneutics of faith’. For in each symbol is a code and element
that we can see but don’t know and that all symbols are mediated. There is a dialectic between us and the symbol
and in that middle is the interpreted middle, the hermeneutic. So we need to be suspicious of what a symbol
means but also embrace a symbol by faith in what we don’t know.
All symbols whether by metaphor (describing something by what it is not), text or image are interpreted. It is a
strange attribute of human discourse and language that
we seek to clarify something by using metaphor and Figure 152. Dad’s Conventions
images that communicate indirectly and don’t define
exactly what we mean.
Perhaps it might be best to demonstrate the dialectic of
hermeneutics by experience.

Every Tabernacle has Significance

From the age of five years of age I learned about
the significance of signs, symbols, linguistics,
significance and making meaning (Semiosis).
I was raised in a home that was full of music,
imagination and semiosis. My father was

Chapter 6: EnVisioning Semiotically 181

 absorbed with the significance of signs and Figure 153. Horsham Times
symbols throughout the Bible and he was well
known for exegetical and expository teaching
from the Biblical text. Dad was in great demand
across the country for his teaching on symbolic
significance from the Biblical text. See Figure
152. Dad’s Conventions.
During the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s my Dad would
be in high demand to run weekly conventions
with crowds in thousands across regional
Australia. It would be foolish to dismiss just
how significant this was as a symbol of the
times. I have discussed this previously in other
books.
For Dad, every sign, symbol and text in the
Scripture had spiritual and eternal significance
as given conscious and unconscious meaning
by God. He didn’t know the word ‘Semiotics’
but he lived and breathed symbolism. Dad was
convinced that the Bible and its signs system
communicated eternal messages for those who
were willing to see them and listen. I look back
on those times fondly as I remember travelling
with Dad and having fun in the car. I don’t remember much about his sermons but do remember
how many people came to meetings to hear him. Whilst I don’t agree with Dad’s theology I certainly
understand it and why many people found it helpful. Fundamentalism offers a great deal of certainty to
people.
I remember Dad setting up his Tabernacle model in church and using that model to demonstrate how
every rod, colour, cubit, curtain and element of the Tabernacle carried spiritual meaning (Exodus 26).
Dad even used to wear a replica tunic of Aaron the High Priest and draw meaning from the spiritual
symbolism of these garments and head dress. The symbolism of the Tabernacle can be viewed here:
• http://the-tabernacle-place.com/articles/what_is_the_tabernacle/tabernacle_basic_layout
• http://blogs.bible.org/impact/hal_warren/the_tabernacle_of_moses_%E2%80%93_
god%E2%80%99s_heavenly_pattern_for_our_spiritual_transformation_part_v
Dad was often featured in Regional newspapers and Figure 153. Horsham Times shows Dad in a pose
with his model Tabernacle.
Dad especially focused on the imagery, metaphor, symbols and signs in apocalyptic books like Daniel and
Revelation. His fascination with prophecy and Eschatology (death, suffering, judgement and the soul) led
to an interest in numerology so evident in books like The Seal of God (http://god-help.org/SealOfGod.
pdf ) and in drawing connections between world events and biblical prophecy. Dad was a Premillenial
Dispensationalist that is, Christ will rapture the church before the tribulation. Many people found the
certainty of this Theology comforting as it offerred a high level of predictive comfort from knowing not
only how to ‘read’ the signs but also in knowing that one was ‘saved’.
It should be of interest that this Theology commands attention in the New England Bible Belt in the
USA where 60-90 million Evangelicals hold sway in the electoral fortunes of Donald Trump. The
Secretary of State (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/30/us/politics/pompeo-christian-policy.html

182 Envisioning Risk

 ) and Vice President (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/05/13/mike-pences-speech-
christian-college-graduates-furthers-evangelical-persecution-complex/) in 2020 both were followers of
this Theology. Whilst Trump himself was never a Christian one would ignore this voting bloc at your
own electoral peril. This does not mean to say that this Theology is sense-able, nor that this Theology is
meaningless.
One would be foolish to dismiss a political powerhouse just because you thought Theology and Religion
was nonsense. Similarly groups such as Indigenous or minority groups who hold belief in spiritual
meaning.
All of this activity in my childhood spoke to me of the significance of signs, symbols, the unconscious and
the subjectivity of hermeneutics. Whilst I don’t identify with the Theology of my father, I do understand the
attraction of Fundamentalist and Positivist Theology and discussed this in book three in this series Real Risk. In
the face of the unknown and in the challenges of Faith, it is a comfort to have certainty, unending dialectic is
scary. All forms of Fundamentalism offer certainty, even scientific, secularistic or atheistic fundamentalism offer
the same certainty, such are the seductions to various fundemantalisms in the risk and safety industry.
It is also the attraction of binary ideologies that fuel terrorism, simplistic beliefs in absolutes such as Zero and
certainties in risk in various systems that suppose some sense of prediction in outcomes via Behaviourism.
But enough of anecdotes, stories and statues. Let’s now move on to understanding what Semiotics is all about.
What underpins all this stuff we see happening on the surface and let’s try to understand the dynamics and
power of why symbols have power. So first to an understanding of metaphor.

Metaphors We Live By
We all use metaphors in how we speak and communicate to each other. Metaphor is poetic language that
requires imagination to understand how a bridge is created for understanding. A metaphor is a mechanism that
uses an image to convey meaning about something else (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphor).
Essentially a metaphor is a paradox, we try to create meaning and understanding by using an indirect trope/part
of speech that says something ‘is like’ something else. Sometimes metaphor is communicated verbally, textually
and visually (often in models/symbols).
The most common metaphors for the risk industry are mechanistic representations (https://safetyrisk.net/
the-iconography-of-safety/;https://safetyrisk.net/safety-icons-and-communicating-to-the-unconscious/). How
fascinating that this industry represent what people do about risk with objects such as cones, glasses, boots,
gloves, mechanical models and hi-viz? How bizarre that in an industry that should be primarily about helping
and educating people that it seeks metaphors about objects to create meaning.
When we want to communicate across disciplines we use metaphor to connect. Metaphors provide word pictures
that use imagination to provide ‘insight’ into something. The effectiveness of certain metaphors is determined by
one’s ability to imagine. Imagination, creativity and discovery is risky because Imagination demands leaving the
security of what one knows for the unknown of something else. Metaphor provides untranslatable information in
an effort to communicate about something else.
Metaphor is the key to boundary crossing between disciplines. Unfortunately, the mechanistic STEM disciplines
don’t study or understand metaphor nor know how it affects the Collective Unconscious. And so many of the
metaphors used in the industry are counter productive and destructive.
There has been perhaps no more misleading metaphor in the risk industry than Reason’s Swiss Cheese (https://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model). In an industry seeking a mechanistic answer to the complexities of
risk, this metaphor seems to give an answer. Except, it doesn’t.

Chapter 6: EnVisioning Semiotically 183

All the swiss cheese does is satisfy the false assumption Figure 154. Messy Swiss Cheese
that events and causes are linear and simple. The
opposite is the case. Risk is complex, wicked (https://
www.aihs.org.au/news-and-publications/news/safety-
%E2%80%93-wicked-problem-report-released) and
intractable. The only way to diminish risk is to also
diminish learning. Risk is a wicked problem because
it creates this paradox with learning. The only way to
tackle fallibility is to embrace risk, not reject it - Risk
Makes Sense.
In reality if one wants to understand the way risk
emerges the better metaphor using swiss cheese might
look like Figure 154. Messy Swiss Cheese.
Unfortunately many of the incident investigation
packages on the market don’t understand risk or
emergence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence) and so basically make up causality to suit behaviourist
assumptions.
The Bow-Tie is a linear model/metaphor of incident causation popular in the risk industry. Its popularity is
linked to the reductionist ideologies that plague the industry. The model includes no aspect of consideration for
social psychological factors or factors related to the Collective Unconscious. The Bow-Tie is a metaphor/model
that makes it seem like prevention and outcome is simple. It is the perfect model to satisfy Behaviourist ideology.
Everything is modelled as inputs and outputs with the critical event in the middle.

Figure 155. Bow-Tie

184 Envisioning Risk

The emphasis in the Bow-Tie is on controls not people Figure 156. Causal Loop Map
or context and runs from left to right in a nice neat
order. This is repeated over and over in the SRMBoK
(http://31000risk.blogspot.com/2012/05/another-view-
of-risk-management.html). You can even buy Bow-Tie
software (https://www.cgerisk.com/products/bowtiexp/)
to help shape your linear, behaviourist and reductionist
assumptions, neat and tidy. An example of the Bow-Tie
is at Figure 155. Bow-Tie. In this version of the
Bow-Tie taken from the Security Risk Management Body
of Knowledge (SRMBoK) (https://www.researchgate.
net/publication/319615711_SRMBOK_Framework)
we see it superimposed underneath the acceptance of
the Swiss Cheese semiotic.
The trouble is that many of these metaphors, symbols,
icons, models accepted in the risk industry simply prove
the linear, mechanistic and reductionist assumptions of
the designer. Then with the matching checklist ensure
that the matching paperwork endorses the same linear
assumptions and bingo there is your risk assessment,
causation map, causality trajectory and explanation all
in one.

Other Metaphors and Models

When we teach the SEEK program we introduce a number of tools to help with incident investigation one of
which is Causal-Loop-Mapping. I have discussed the holes in many aspects of popular incident investigations
previously here: https://safetyrisk.net/the-seek-investigations-donut/.
Even using Causal-Loop-Mapping is only intended as a guide but at least it gets the investigator away from the
linear nonsense that plagues the industry. An example of a Causal Loop Map is at Figure 156. Causal Loop Map.
This map is from a discussion about concussion/traumatic brain injury (https://www.frontiersin.org/
articles/10.3389/fneur.2018.00203/full) and demonstrates the complexity of how incident ‘emerge’ chaotically.
You can read more about Causal-Loop-Mapping here (https://www.isixsigma.com/tools-templates/cause-effect/
causal-loop-diagrams-little-known-analytical-tool/). This is one of the tools we explore in SEEK to help move
away from unhelpful models and metaphors in investigations.
It is an absurdity to think that fallible humans undertake tasks in a predictable linear way. Any sense of
understanding history demonstrates that human life is random, unpredictable and messy. The delusion of
predictive analytics and Bradley Curves (https://safetyrisk.net/sexy-curves-and-the-paradox-of-risk/) ignore
all the research into: human emotions, feelings, interaffectivity, interconnectivity, social influence, social
psychological pressures, contextual influence and the lived ecology. We now know that a butterfly disaster in
Brazil can affect milk production in Victoria. This is a fundamental element of emergence and Chaos Theory
(https://academic.oup.com/sw/article-abstract/43/4/357/1884957).
So metaphors matter. They represent the ideological assumptions of the designer. Metaphors are not objective
nor neutral and create alignment to the designer’s ideology not a broad Transdisciplinary sense of knowing. The
risk industry needs much better human models for understanding risk than those that currently dominate the
curriculum.

Chapter 6: EnVisioning Semiotically 185

Understanding Semiotics - Signs, Symbols and Icons
As early as Aristotle in Poetics philosophers have been consumed with the origins of language. The word
‘Semiotics’ comes from the Greek root meaning ‘an interpreter of signs’.
Daniel and Joseph in ancient times were well known as visionary interpreters of signs, symbols and dreams. In
Old and New Testament times people sought a sign (celestial phenomena, miracles, prophecies and transcendent
meanings) for authentication. The following is representative:
Luke 2:11-13
Vs11 Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. Vs12 This
will be a sign to you: You will and a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
Vs13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
Romans 4:11
And he received circumcision as a sign, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still
uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that
righteousness might be credited to them.
The study of Semiotics emerged out of Linguistic Theory and a Structuralist theory of knowledge. Structuralism
is a methodology (philosophy) that has its focus on human culture in terms of relationship
to a larger, over arching system or structure. Stucturalism developed in the early 1900s in the structural linguistics
of the Swiss scholar Fedinand de Saussure who identified with the Prague, Moscow and Copenhagen schools
of Linguistics. The most prominent thinkers in this school of linguistics were Claude Levi-Strauss, Roman
Jakobson and Jacques Lacan. By the 1960s the basic tenets of thought in Structuralism came under attack from
Michael Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Louis Althusser and Roland Bathes. This school of thought is known as
Post-Structuralism.
Saussure held to a dyadic (two-way) model of sign systems that focused on the signifier and the signified. For
example, if we take the word ‘dog’ what is engendered to the hearer is not a real dog but the mental concept of
‘dogness’. Saussure described the verbal sound signifier as a ‘sound image’. For Saussure the bond between the
signified and signifier was the arbitrary nature of the sign. A sign doesn’t really speak for itself, it always needs to
be interpreted.
Saussure thought of interpretation as unlocking a code. The content of signs is unlocked by interpretation that
gives meaning and purpose to the sign in social life. Saussure called this ‘Semiology’, the study of the meaning
and purpose in sign systems. For the Structuralists, language (langue) is a sign system.
In contrast to the European school of Semiology led by Saussure stands the American philosopher Charles
Pierce (pronounced ‘purse’) who had his focus on the ‘formal doctrine of signs’ particularly the ‘triadic’ nature of
signs systems and his emphasis was on the ‘interpretant’. Pierce called this ‘Semiotics’. Pierce has a much stronger
connection to psychoanalysis than Saussure and emphasised ‘first, second and thirdness’ in understanding signs.
Firstness is about the sensing of the sign. Secondness is about the dynamic impact of the sign and Thirdness is
about is about the dialectic (mediation) between the sign and the interpreter.

What Sign System are you Speaking?

It is interesting to observe the two main strains of Christianity reflect the two theories of Semiotics. One
strain (Catholicity) has its major emphasis on iconography and the other (Protestantism) has its focus on
text. It was the Reformation under Luther, Calvin and Zwingli that shifted the primacy from collectivism
in iconography to radical individualism in the written (self interpreting) word.

186 Envisioning Risk

 As a kid, I remember spending many Sundays in Bible study, learning to ‘properly interpret’ ‘the Word’.
I once belonged to Navigators (a group that covenants to memorise the Bible), Scripture Union and
Gideons (a group that puts a free Bible in every Hotel/Motel across the world).
It wasn’t till I was older that I realised I was ‘schooled’ into a disdain for iconography yet indoctrinated to
treat the Biblical text as an icon. Moreso, when I went to Theological college I studied the Biblical text in
its original language (Koine Greek and Hebrew). I am so grateful for that study now, as Fundamentalism
is an ideology and hermeneutic (theory of interpretation) that in many ways has little understanding of
the text anyway. I certainly don’t come to Theology in an uninformed way and whilst a person of Faith
(Kierkegaard) I understand both iconography and bibliolatory, I find other approaches far more helpful
and holistic.
What my upbringing helped me to understand is that we all speak, write and express ourselves through
a sign system. I was made alert to it because signs, wonders, symbols, text and metaphor are the basics in
Biblical Fundamentalism.
For the moment it is important to know that there are two schools of thought about sign systems with the
difference being on the power and significance of the interpretant of signs.

With the Best Intentions

It is a challenge for some to understand addictions. We would like everything to be just a matter of
behaviours. Humans would be much easier to control if they were just the sum of inputs and outputs. If
that were so then the greater the punishment, the greater the reform - the greater the reward the stronger
the attraction. But it’s not like that in reality.
I went to the movies recently and couldn’t believe that a person in front of me spent half the movie
texting and checking their smartphone. Why go to the movies if you aren’t going to watch the movie?
The addiction to smartphones is well documented. People are bumping into street poles, walking into
each other and tripping over gutters as they wander distracted, head buried in their smartphone. In
Australia there are more than 16 million mobile handsets in use, a 15 per cent increase compared with
2011.
Many addictions are unconscious, people don’t consciously create such dependency and addiction.
Smartphones can be addictive because they’re psychoactive. That is, they alter mood and often trigger
unpredictable feelings. The compulsion is also known by some as FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). This
drives the constant need to check the smartphone. If you are interested to see if you have a smartphone
addiction check out a smartphone addiction assessment eg. http://behaviorhealth.bizcalcs.com/
Calculator.asp?Calc=Cell-Phone-Addict.
But why discuss addictions in the context of Semiotics?
There is a strong connection between what we see, its stimulus to motivation and addiction, out of sight, out of
mind. When we see what is our addiction our wants and needs take over. The craving for what we want and need
is stimulated by vision.
One of the critical aspects of giving our attention to signs systems is to understand how visual learning and
Semiotics profoundly influence the unconscious. One of the earliest articulations of the power of symbols on the
unconscious was by Carl Jung in his famous work Man and His Symbols. Jung shows that as far back as the dawn
of time humans have been consumed with symbolic representation, icons, dreams and signs. We associate what
we crave with its associated pleasure and need.

Chapter 6: EnVisioning Semiotically 187

From etchings on cave walls, totems and iconic representations of gods, story icons of the Australian Indigenous
Dreamtime, ancient initiations, cultic rites, taboos and rituals, we see that symbolic thinking and meaning
preceded text by thousands of years.

Figure 157. Branches of Semiotics

188 Envisioning Risk

It is interesting now to read of those speaking of our current era as a ‘post-text’ world where images, graphics,
digital thinking and symbology preside over text yet again. The rise of emoticons and emojis in communications
is an example of our ‘post-text’ era.

The Study of Semiotics

Since the times of Saussure and Pierce many fields of Semiotics have sprouted and formed in sub-fields and
‘schools’. Each tends to have a specific focus and agenda eg. Cognitive Semiotics, Pictorial Semiotics. The
International Association for Semiotics was founded in 1969 and numerous universities now specialize in the
study of Semiotics eg. University of Tartu. The fields of Semiotics are represented graphically at Figure 157.
Branches of Semiotics. Even the use of the work ‘branches’ serves as a useful metaphor for understanding the sub-
fields of this discipline.
This map presents the many branches, sub-fields and sub-sets of semiotic research, study and analysis. Perhaps I
could draw your attention to some aspects of the map worth noting (clockwise).
• BioSemiotics is the study of how all things biological are symbolic and signal to the world.
The biology of life itself gives meaning to how we live. A good understanding of the
scope of bioSemiotics is here for free download: https://www.academia.edu/33724482/
BioSemiotics_in_the_Community_Essays_in_Honour_of_Donald_Favareau
• Cultural Semiotics concerns all aspects of culture and meaning and the work of Yuri Lotman is important
here: https://monoskop.org/images/5/5e/Lotman_Yuri_M_Universe_of_the_Mind_A_Semiotic_Theory_
of_Culture_1990.pdf
• Semiotic analysis is how we use semiotic understanding to understand the world semiotically.
• General semiotic concepts are listed and are well defined in the literature.
For the purposes of this study we will focus on a general approach to Semiotics with a particular interest in the
nature of the unconscious in relation to the following:
• Signs • Metaphor • Pitching, Framing, Priming
• Symbols • Consensually Validated and Anchoring
• Signifier Grammar • Hidden curriculum
• Signified • Syntactics • Messaging
• Significance • Cultural Semiotics • Archetypes
• Sign Systems • Language • Transference
• The Semiosphere • Discourse, Power • Transcendence
• Iconography • The Semantic Environment • The Collective Unconscious
• Information Graphics • Meaning, Purpose and Codes • Culture

Our sign systems play a major part in how we construct social reality and our reality cannot be separated from
the sign-systems in which they are experienced. This is a critical aspect of understanding vision and envisioning.
Semiotics should not be confused with the study of Semantics and language, although words do matter.
Semiotics understands that all messaging and all communication and all meaning making (Semiosis) are
intertwined (and coded) with the values, attitudes and beliefs in organizing. The study of Semiotics seeks to
understand the many ways people come to belief and meaning through unconscious ‘codes’ and rules embedded
in many communicating ‘devices’. Semiotics is interested in how meaning and purpose is ‘absorbed’ covertly,
constructed and unconsciously experienced rather than what is contained in overt communications policy.

Chapter 6: EnVisioning Semiotically 189

 Figure 158. Where Does Semiotics Fit?

The following branch map at Figure 158. Where Figure 159. Hanson Burqa
Semiotics Fit, gives a good idea of where Semiotics
fit within the many schools of Social Science.
We will discuss further the skills of mapping and
Cartographics in the following chapter.
Pierce focused on the representation of signs ie,
the sign itself and its relation to the interpretant.
His focus was triadic linking; the object, sign
representation and the dynamic object (the real object
to which the sign refers). Pierce emphasized the
thought of the sign as the sign of the object itself.
In this sense Pierce’s model was one that cascades
in meaning from the sign to the signified. For the
purposes of this introduction the following graphic
may prove helpful.
Since the times of Saussure and Pierce many fields
of Semiotics have sprouted and formed in sub- fields
and ‘schools’. Each tends to have a specific focus and
agenda eg. Cognitive Semiotics, Pictorial Semiotics.

190 Envisioning Risk

The International Association for Semiotics was founded in 1969 and numerous universities now specialize in
the study of Semiotics eg. University of Tartu.

The Interpretation of Signs

In 2017 Senator Pauline Hanson wore a Burqa into the Senate chamber as an act of vilification of
Muslims and to voice her racist beliefs (https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/aug/17/
pauline-hanson-wears-burqa-in-australian-senate-while-calling-for-ban). This act of hate caused outrage
across religious orthodox and major parties in the Australian Parliament.
For Hanson and her cronies this act was perceived as a joke (see Figure 159. Hanson Burqa) For those
with sensitivities for discrimination, prejudice and
racism, this was offensive in the extreme. Figure 160. Hanson’s Tirade

Hanson is a White Supremacist and former Fish

and Chip Shop proprietor, founded the One Nation
Party (ONP) in 1997 on a platform of hate for
Asians and Xenophobia. Her stunt in 2017 was
completely consistent with a 20 year record of hate
and Xenophobia.
The wearing of the burqa was ‘masked’ behind spin
about face coverings and security but what is learned
from this stunt is just how important matters such as symbols, dress, gesture, identity, meaning, purpose
and Semiotics are to peoples and cultures. There is nothing more offensive to a culture than grabbing
something sacred to them and abusing it. This is what Hanson did in her naive and dangerous act.
Hanson was widely condemned by all other political parties who understand the meaning of Semiotics to
cultural identity. The head of the House stated conservatively:
I would caution you and counsel you, Senator Hanson, with respect, to be very very careful of the
offence you may do to the religious sensibilities of other Australians.
Of course Hanson’s agenda was to get the burqa banned from public spaces not in any concern for
security but in a xenophobic preoccupation in fear of difference. You can see Hanson’s tirade at Figure
160. Hanson’s Tirade.
This episode should emphasise the importance of understanding Semiotics in risk. One ignores and abuses the
sacred beliefs of others at one’s own peril. It doesn’t matter what one thinks of another’s religion, faith-belief
or Indigenous spirituality. It doesn’t matter whether one’s Behaviourism or Positivism considers religious and
spiritual belief naive or backward, or ‘unenlightened’.
At the core of ethical and multi-faith and multicultural living is the essential value of tolerance, acceptance and
respect for persons. These are essential values for living in any civil society.

Jung, The Unconscious and Symbols

The reason why Jung is so relevant to envisioning risk is because the risk industry has become so profoundly
religious. This has been recognised by Dekker and others as a characteristic of Risk and Safety (http:// www.
safetydi erently.com/zero-vision-and-thewestern- salvation-narrative/) and is something I have discussed before:
(https://safetyrisk. net/safety-for-true-believers/, https://safetyrisk.net/safety-as-faith-healing-2/, https://
safetyrisk.net/supernatural-safety/).

Chapter 6: EnVisioning Semiotically 191

Don’t Talk About Religion or Faith Figure 161. Safety Saves
One of the fascinations of writing blogs and
books is that if I raise the issue of faith, belief or
Theology I receive astounding condemnations
within the risk industry for doing so. The hyper-
sensitivity of the industry to any discussion of
Metaphysics seems condemned as a ‘no, no’. It is
presumed that one is either preaching or one is a
religious nut job simply for raising the issue.
Indeed, in the forward to Dekker’s book on
Suffering he even apologises for using the word
‘faith’ with regard to his relationship with a
colleague, then continues throughout the book
after apologising for not being a theologian and
then theologises on Biblical theology on the
nature of suffering throughout the book. This is an anxiety of Scientism with Metaphysics.
The Semiotics of Risk is infused with religious narrative, imagery of salvation and perfectionism (https://
safetyrisk.net/is-risk-and-safety-perfectionism-a-disorder/). The discourse of ‘saving lives’ lends itself to such
symbols and signs as is common in any religion. The path to perfection is the narrative of Zero. The popular
Bradley Curve is a profound religious metaphor for Risk. This was discussed extensively in my book Fallibility
and Risk, Living With Uncertainty. Whet emerges from this industry that fears faith is a profound ignorance
of Faith itself. This is no less profound than Hanson’s ignorance of offence. Such an ignorance sets up the risk
industry to be deaf to the voice of Faith associated with risk and blindness to the industry’s religious and faith-
based assumptions embedded in systems, language and Semiotics.
Those who have read previous books in this series understand that Risk and Safety have been written in different
ways, but mostly it has been to personify Safety and Risk using a capital letter ‘S’ and ‘R’ to denote an Archetype
or personification. Jung proposed that Safety and Innocence were the same ‘Archetype’.
An Archetype is something that has a life of its own. It has its own energy, dynamic and momentum over and
above the people who are engaged in its practice. The power of the Archetype is that people act according to its
influence, not by their own critical thinking. Indeed, for the Archetype of Risk and Safety, critical thinking is the
enemy. Critical thinking dissolves the moment one mentions the word ‘faith’ or discusses the Semiotics of Faith
or Theology. This is also observable in the deification, sacralisation and faith-based discourse in the global mantra
of zero.
One of the ways we see Theology play out in the risk industry is through projections of Soteriology (salvation
theory) into the safety space see Figure 161. Safety Saves.
Here we see a larger than life poster at a safety convention where participants could write comments
about salvation and how the industry ‘saves lives’. In language akin to an Christian Evangelical
conference Safety is personified in the poster so that the industry itself is portrayed as a salvic Archetype.
The study of salvation is called Soteriology, it is 101 in any Theology degree. As part of that study one
gets an insight into the delusional language of ‘saviours’. The language of ‘saviours as heroes’ is all too
common in the safety industry. What does this kind of language portray? Is this a healthy kind of
language to promote everyday care for risk?
The language and Archetypes of heroics and saviours is counterproductive to the message of risk. Safety
doesn’t ‘save lives’ and the more the industry speaks such rhetoric the more it elevates itself to levels of
dangerous superiority. The key to tackling risk is not about being superior but about being alongside

192 Envisioning Risk

 others, helping others, listening and knowing that human fallibility reminds us of the need to be humble,
caring and forgiving to each other. A little dose of Schein’s Humble Enquiry would be helpful. After all,
the safety hero on a pedestal can’t last long, fallibility has a mysterious way of exposing false saviours
(https://www.humandymensions.com/product/fallibility-risk-living-uncertainty/).
Heroes and saviours are perfect. Heroes and saviours don’t make mistakes. Heroes and saviours are all
about telling, crusading and overpowering. What a terrible metaphor to project how Safety works.
Interestingly, real professionals like doctors, social workers and nurses don’t use the language of ‘saving
lives’. The language of ‘serving’ and ‘helping’ is professional language, not something you find much in
Safety, obsessed with the projection of the title ‘professional’.
Here’s a project for you. Do a language audit of safety conferences and policies and count the number
of times the language of ‘heroics’ and ‘salvation’ surfaces compared to the language of listening, helping,
caring and humility. Discover something? I would certainly like to hear a sensible argument about what
safety method ‘saves lives’.

The Grammar of Risk

As a Baby Boomer I experienced the experiment of the 1960s when spelling and grammar changed.
The Education sector realized that didactic approaches to teaching didn’t match the culture of discovery,
openness and independence that was happening in society.
Whilst Dylan was telling us The Times They Were a Changing in 1964 (https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=e7qQ6_RV4VQ) so too schooling adapted to new ways of learning and teaching most evident
in the Deschooling (Illich - http://learning.media.mit.edu/courses/mas713/readings/DESCHOOLING.
pdf ), Alternative Schooling (Freire - https://selforganizedseminar.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/freire_
pedagogy_oppresed1.pdf ) and Freeschooling (Goodman - http://arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/
goodman.pdf ) movements. Similarly changes occurred in the teaching of History to a more social
approach (Annales History) to History away from memorizing dates and chronicling events.
Some of this movement was good, opening up possibilities of student-centred learning rather than
teacher-centred teaching. This was a third wave in schooling history, we are currently experiencing a
fourth as schools reframe to the influence of Technique and the Internet on pedagogy (methodology of
teaching). Whilst it might be instructive to think about this history and where it has taken us, I’d like to
focus on just one change – grammar.
Weick tells us that organizing is ‘consensually validated grammar for reducing equivocality by means of
sensible interlocking behaviours’. In other words, organizing is a kind of code that we collectively agree
upon by structures, policies and systems to reduce dissonance in the face of uncertainty.
The study of Linguistics was triggered by the works of Saussure (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Ferdinand_de_Saussure) who understood language as a sign system. Later, Jacobsen (https://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Jakobson) developed techniques for the analysis of linguistics and
grammar leading to the development of ‘Structuralism’, the idea that text as signs only have meaning
socially and don’t have meaning in themselves. Why should this matter to risk?
It was Marshall McLuhan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_McLuhan) who stated that, ‘the medium is the
message’, and led to an understanding that various media have ‘purposes’ (as opposed to functions) of their own.
The medium of meaning in organizing is conveyed through language and grammar. This means that the words
and structure of language in risk (the medium) is just as important as the message. It matters whether one makes
the word ‘safety’ a noun, verb, adjective or participle. When we place the word ‘safety’ as an adjective in front of a
noun ‘culture’, it changes the meaning of the word ‘culture’. It then distinguishes this kind of culture as somehow

Chapter 6: EnVisioning Semiotically 193

different from other definitions of culture. The same occurs with the word ‘leadership’ and many other words the
safety industry wishes to claim as their own.
Unfortunately, the adjective of ‘safety’ is more and more understood as a way of toxifying an object. ie. If you want
to switch people off safety just make it the adjective of all you do. The same occurs with the word ‘zero’, does
anyone really take seriously someone who is called a ‘Zero Harm Advisor’?
Unfortunately, in making safety an adjective it diminishes a holistic understanding of the noun that
follows. Rather than having a meeting that discusses safety we have a ‘safety meeting’, rather than having
a person who has an occupation in safety we call them a ‘safety person’. The grammar takes the emphasis
away from the person and places the emphasis on the descriptor. Rather than living life in the fullness of
living and learning, safety people by their language tend to make safety all of life? (https://safetyrisk.net/
the-last-thing-is-dont-start-with-safety/).

How to use signs, symbols and text effectively in communicating

about risk
The power of symbols and signs to communicate to the unconscious was first systematized by Goebells in 1937.
The power and effect of these symbols and signs to create identity and belonging was captured systematically by
the Nazis in what has been known informally for centuries. As far back as hieroglyphics on Egyptian tombs we
have known that symbols and signs have enormous power, for good and bad. The fact that the Nazis were adept
at using signs and symbols in propaganda shows just how much they knew about Semiotics and communicating
to the subconscious (the negative unconscious).
Similarly, understanding the psychology of colour and the power of semantics was critical to Nazi effectiveness.
When communicating through signs and symbols one needs to know what one is doing. An accidental approach
to the use of symbols and signs can be equally as destructive as the intent of the Nazis.
The art and craft of graphic design, information graphics and Semiotics is the pathway to wisdom in
communicating to the unconscious. The idea that signs, symbols and text don’t matter or have minimal
significance, is a nonsense that flies in the face of all the evidence to the contrary (Lotman, Bargh, Chandler,
Barthes, Pierce etc)
Semioticians understand how to communicate effectively to the individual and Collective Unconscious.
Semiotics is a foundational study in SPoR. This is why the symbol of zero is such a powerful counter productive
symbol in the communication of risk. The symbol of zero is a loss-framed deficit insignia for dehumanising
people. It has a trajectory of intolerance and promotes the vice of domination in the name of good. The absolute
of zero has a trajectory that is pitted against the realities of fallibility. As a symbol it sits in the subconscious as a
justification for denying fallibility and prejudicing enactment.
Zero is the symbol for bullying, brutalism and determinism, there is no freedom in Zero, there is no vision in
Zero and no leadership in Zero.

Mapping the Semiosphere

So what does Yuri Lotman mean by the Semiosphere? (https://monoskop.org/images/5/5e/Lotman_Yuri_M_
Universe_of_the_Mind_A_Semiotic_Theory_of_Culture_1990.pdf )
Whilst I will respond to this question by text, the best way to tackle the question is by mapping the terrain so, I
will endeavour to do both. Lotman (1990. p.125) states:
The Semiosphere is the result and the condition for the development of culture; we justify our term by
analogy with the biosphere, as Vernadsky defined it, namely the totality and the organic whole of living
matter and also the condition for the continuation of life.

194 Envisioning Risk

Semiosphere is the semiotic space, outside of which Semiosis (the creation of meaning) cannot exist.
Semiosphere is a semiotic way of explaining that all meaning in the universe is constructed from signs and
symbols. All sensemaking is constructed semiotically.
In a similar way a Biologist explains the world as a Biosphere and the Biosphere understands the world through
ecosystems rather than the engineering or mechanics of systems. So too, we understand atmosphere to mean the
sum of all gases surrounding the Earth or another planet. So, the Semiosphere is the sum of all Semiotics (sign-
symbol systems) and the making of meaning (Semiosis) semiotically.
In my feeble attempt to try to convey an understanding of Semiosphere I have constructed a map Figure 162.
Mapping the Semiosphere.
So we see that the Semiosphere comprises: Natural Life, Artificial Life and Supernatural Life. Branching out of
each form of life we see how each branch is evidenced.

Supernatural Life
The best way to understand the semiotic nature of Supernatural life is through movies, TV, religious texts,
dreams, historical fantasy, coats of arms and literature/poetics. On the map I have pictured just a few examples
but any examination of film, TV, Netflix or video will show that the best selling movies/films of all time concern
the supernatural, paranormal or symbolically theological.

Figure 162. Mapping the Semiosphere

Artificial Life
Whilst some of artificial life is also symbolised in film/TV, we most associate artificial life with all that is
symbolised through computing, robotics and technology.

Chapter 6: EnVisioning Semiotically 195

Natural Life
For the purposes of this discussion I have tracked the sub-branch of BioSemiotics to AnthropoSemiotics to the
construction of meanings to then show sub-sets of dynamics within each sub-set of meaning. This should give
some idea of both the Wickedity and intractability of understanding the world as a Semiosphere.
For the purposes of this discussion I have not unpacked all that is mapped but rather just one strand of a branch
to give an idea of how Semiotics understands our world symbolically. As you could imagine such a map could be
overwhelming if it was explored to exhaustion.

Semiotic Analysis - Decoding The Semiosphere

Semiotic analysis starts off with some critical questions, namely:
1. What is this sign saying to me (conscious and unconscious)?
2. What do my eyes/mind see?
3. What do I hear, sense, know and interpret?
4. What meaning is made from this?
5. What have I received, been affected by?
The triarchic structure of Semiotics is critical in understanding the nature of interpretation (Hermeneutics).
All information that comes to us through the senses is interpreted, there is no objective data. This is why the
beginning of Semiotic Analysis starts with the biases and nature of persons, including how person-ality shapes
the creation of meaning.
In order to assist with Semiotic Analysis I have provided a Framework Map. Mapping or Cartographics is a
critical element of Semiotics but just in case that doesn’t suit you, a text-based checklist follows the Framework
Map if that is where your comfort lies. The reason why I prefer Semiotic Mapping is because it conveys
relationship, interconnectedness and ecological dialectics. You can see a Map for Semiotic Analysis at Figure 163.
Semiotic Analysis Framework
The first thing you will notice with the map is that it is complex and busy, this is because Semiotics attends to
everything in the Semiosphere.
Semiotics identifies signs having three key components …
1. Signifier: Physical sign – sounds, images or letters conveying meaning
2. Signified: Personal interpretation of a signifier (as above)
3. Hermeneutic: Interpretant
In Figure 163 Semiotic Analysis Framework we see three clusters on the outside of the model and are critical
factors to how one responds to all that is sensed in the world.
There are three forms of the Signifier
1. Icons: A physical resemblance to the object – map, sound or picture
2. Symbol: No physical resemblance – toilet door, brand or warning sign
3. Index: Exists because of the existence of signifier – eg smoke = fire
There are also three components of the Signified
1. Denotation: Literal meaning of sign – dictionary or non-ambiguous

196 Envisioning Risk

 Figure 163. Semiotic Analysis Framework

2. Connotation: Meaning to the individual – what the sign means to ‘me’

3. Myth: An extended metaphor – social and cultural stories and values
These are embedded and understood in each part of the triarchic model. Inside the model we use Pragmatics,
Sytactics and Semantics to decipher text and signs. Around the exterior are examples of what is considered in
thinking Semiotically about the Signifier - what is sensed, Signified: what is represented and Hermeneutic: what
is interpreted.
What we see in this map is the dialectic way that the User (Interpretant) interacts with the Representation
(signifier) and the creation of Meaning (Signified).
This map of Piercian Semiotics captures all that goes on when we act in being in the world. In this way we
know that vision is not just the way of seeing but also its connected way of thinking. In Semiotics this is called
‘Denotation’ (what we physically/consciously see) and Connotation (how we construct meaning from what we see
consciously and unconsciously).
This map provides an excellent framework for analysing Semiotics.
Anything we can see, feel, touch, hear or think about is a Semiotic. This is why Lotman developed the notion of a
Semiosphere.

A Semiotic Analysis starts with collecting signs from what is sensed

STEP ONE
Category (e.g. brand logos, advertising and other communications of fast food, insurance, beverage, banking et
cetera); Culture (e.g. lots of photos, digital, print and other media of different geographic regions and/or cities)
can provide rich data to identify patterns; and/or Poetics (Art, literature, movies etc)

Chapter 6: EnVisioning Semiotically 197

STEP TWO
Then follows sorting the signs from the category or culture into:
• Icons,
• Symbols
• Index
and then into key themes that allow for the categorisation of the signs.
STEP THREE
Analysing the themes of the collected signs is possible by applying …
Denotation – eg. dictionary and literal meaning (of the theme); Connotation – e.g. overlaying potential
individual meaning and/or utilising qualitative (or quantitive) research to understand cultural, generational, target
audience and other meanings; Myth – eg. religion, astrology, Chinese zodiac, mythology, cultural trends and
society rules, laws and morals
Narrowing the themes to the key differentiators allows for a clear impression of the category or culture to be
built. Reporting on Semiotic Analysis may is best presented visually although, text summarising is possible.
If this Analysis Framework was turned into a checklist it would look as follows.

Semiotic Analysis Structure

Signifyer-Representation Me-User-Interpretant Meaning-Signified
• Artefacts • Personality • Contents
• Formulas • Education and Learning • Interpretations
• Systems/Ecologies • Experiences • Abstractions
• Records/Data • Culture • Concepts
• Codes/Images • Cognition • Ideas
• Documents • Background • Maps
• Signals/Signs • Socialitie
• Intelligence

A Semiotic Analysis Process

It is in consideration of all these factors that one engages in a Semiotic Analysis. So:
1. Study the artefact (advertisement, poster, etc.): Look carefully at its signs, its goals, its meanings. Ask in a
general sense: what is this Artefact really trying to say?
2. Unpack the artefact: identify key and significant signs.
3. Perform initial analysis: For each sign, identify the signifier and signified.
4. Construct initial constellation: Identify the theme (eg., wealth, beauty, authority) that is common to those
signs.
5. Remove outliers: Narrow your constellation to a manageable number of signs
6. Examine the ideology embedded in the signs: describe the attitude, purpose or an action related to the
theme (eg., wealth is good, beauty requires youth, authority is necessary).

198 Envisioning Risk

7. Note: step back and consider your own filters, biases etc from your position as Interpretant. What is your
Ontology, Methodology, Philosophy.
8. Think of how the signs interact with your ideology.
9. Think of how your ideology acts in dialectic with the signs being considered.
10. Review with these key questions:
• What is this sign saying to me (conscious and unconscious)?
• What do my eyes/mind see?
• What do I hear, sense, know and interpret?
• What meaning is made from this?
• What have I received, been affected by?
11. Consider how these signs communicate to the conscious and Collective Unconscious.
12. Reality-check: Share your edited draft with a trusted colleague who understands Semiotics.
The following analysis of iconography in Safety as an example/case study of how to undertake a Semiotic
Analysis.

The Iconography of Risk/Safety

Context
Icons are powerful modes of communication and predate text and print. Danesi in The Semiotics of Emoji
demonstrates that we are seeing a reemergence of the power of icons in everyday communications. Indeed - SMS,
emoticons, emojis and graphics/multimedia are changing the very way we communicate. Icons are profound and
significant because visuals burn quicker and more permanently into the unconscious long-term memory. Text and
aural communications are harder to remember/learn as they operate mostly in short-term memory.
Icons are powerful because they have an emotive and Poetic effect and as symbols convey much more than
themselves. Jung (Man and his Symbols - https://monoskop.org/images/9/97/Von_Franz_Luise_Marie_Jung_
Gustav_Carl_Man_and_His_Symbols_1988.pdf ) demonstrates that iconic thinking has been common to all
cultures and civilizations since cave dwellers could scratch on a wall. Indeed, mandalas are also shared across
civilizations and cultures as icons of life force and dialectic. Icons are most powerful because they communicate
to the unconscious. Baudrillard (1983) called this the ‘simulacrum effect’.
The history of icons finds its foundation in religious Semiotics (sign systems). For example, Egyptian
hieroglyphics are completely iconic and religious. A visit to the catacombs shows how the early Christians told
stories and created identity through icons. When I visited Communist China in the 1970s, the same use of icons
was used to communicate identity and belonging. Sometimes only the initiated or educated knew what the icon
meant.
One of the ways the Protestant Reformation (http://time.com/4993119/protestantism-martin-luther-500th-
anniversary/) marked its rejection of Catholic theology was through iconoclasm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Iconoclasm), the destruction of icons. Iconoclasm has always been a target of revolutions and destroying enemies.
If one wants to demonstrate power over another, just target their icons. If you want to find out how powerful
icons are in themselves, just try to remove or deface one.
In the modern world icons have become an essential part of marketing, brand, identity and belonging. In safety
the use of icons is extensive, not just through signage but in communicating philosophy, ideology and meaning.

Chapter 6: EnVisioning Semiotically 199

 Figure 164. Safety Image Search

Artefacts
The most dominant icons in the risk and Safetyosphere are objects: zero, triangles/pyramids, curves and PPE
dominate the iconography of safety. It is amazing that when anyone seeks to communicate what safety is about or
to brand safety that the icons are cones, glasses, boots or hard hat. Isn’t it indicative that in an activity that seeks
to help people keep safe that there are few icons about people. Safety iconography is all about objects.

Artefacts of Safety Icons

When one does a Google image search using just the word ‘safety’ responses are mostly safety signs. See Figure
164. Safety Image Search.
Unpack the Artefacts
The most common sign is a safety sign itself ‘safety first’ which of course is meaningless because it is so easily
interpreted to mean whatever one likes. If safety is first does all work stop? If safety is first is there no risk? Other
things to note is that the word ‘risk’ rarely appears and most of the focus is on the word ‘safety’ itself.
Isolate an Artefact
The ‘safety first’ sign is yellow and black in a diamond shape with the text/words simply ‘Safety First’. I wonder
what comes second? is my first question. Does it really come first? Is there a hierarchy of what we should pay
attention to? Why is this binary question enabled by this sign? What if safety was second? This is the binary
omission, and why is it that text-semantics is chosen as the carrier of the message? First in the sequence of what?

200 Envisioning Risk

Analysis
What stands out most on the sign other than the colours is the notion of a hierarchy and the idea of using text to
convey meaning. Of course there is no hierarchy because if being safe is made first, then all risk would need to be
eliminated in which case there would be no production, no production equals no work and therefore no need for safety.
There is also the matter of presenting a message is only text. Is this to seemingly eliminate interpretation? And
what then is safety? Is it to be understood as a noun or verb? One thing is for sure, in the safety literature there is
simply no agrement or consensus about what the word safety means.
You will rarely see a safety icon that depicts people talking or conversing about risk. It doesn’t matter whether it’s
young people in safety, women in safety, safety differently or a safety association of some sort – the icon is objects.
The cone, glasses, boots, triangles and hard hat rule as the ‘go to’ anchor in safety. When one scrolls down the
many images that pop up in a search on safety one doesn’t get the idea that safety is about asking, helping and
listening. Indeed, the common message is that safety is about objects, telling and policing.
Black and yellow seems to be the preference for safety signs, sometimes red and often with Zebra-type stripes.
Whilst yellow is associated with optimism and hope, black is associated with evil and menace. So the colours put
us in paradox, safety is about menace and hope. Interestingly some of the symbols have a background of clouds
and blue sky, perhaps speaking to the heavens, in hope.
Ideology
When we anchor icongraphically to objects we communicate to the unconscious what should receive privilege
in thinking. When we anchor identity to objects it is more difficult to prioritize subjects (people) in automatic
focus and heuristics. When we identify with objects we tell everyone what we think safety is all about. As long as
Safety continues with the prioritization of objects in iconography people will think safety is all about high-viz,
boots and glasses.
Affect
The affect of this sign simply reinforces all of the naive binary assumptions of the risk and safety industry. It
‘tells’ and assumes that meaning is known, common and effective. What this sign really does is simply turn me
off safety because it is meaningless. Certainly within the club of the risk and safety industry such a sign serves as
a shibboleth for belonging as if such a sign and sequence of words captures what the industry is about. Instead,
the sign creates more confusion, obscurity and ambiguity about itself in comparison to the activities of risk
management with the desired outcome of safety. At best the sign serves as a marker for club conformance but for
anyone outside of the risk and safety club is nonsensical.
Review
Unless safety iconography shifts from objects to subjects, it is not likely that it will be seen as a helping activity
but rather a policing activity. At the Global Safety Congress 2017 this disconnect was voiced as one of the
greatest concerns, that safety was perceived as policing and not focused on people. Whilst the Congress had as
one of its goals to be people-centred and its guiding icon was Zero!
When one does a search using the words ‘risk’, ‘risk management’ or ‘risk & safety’ the focus remains one of
objects, telling and policing.

Transition
In this chapter we have explored the nature of Semiotics and its role in envisioning. We looked at symbols, sign
systems and images in public spaces and how the dynamics of Semiotics communicates to the unconscious. We
saw how totems in various cultures help create meaning and take on significance, even sacred significance for
various cultures.

Chapter 6: EnVisioning Semiotically 201

The chapter explored the nature of hermeneutics and how all symbols, signs, text and metaphor are interpreted
and given significance. The outcome of interpretation is the making of significance or meaning (Semiosis). The
chapter explored how metaphor creates meaning and how metaphor too is interpreted.
The chapter offerred a number of maps to help understand the dynamics, history and composure of Semiotics
including the many sub-branches and fields associated with various signs and symbol systems. Then a model of
Semiotic Analysis was discussed including an iconographic case study of a common safety sign.
Much of the power of Semiotics is captured in its methodology of communicating to the unconscious. This is the
thrust of the next chapter. We need to be much more consious about what we are seeking to say consciously and
unconsciously. Too often those in risk and safety think that messaging and communication is a dynamic of telling
and that such messages are clear, objective and only have one meaning. We now know that this is not the case.
All messaging says as much in the medium than it does in the message (McLuhan).

202 Envisioning Risk

SECTION
THREE
The Practicality of Vision
204 Envisioning Risk
CHAPTER 7
What are You Trying to Say?
How can it be that we can

Say so much without words?

It must be love, love, love - Madness

7
Language is not a representation of the world inside the head, but a form of embodied
Intersubjectivity - Thomas Fuchs - ecology of the brain

There is no symbolic power without the symbolism of power - Pierre Bordieu - Language
and Symbolic Power.

Introduction
We have explored in the previous chapter the power of Semiotics and communicating semiotically with so much
of what is communicated to us unconsciously, not just in the symbol but in the Discourse of the symbol and sign
and all that is hidden in the medium of the sign. Similarly with language, the medium is the message. This is why
in the nature of communication we need to be aware of its dialectical and triarchic nature. In all messaging there
is not just a sender and receiver but what happens between the sender and receiver. Much happens in the hyphen
of the i-thou.
Once on the subject of language we need to engage in the study of Discourse and Hermeneutics (theory of
interpretation). discourse is understood as language-in-use (lower case ‘d’) and Discourse captures the nature of
what is embedded in language (represented by an upper case ‘D’). The use of the word discourse denotes everyday
usage, conversation and language exchange. Discourse has a focus on the power, ethics and politics embedded
in language. Such an approach to Discourse is part of Discourse Analysis, a Discipline within itself that seeks
to uncover the semiosis in code embedded in discourse. I will repeat this paragraph in discussion on Discourse
Analysis because it is so critical to undertanding what we try to say.
In the Social Psychology of Risk, we are concerned much more in what you say (unconsciously) than what you
say (consciously).
Language is fascinating because we ‘speak’ and listen to each other in many ways. If all our sensing is
intercorporeal and embodied then, all our messaging in language must be the same. We ‘speak’ with all our being,
with our mouths, eyes, hands, bodies, minds, symbols, gestures, through our emotions, feelings, Semiotics and
spaces. Our whole ‘being’ yearns to connect with our world and says ‘i am, who are you? Can we ‘meet’? This is
what we do when we connect and relate in dialetic, we leave ourselves and come to the hyphen, to the i-thou
where all relatedness happens.

Chapter 7:What Are You Trying To Say? 205

So, this chapter is about how we connect through language, not just spoken and written but in a host of ways that
are symbolic and non-text focused. If we really wish to connect and communicate to others we need to be aware
and strategic of the diverse ways we connect and communicate.

The Medium is The Message

We’ve known for over 50 years that the Medium is the Message (https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/mcluhan.
mediummessage.pdf ). It matters how you transport a message as much as what the message is and how you wish
to transport it. And if the medium contradicts the message, it’s the message of the medium that sticks not the
text of the message itself. Discourse is hidden in the medium not in the text of the message. The idea that one
can transport a pure message in an objective way is nonsense. This is why the industry that seeks to improve risk
and safety should want to know more about the dynamics of Semiotics, Hermeneutics and Discourse Analysis.
Often people have great motives and wish the best for communication and then completely undo all good
intentions by choosing a medium that undoes the message. We see this here:
• NZ Worksafe ‘Pickled’ campaign (https://safetyrisk.net/
eat-your-veggies-little-timmy-this-safety-asparagus-is-good-for-you/)
• Mum’s for Safety campaign (https://safetyrisk.net/dumbs-for-safety/)
• Hazardman campaign (https://safetyrisk.net/hazardman-wont-save-you/)
• Dumb Ways to Die campaign (https://safetyrisk.net/dumb-ways-to-die-doesnt-work/)
and in a host of other marketting strategies by the risk and safety industry that take no cognizance of Discourse,
Hermeneutics, Semiotics or the medium of the message.
The real message of Mum’s for Safety campaign for example is about being patronized, dumbed down, misogyny
and masking blame in condescending images of Mum’s berating CEOs and Managers as children.
However, those in marketing claim that such campaigns are succcesful because of the number of hits on the
Internet not by any change in culture or approaches to risk in the sector (https://safetyrisk.net/dumb-ways-to-
die-and-a-strange-sense-of-success/). Hits on the Internet are not a measure of effectiveness.
When we run our workshop on Communicating to the Unconscious (https://cllr.com.au/product/
communicating-unconscious-risk-unit-11/) we focus on getting the subjectivities of communication in
alignment. Communication is about much more than just sender and receiver. There are so many critical aspects
hidden in the dynamics of communication (https://safetyrisk.net/what-are-you-trying-to-say/) that we need to
attend to if we wish to be successful. It is simply naïve to think that ‘telling’ is neutral, objective and/or effective.
As much as people might wish things to be simple, black and white – they are not. Risk, communication,
language and Discourse are a wicked problem.
The classic example of missing the medium in the message comes in the form of many mixed messages from
regulators. It’s pretty straight forward, if you don’t engender trust people won’t speak up. Just look at the regular
campaigns of the regulators on ‘speak up’ campaigns:
• https://www.mangolive.com/blog-mango/speaking-up-on-health-and-safety-in-the-workplace
• https://campaignsoftheworld.com/print/worksafe-victoria-it-doesnt-hurt-to-speak-up/
• https://www.safework.nsw.gov.au/resource-library/blogs/blogs-accordions/if-its-not-safe,-speak-up!
How strange, then these same organisations run ‘get tough’ campaigns on breaches, ‘blitzes’ on non-compliances
and fear campaigns and then expect trust, care and listening.
• https://www.veroliability.co.nz/documents/safe-side/issue-11-oct-19.pdf

206 Envisioning Risk

• https://www.safework.nsw.gov.au/news/safework-media-releases/
hunter-construction-sites-fail-compliance-blitz
• https://www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/news/2019-03/safety-inspectors-blitz-construction-sites-both-sides-border
Then people are somehow expected to disassociate one message from the other and the emotional medium from
the brutal message. Nothing is more destructive for messaging than ‘mixed messages’ and it seems regulators are
professionals at both.
These campaigns as mentioned before all project blame and ‘dumbness’ on to people who have accidents? This
Discourse of blame is the common message to all these campaigns and completely contradicts the overt message
of the campaign. When one believes that the human is a brain-as-computer then dumbness and reprogramming
become the medium for the message. How strange that Risk and Safety knows what the problem is but doesn’t
know what to do about it other than contact a marketing company that knows nothing about risk and safety.

Focus on the Family

When I worked in the Public Service there was a hung Assembly in the ACT and in order to get
legislation though many compromises had to be made. One such compromise involved a member that
held the balance of power and was a fundamentalist Christian.
So, with extensive experience in being able to speak and understand Fundamentalist Christian discourse
I volunteered to meet with the Member and his representative from Focus on the Family (https://www.
focusonthefamily.com/) to negotiate a pilot of the program in a school. In many ways the agenda of
the Member is no different from the right faction of the Australian Liberal Party in 2020 and Prime
Minister Morrison who is a Fundametalist Pentecostal.
Fundamentalist Christian language is a unique blend of Holiness and Evangelical discourse. My PhD
completed in 1996 was on the ideology of Fundamentalism and its influence in Australian Schooling.
Like all cultural languages Fundamentalist Discourse has it’s own grammatical code and syntax. Having
lived in such a culture for years I was able to quickly devlop trust because I can ‘speak the lingo’.
In many ways the offer of a pilot program in a school was a small price to pay for a large political
outcome. The Focus on the Family material would no doubt bother the LGBTI community and a
range of educationalists because of its paternalistic overtly evangelical mission. However, it was only a
temporary concession and would most probably be gone by the next election. (and it was)
The point of this story is not so much about the cause of Fundamentalist Christianity but about the
way cultures create their own discourse, ideology and codes in communication. The same is true for
communcation across any culture or sub-culture eg. a bikie gang, soccer club, feminist collective or
Catholic church.

Linguistics
Scientists and linguists have been puzzled for millenia with the question; how did language arise/evolve? There
is some evidence to suggest that language first developed approximately 80,000 years ago and well before sign
language, symbols and other ways of communicating.
It has always been a fascination to observe how children learn language. The Behaviourists believe that children
learn language by trial and error. Behaviourists believe that learning language is a matter of experimenting with
babble, mouth shapes, sounds and these are rewarded by parents and thus language is shaped.
Then along came Noam Chomsky.

Chapter 7: What are You Trying to Say? 207

Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky was born in Philadelphia in 1928 to immigrant parents who were devoted to a
Hebrew-Nationalist culture based on the Hebrew language. His mother was a widely respected teacher
and his father was a renowned Hebrew scholar.
In the 1940s Chomsky’s parents had introduced him to Zellig Harris, a linguist with radical political
views at the University of Pennsylvania. Chomsky so en-joyed Harris’s politics that he began to get
involved with his linguistics as well. He spent much productive time with philosophers like Willard
Quine, John Austin and Nelson Goodman. This unusual combination would be a significant factor in his
subsequent intellectual breakthrough. It seems this unique combination of disciplines lead to Chomsky’s
visionary approach to Linguistics.
In the 1950s Chomsky observed that there are aspects of language acquisition that do not fit the
Behaviourist paradigm. Language has semantics and syntax. While meanings of words (semantics) does
seem to be acquired by a system of trial and reward, syntax (structure and word order) does not arise this
way.
Very young children use correct grammar (syntax) from the very beginning of language development.
This intrinsic knowledge of grammar happens for all languages, without exception. Babies are born
knowing syntax and the syntax they know is common to all languages—what Chomsky called ‘Universal
Grammar’. They learn the meaning of words with use but they instinctively know grammar from birth.
Chomsky’s opponents argued that syntax could be acquired in infancy as an outcome of semantics. That
is, children learn the meanings of words via Behaviorist trial and error. Then, using the behaviorally
acquired meaning, they learn to combine the words into proper sentences accepted by language users in
their environment. In this view, syntax is linked to meaning as an appendage and thus grammar can be
acquired by proxy to meaning via trial and error. Chomsky replied that this cannot be. To illustrate why,
he proposed a (now) famous sentence:
colorless green ideas sleep furiously
This sentence, which had certainly never been uttered by an English speaker before Chomsky, is
nonsense—it has no semantic content. Yet, it is a perfectly proper grammatical English sentence, despite
the fact that it has no semantic content whatever.
Syntax and Semantics don’t overlap and therefore an infant cannot learn syntax via linkage to the
semantic content of words. Meaning can be acquired via the Behaviorist paradigm but grammar cannot.
Human beings, alone among animals, know correct grammar from birth, before they have spoken or
heard a single word.
Chomsky’s insight that language is an in-born ‘organ’ unique to humans is of obvious relevance to
messaging, signaling, semiosis and embodiment. Chomsky showed that no animal has language of any
sort and that human language did not evolve from animal behavior and is not acquired by a behavioral
system of rewards and punishments. This is not to say that non-human animals do not link meanings to
sounds—they certainly do—but animals do not structure their sounds and gestures syntactically. Animals
have no grammar, and grammar is the hallmark of language.
The reason why only human beings speak a grammatical language seems to be because it is a tool
for abstract thinking—a necessary tool for abstraction—and humans are the only animals who think
abstractly. Further read:
• Mitchell, P., and Schoeffe, J., (eds.) (2002) Understanding Power, The Indispensable Chomsky The New
Press. New York.
• Chomsky, N., (2006) Language and Mind. Cambridge University Press. New York. (https://www.ugr.
es/~fmanjon/Language%20and%20Mind.pdf )

208 Envisioning Risk

 • Chomsky, N., (2016) What Kind of Creatures Are We? Columbia University Press. New York.
(https://www.scribd.com/book/470859969/What-Kind-of-Creatures-Are-We)
With Chomsky’s breakthrough, the new science of Cognitive Linguistics became the study of the
language faculty of the human Mind. However, this is not where the story of Chomsky’s vision ends.
Chomsky’s political views and thoughts are even
more powerful. Figure 165. Chomsky’s Modes of Language
Development
Chomsky is a visionary in the Justice-Hope-
Faith-Love dialectic although some may not
recognise his politics as loving in a romantic
sense. Love is not about Romanticism but
rather the well being of the human social
community. As for faith, Chomsky doesn’t shy
away from the mind-body problem and spans
three conceptual realms: the concept of person,
the relation between language and thought, and
the connection of language to reality. It is in
his investigation of innate syntax that he comes
closest to the idea of a metaphysical sense of
knowing.
Chomsky describes himself as a ‘fellow traveller’
to the anarchist tradition, refers to himself as
a ‘Libertarian Socialist’, a political philosophy
he summarizes as challenging all forms of
authority, power abuse and attempting to
eliminate them if they are unjustified for which
the burden of proof is solely upon those who
attempt to exert power. Chomsky is considered
as one of the most influential philosophers and
left-wing critics of the modern era. Chomsky has been a consistent and outspoken critic of the United
States government, Imperialism and foreign policy of the United States which has formed the basis of
much of his political writing.
However, it is to Chomsky’s interest in Linguistics that we see his most visionary ideas.
Chomsky (a materialist) holds that language develops in 3 modes. First musically as in noises, sounds and
Musicality, second with organised vocalisations and third with a clear coded syntax that can be adapted,
even to language one has never heard before. See Figure 165. Chomsky’s Modes of Language Development.
The overlapping red, green and blue areas on the map represent some mysterious blurring of capabilities
across species but it is only humans that have a Universal Grammar and an ‘in-born’ ‘organ’ for syntactic
language development according to Chomsky.

Speaking Your Mind

One of the Advanced modules we teach in CLLR (https://cllr.com.au/register-to-study/) is on the nature of
Semantics, Semiosis, Linguistics and the creation of meaning. This Advanced Linguistics module addresses the
primary question: what are you trying to say?
Most of the simplistic fluff that floats around in the safety space proposes the naïve Behaviourist idea that
communication is simple, black and white. In this Behaviourist ideology communication is just about inputs
and outputs, sender and receiver, message and sender, message and receiver. Under the assumptions of this
ideology learning is easy, just tell people what they need to know and bingo - job done. Of course by the same

Chapter 7: What are You Trying to Say? 209

naïve assumption, if something goes wrong it can’t possibly be the method of communication, it must be the
problem of the receiver, can’t possibly be the problem of the sender or the medium of the message. There you
go, its all common sense. ‘It’s the right thing to do, so do the right thing’, ‘check your gut’, ‘safety is a choice you
make!’ ‘It is better to do the right [safety] thing wrong than the wrong [safety] thing right’. This is the kind of
discourse Safety speaks and doesn’t know that such Discourse embeds a Natural Law Deontological Ethic. Such
a construct is a wonderful foundation for dehumansing persons.
For those who even do the smallest level of research on the nature of language acquisition know that no one
knows how humans acquire language, it’s a mystery. After Chomsky absolutely demolished the Behaviourists
in the 1960s (https://crackerbarrel.weebly.com/) Linguistics has become a new field of interest and with more
theorists emerging and still no clue or consensus of how humans acquire language (http://dlpalmer.weebly.com/
uploads/3/5/8/7/3587856/language_acquisition_theories.pdf.)
So many studies on Linguistics end up in the same mysteries as those before and so the latest in Neurolinguistics,
Semiotics and the Embodyists schools of thought all making the same leaps of faith about language acquisition
as those before them. About the only thing we are certain of is that the Behaviourists have not a clue about
language acquisition.
In the Advanced Linguistics module we explore the ideas of the 10 major theorists in Linguistics and study the
works of: Skinner, Chomsky, Merleau-Ponty, Wittgenstein, Derrida, Kristeva, Lacan, Berbe, Halliday, Lackoff
and Johnson, Jung and Fuchs.
What we learn in studying Linguistics is that communication is much more complex and mysterious than the
simplistic and naïve stuff that floats about risk. One thing is to be sure, if the Behaviourists are involved whatever
results comes out in blaming, projection, guilt and failure.
The moment one embraces a study in Linguistics one faces the proverbial body-mind-brain problem. FYI,
here is a neat little concept map of all that is involved just in approaching the problem of Linguistics from
Neuropsychology. See Figure 166. NeuroPsychology Concept Map.

Figure 166. NeuroPsychology Concept Map

210 Envisioning Risk

There you go, piece of cake, common sense, check your gut and do the right thing, now map the remaining dozen
or so theories and you might get some idea of the challenge.
So, when one approaches the fundamentals of communication and the complexities of learning (https://
safetyrisk.net/learning-styles-matter/) one needs to be wise, eclectic and Transdisciplinary in order to understand
the complexities of communicating to the Conscious and Unconscious.
When exploring the effectiveness of communication the following need to be considered:
• Systemic codes and • Intertextual dynamics • Aesthetic Factors
conventions • Cultural and Historical • Logical Principles
• Linguistic architecture Influences • Semiotic Codes
• Syntactics • Structural semantics • Semantic Codes
• Paralinguistics • Presentational Formal and • Ethical Norms
• Dialectics Informals
• Ideological Principles
• Ideoletics • Epistemic Purpose
• Psychological Codes

Then of course, just within Paralinguistic factors are more than a dozen critical bodily codes that can change the
purpose and success of a message just by: tone, pitch, rate, timbre, rhythm and pitch of voice. And that is just for
spoken text.
The more one researches the nature of language, Linguistics and communication the more one knows just
how dumb the ‘tell it and police it’ model is. The more one realizes that 95% of communication is interpreted
unconsciously; the less one buys into the silly ‘tell it and police it’ model of safety.
Whilst the task may be a little daunting, a study of Linguistics helps with a far better possibility of success if you
are trying to actually care to say something and want it to ‘work’ and result in learning.

The Mysterious Middle

The question of Chomsky’s ‘innateness’ raises the unsolveable mind-body-brain problem. There is simply no
consensus in understanding the human unconscious, consiousness or Collective Unconscious. Of course, this is
not considered a problem by Technique because the brain-as-computer serves to explain all the mysterious ways
humans learn. What Chomsky does is completely dismantle the faith-based arguments of this mindset. How
a child acquires language and syntax remains a mystery. There is clearly a third factor missing from the simple
input-output model or the social-environment model that proposes that children acquire language mechanically
via mimesis.
There are many others who have theories that endeavour to explain this third factor.
• Jung attributed the invisible transmission of knowledge and common code breaking as ‘the Collective
Unconscious’
• The Behaviourists, Materialists, Empiricists understand humans through Locke’s ‘blank slate’ and attribute
all learning to inputs. Even the Materialists like Popper held to a tripartite ontology of knowledge
acquisition and a dialectic between each ‘world’
• Ridley proposes that an invisible Genome carries an unconscious code (Ridley, M., (1999) Genome, The
Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters. Harper Collins. Melbourne)
• Chomsky proposes that humans prossess an ‘innateness’ and Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
• Dawkins proposed that ‘meme’s carried evolutionary information across and within species (The Selfish Gene)

Chapter 7: What are You Trying to Say? 211

• Fuchs and the Embodiment theorists propose that information and knowledge is held and transferred
socially, environmentally and is coded in cultural Socialitie.
• Plato, Aristotle and Paul maintain the idea of a ‘soul’ (psyche) or ‘life force’. Soul is a word commonly used
to refer to the hidden spirit of something. We often refer to the ‘soul’ of politics, law or the ‘soul’ of a nation.
• Karl Marx and subsequent writers, itself a form of Physicalism, held that consciousness was engendered by
the material contingencies of one’s environment
• The Neuroscience Movement continues to try and find the mind chemically in sections of the brain (eg.
Dennett)
All of these researchers, scientists and thinkers agree on three things: consciousness is a Mystery, dualism doesn’t
solve the problem and a third factor must explain the nature of the conscious-unconscious human being. No-one
seems to know, apart from an abundance of theories, why the human mental state exists and differs from the brain
state. Why does matter generate consciousness? One thing is for sure thus far - The brain is NOT the Mind.
So, in our fallibility we need to park this problem and focus on the phenomenology of the Mind more than we
seek to explain it’s sources. The mystery of language acquisition highlights the failure of all these theories to
explain the mysteries of the Unconscious. Despite this, I would like to propose that we can observe the workings
of the Unconscious and develop strategies and skills to communicate to it. This is the focus of this chapter.

Discourse Analysis
Once on the subject of language we need to engage in the study of Discourse and Hermeneutics.
discourse can be understood as language-in-use (lower case ‘d’) and Discourse captures the nature
of what is embedded in language (represented by an upper case ‘D’). The use of the word discourse
denotes everyday usage, conversation and language exchange. Discourse has a focus on the power,
ethics and politics embedded in language. Such an approach to Discourse is part of Discourse
Analysis, a Discipline within itself that seeks to uncover the semiosis in code embedded in discourse.
The focus on Discourse emerged out of Post-structuralism in the work of Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze,
Baudrillard, Kristeva, and Lacan. Structuralism proposes that one may understand human culture by means of
a structure modelled on language. Post-structuralism rejects the Structuralist notion that the dominant word in
a pair is dependent on its subservient counterpart and instead argues that founding knowledge either on pure
experience (Phenomenology) or on systematic structures (Structuralism) is impossible. This is because history
and culture cannot be seperated from the underlying structures of language itself and that these are subject to
biases and misinterpretations. Hence the importance of also studying Hermeneutics.
The Poststructuralists argue that one has to understand an object (speech or text) and the systems of knowledge
that produced the object in order to decode intended meaning. A critical aspect of investigating undisclosed
codes in discourse is Deconstruction and Discourse Analysis. Deconstruction seeks to understand the relationship
between text and meaning. Deconstruction perceives that language, especially ideal concepts are irreducibly
complex, unstable, or impossible to determine objectively. The founder of Deconstruction was Jacques Derrida.
All language is subjective and interpreted, language isn’t objective. Even the language of Science and Engineering
is loaded by worldviews shaped by history, tradition, culture and Discourse within the Discipline. So one may
think one is transporting meaning in text about risk or engineering or even law but it is all interpreted. The
language of Science and Engineering is far more loaded than the objective of either discipline.
The language of scientific ‘proofs’ is the language of Positivism, Behaviourism and Empiricism. Such a language
often gives away a Discourse of control, power and security in the face of uncertainty. It is one thing to seek
knowledge ‘scientifically’ and something completely different to undertake Discourse Analysis on the ways in
which Science ‘speaks’. The two are inseparable, the medium of the message is part of the message.

212 Envisioning Risk

Scholars like Kuhn, Feyerbend, Laktos and Law first introduced the idea of subjectivities in Science, not just in
method but methodology (philosophy of method). Also embedded in such concepts as ‘scientific method’ is the
language and Discourse of how Science expresses itself. Science can be understood as an activity, a discourse and
an Archetype.
So, when we explore the challenges of Discourse (the power in language) we begin to explore the many hidden
things we cannot see in what is said and written.
So in order to show the Wickedity of language I will finish this discussion on questions that people doing the
Linguistics module investigate:
1. Where is the power in the ‘text’?
2. What is the cultural semiospherical sub-text?
3. What is the social politics of the text?
4. How does context transmit semiosis (constructed meaning)?
5. What hermeneutic guides interpretation?
6. What is happening in the hyphen of the I-thou?
7. What ontology/ethic is embedded in the text?
8. What is the Poetics of the text?
9. What is the Socialite of the discourse?
10. What ‘social languages’ are evident?
11. What is the environment in which language is used?
12. What disciplines and trans-disciplines are implicated in the discourse and Discourse?
13. What are the hidden subjectivities in the text?
14. What is the etymology of the text?
15. How is language embodied?
16. What is the use of metaphor?
17. What is the intended purpose/semiosis of the language?
18. What is the methodology behind the method/medium of language?
19. What hidden and grammatical codes are embedded in the text?
20. What Technique is served by the text?
21. How is language embodied and made meaningful to the Mind?
If you want to study Discourse Analysis perhaps start with an introductory text (https://anekawarnapendidikan.
files.wordpress.com/2014/04/an-introduction-to-discourse-analysis-by-james-paul-gee.pdf ). Many of these
questions lead one down the pathway that demonstrates Language as a Wicked problem.

Hermeneutics
Hermeneutics is the study of interpretation. When one disposes of the myth of objectivity and understands the
reality of subjectivity then one ‘sees’ the source of interpretation of data as critical to Epistemology, the study of
knowing. Hermeneutics is essential to vision and understanding risk.

Chapter 7: What are You Trying to Say? 213

Female Dr Who
When the first female Dr Who came on the scene there was a media furour (http://www.smh.com.
au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/theres-a-girl-in-my-tardis-gender-politics-time-travel-and-doctor-
who-20170716-gxcg0s.html). The reports extracted every ounce of gender stereotyping possible in the
name of journalism. What this so called furor highlighted was the continued misunderstanding in our
society of Feminism, gender and confusion about social politics. Feminism is not just about being female
and Masculinism is not just about being male. Understanding gender itself and the polarization and
politicisation of gender are two completely different things. Being male or female is very different from
the nature of ideology.
Feminism shares a similar history and evolution to Social Psychology. If you look at the Evolution of Social
Psychology you will see shared roots in the work of Gramsci, Semiotics, Post-Structuralism, Post-Modernism
and Critical Theory.
Text is not neutral regardless of how language/words are defined in a dictionary, context is everything. This
doesn’t mean that one can make any word to mean anything but rather meaning in language is qualified by
context, culture and historical use.
The discipline of Hermeneutics emerges from those interested in interpretation of religious texts including
the Bible. However, Philosophical Hermeneutics is quite different. A good introduction is here: https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=6wPTV5hyB0Y; https://blog.oup.com/2017/06/9-facts-about-hermeneutics/
One of the challenges of Philosophical Hermeneutics is complexity. A reading of Ricoeur (2007) The Conflict of
Interpretations, Essays in Hermeneutics is a good starting point.
Hermeneutics is qualified by semantics (linguistics, grammar and text as sign), Semiotics (symbol systems)
and Semiosis (symbols/myth meaning). As Ricouer makes clear ‘word is both system and act, a seeing and
saying’ (p. xix). All language is caught up in a dialectic between the finite and infinite, closed and open and, the
subject-object.
In Hermeneutics we learn to decipher text. The way language is used symbolically and metaphorically often
means that meaning is hidden in its use.
Originally, Hermeneutics was a theological problem and a background in Theology helps with developing a
consistent hermeneutic. The philosophy of Phenomenology is also a source in understanding Philosophical
Hermeneutics and Semiotics. Understanding the insertion of symbolic words into myths is critical for discerning
meaning in language. For Ricoeur the subject as text is a text that is symbolic and, therefore calls for a work of
discernment. The ‘Hermeneutic of Suspicion’ is important in the task of critical thinking. This is how one seeks
out ‘false consciousness’ and the ‘hermeneutics of belief ’. The tools for enacting discernment in meaning are
deconstruction and de-mythology.

Why does this matter?

The dominant myth in the risk industry is the myth of scientific objectivity or Positivism (https://plato.
stanford.edu/entries/scientific-objectivity/). This hermeneutic imagines that language, symbols, myths
and data are objective when in fact, all discourse/language is value laden. The industry speaks in absolute
ways when in comes to managing fallibility and rather than focusing on humans and people it focuses
on objects and numbers. This is how it ends up with absurd statements like, ‘there can be no other ethical
goal in safety than zero!’ Other absurd statements such as ‘safety is a choice you make’ or ‘all accidents are
preventable’ are all fostered by a ‘hermeneutic of objects’. This Hermeneutic hides a view that understands
risk as anathema to safety. It constructs a number as the measure of safety - and from thence the culture
of policing, power, domination, control, compliance and fear emerges. All conducted in the name of
salvation of the vulnerable, weak and fallible. This is most obvious in a Masculinist industry that controls
hazards by ‘telling’.

214 Envisioning Risk

Whilst Feminism is primarily about rights for women at its heart is a concern for equality in the face of
domination and a Masculinist quest for power. It is important not to confuse the notion of Feminism or
Masculinism with gender. Men are not excluded from campaigning for equality and women’s rights and women
can equally express themselves in masculinst ways.
Men are also harmed by a Masculinist thirst for political power, control, exploitation, authoritarianism,
treating people as objects and reductionism. Whilst the social construct of masculinity is seen by Feminism as
problematic because it associates males with aggression and competition, it is not helpful to confuse the ideology
of domination with being male. This in itself reinforces patriarchal and unequal gender relations.
Feminism shares common theoretical and philosophical disciplines with Social Psychology namely: Sociology,
Psychology, Politics, Annales History, Anthropology, Philosophy, Semiotics, Cultural Theory, Discourse Analysis
and Linguistics. It is only in a Trans-disciplinary approach to risk that we best find ways to tackle Wicked
Problems (http://www.peterwagner.com.au/wp-content/uploads/Safety-A-Wicked-Problem2.pdf ).
In the late twentieth century various feminists began arguing that gender roles are socially constructed. Post-
structural Feminism argued that gender roles are essentially created through cultural discourse (semiosis,
language, symbols and signs). When we observe the nature of Masculinist ‘framing’ we see a prioritization on
reductionism , privileged status given to STEM and Technique, devaluation of ‘people’ skills as ‘soft’ skills’ and
knowledge, a quest for absolutes, a focus on binary oppositions, black and white thinking and, disparaging
discursive ways of knowing (See: Tannen, D., (ed.) (1993) Framing in Discourse. Oxford Uni Press, New York;
Blenky, M., et.al., (1997) Women’s Ways of Knowing. Basic Books, New York.). Masculinist hermeneutics are
extraordinarily prevalent in risk discourse.
The hermeneutics of risk demonstrates that STEM-only knowledge, Technique and a Masculinist focus on
objects (hazards) and power using regulation, has become the ‘way of safety’ or the dominant ‘paradigm’ (Kuhn).
Simply being a woman in the risk industry makes no difference to the practice of risk management without a
Social Psychology of Risk. It is from a Social Psychological understanding that Masculinist methods are brought
into focus. Being a woman and maintaining Masculinst methods of doing risk simply becomes Masculinst Risk.
The tools of objectifying people, blaming (eg. ‘safety is a choice you make’), punishing, inequality (eg. ‘safety
first’), policing, telling, counting (zero and LTIs) and focusing on authoritarian approaches to risk are Masculinst
tools for power and control. The devaluing of dialogue, listening, respect, questioning, openness, trust, facilitation,
helping and non-measurement show that Feminist values struggle to take hold in the risk industry. The mantra
to do ‘safety differently’ is clearly a desire to move away from the orthodox Masculinist ideology that has come to
dominate the way risk management has been practiced.
As part of this discussion I think it is important that a male should write such a piece on a Feminist
understanding of risk, as the confusion of gender with ideology is also a source of dismissal by a Masculinism
that devalues the voice speaking the message.
The recent emergence of the Women in Safety movement offers promise to an industry that is known for its
brutalism, use of power (in the name of good) and objectification (https://safetyrisk.net/safety-isnt-sexy-and-it-
shouldnt-be/). I only hope that this new influence of Women in risk isn’t seduced by identity with Masculinist
methods and values.
So, SPoR proposes a ‘dialectical existentialist hermeneutic’ in order to best understand risk. Whilst these big
words may seem daunting they capture the philosophies that underpin a life that holds: risk in tension with
learning, experiencing life in tension with academia, the past with the present and, subjectivising in tension with
objectivising. SPoR doesn’t seek to exclude worldviews but rather hold them in tension with each other in their
collective social reality. This requires a Transdisciplinary approach that acknowledges disciplines equally and seek
not to priviledge the power of one over the other.

Chapter 7: What are You Trying to Say? 215

A Special Note on Her-story
One of the first things one learns in a study of Historiography is how History is ‘constructed’. The beginning of
understanding His-story is that Her-story is often missing. Similarly, the nature of other oppressed groups eg.
Indigenous peoples, are also absent from the Masculinist power-centric History of the past. Indeed the same
can be said for Theology where a masculine cohort explains a masculine god. There is little doubt that the Bible
presents a Masculinist picture of God.
When I first studied Historiography in 1971 I was confronted by the realities of bias and Historical subjectivities.
I cut my teeth on Carr What is History? and Rob Pascoe The Construction of Australian History and first became
attracted to Annales History, the History of Mentalities (https://www.jstor.org/stable/260089?seq=1; http://
individual.utoronto.ca/bmclean/hermeneutics/braudel_suppl/annales_school_dir.htm).
When one understands the construction of knowledge and History as Masculinist then one ‘sees’ the dominance
of power and the ‘will to power’ in orthodoxies. Such is the pathway of how Social Psychology understands
History. The SPoR Vision of risk is not the orthodox vision. There is no History unless one understands an Ethic
and Politik of History. Several questions are important:
1. Whose best interests are served by this construction of events?
2. What is the bias of the History?
3. Where is the power?
4. Who is silenced in the History?
5. What and who are privileged by this History?
6. Who and what are demonsised in this History?
These kinds of questions are essential in tackling History from an SPoR worldview.
This is why I included a selection of female and Indigenous visionaries in my discussion on Vision.
Of course the implications for how Risk tells its story is significant. The following questions should be asked:
1. Through what language does Risk explain the world?
2. What groups of people and geneder are empowered by such a view?
3. How does the language of the risk industry exclude certain views and priveledge others?
4. What philsophical view is privileged in the story of risk?
5. What worldviews are silenced in such an approach to risk?
I wish I could invite you to a study in Annales History and the History of Mentalities but there is sufficient
content in this book to provide an introduction to such a critical view of History.

Language
Humans understand themselves as a lingusitic self, once proficient by the age of 3 years old, humans don’t have to
‘think’ about speaking - we speak unconsciously, language just comes out. Indeed, we can even speak to ourselves
consciously and unconsciously.
1. A particular public language, e.g. ‘The French language’
2. Communication by means of (1), e.g. ‘His language was fluent’, speech.
3. In linguistics/cognitive science: Knowledge of (1), permitting (2), Language as a cognitive phenomenon

216 Envisioning Risk

4. In Linguistics/Cognitive Science: The (neuro)biological basis for (2) and (3), e.g. ‘Language in the brain’
5. In Linguistics/Philosophy: The capacity to acquire (1), resulting in (3) and (2), e.g.’Homo sapiens alone
possesses language’.
6. The Language of Semiotics (signs/symbol systems)
When we use language are we aware that we communicate on all these levels and that all modes of language
influence humans and the unconscious simultaneously?

The Process of Language Acquisition

• Children show they have communicative abilities from the moment they are born. Crying even has tones
that parents know means different things eg. my nappy is uncomfortable, i need food, i am in pain, i’m tired
etc. Parents can also differentiate the cry of their own child from the cry of others.
• Children themselves show that they can differentiate between sounds. Many of the early developments
make children ‘ready’ for language.
• At 10-12 weeks children smile when talked to and cooing and chuckling sounds emerge. They can also
refuse food by turning their head and closing their mouth in refusal.
• Very early on children develop symbolic, iconic, signs and semiosis through gesturing. They learn very early
that they can regulate the behaviour of others with symbols and signs through gesture. It is this early that
we observe how children are motivated by meaning making, needs, wants, desires, purpose and autonomy.
Babies who gesture learn language more quickly that children who don’t gesture as much.
• By 6 months the cooing and cuckling turns into babbling and one syllable utterances.
• The acquisition of language starts when children learn their first words usually about 9-12 months.
• At 9 months children can shake their head NO and then nod for YES.
• By 10 months children can reach, point, grab, touch, clap, wave, raise arms,
• The first words that convey meaning and understanding occur during this period. By this time children can
finger point, gesture wish Shhh, blow a kiss and clap.
• By 16 months children can gesture for smell, don’t know, gesture to wait etc. All these gestures show that the
child can think about what their gestures are saying and how they symbolically communicate to others. The
16 foundational gestures become the method for attachment of language to action and making language
meaningful. At this stage they know that gestures are ‘iconic’.
• The other faculty that complements gesture is that children know how to direct their gaze to match
language at this early stage.
• At 18 months there is a significant turning period where a spurt occurs where children aquire a new word
every waking hour. The single word stage is known as the ‘Holophrastic Stage’. Even then children know
how to place the right word according to syntax to a context. It doesn’t take long and children join and add
words to two, three and then sentences.
• Despite the fact that children blend words without verbs they still know how to order words to make sense
eg. ‘baby chair’ meaning ‘baby is sitting in the chair’. At this stage they also know how to differentiate objects
from subjects in language.
• As the child enters the ‘Telegraphic Stage’ they can utter complex communications that resemble telegrams.
In a way these are very efficient and they can hold syntactic order without need for some parts of speech.
• By the age of 3-5 years childten know how to use metaphors and images words. This is despite the fact that
metaphors are an indirect mode of language that describes something by something else.

Chapter 7: What are You Trying to Say? 217

• By the time a child turns 5 years of age they have 2000 words or more and grammatical abilities of an adult.
Of course one of the strangest parts of children aquiring language is that parents do not correct their children’s
grammatical mistakes and often speak to them in ‘baby talk’ or gibberish. So how do they develop such
grammatical expertise without being taught? How do they learn syntactical correctness without being taught?
These are the kinds of questions that Chomsky put to the Behavioustists and Piaget.

The Power of Gesture

My wife and I had a stop over in Shanghai for a few days enroute to Helsinki, a trip to see new
inlaws and acquaint ourselves with Finnish culture. Since then we have had several trips to Finland
as my daughter lived there for some time. My Son-in-Law is a Finn and an expert in Ice Hockey.
For those who have read previous books will know about their wedding and the importance of
Sisu in their culture. (Fallibility and Risk pp 107ff - https://www.humandymensions.com/product/
fallibility-risk-living-uncertainty/)
For those who know Shanghai there is old Shanghai (The Bund) and new Shanghai across the river. You
can read a brief history of The Bund here: https://www.topchinatravel.com/china-attractions/the-bund.
htm. The Bund is a popular tourist spot because it is representative of Colonial China under British and
French influence up to 1940. You can see a pic taken on the Bund looking across to new Shanghai in
Figure167. Shangahi.
Figure 167. Shanghai
When we were on The Bund we had some
interesting experiences. Whilst noone in the
markets could speak a word of English they
all knew how to haggle for a rip off price
with hand signals and with the phrase they
had learned ‘no joking, best price no joking’.
You could be sure that whatever price you
compromised was a 300% mark up on the real
cost.
Being in a foreign culture often amplifies the
importance of gesture. Gesture is any semiotic sign that communicates not using spoken or written
language. Gestures like hand signals, inflection of eyes, waving, sounds like whistling, yelling or body
movements all communicate across cultures. We all use gestures constantly and are rarely aware of it.
Gestures are a language in themselves and are learned culturally like other forms of language acquisition.
Most of the times people gesture unconsciously and do so accompanying verbal language. Often a gesture
can help amplify meaning which is why we often see people waving hands, pointing and using their
hands to synchronise meaning with language.
When you are on The Bund you don’t really notice the presence of the Red Army unless you do
something defined as wrong and I found that out quickly on this trip. We were on the shore line and
wanted to get a better vantage point for a photo so I did what made sense to me and I stood on a fixed
park bench to take a better shot. In less than 5 seconds out blurted this whistle ‘fweet’, ‘fweet’, ‘fweet’, it
was a smartly dressed Red Guard soldier pointing at me and waving to step down. The communication
was very clear. So I quickly got down and his hand waving changed to a wiggling finger saying ‘no’,
‘no’ no’. We all know that finger wave having learned it from Mum and Dad. Simply point your finger
upwards and wave it side to side.
For a moment I was worried I would get a ticket but then this was followed by an OK sign and a wave
to send me on my way. I know nothing of Chinese and the soldier clearly knew no English but we both
understood what the communication intended. Such is the powerful semiotic of gesture (https://www.

218 Envisioning Risk

 researchgate.net/publication/328247676_ Figure 168. On The Bund
The_Semiotics_of_gestures_in_cognitive_
linguistics_Contribution_and_challenges).
We can learn much about the power of geture
through studies in Body Language (https://
research.vu.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/84795150/
the_Semiotics_of_gestures_in_cognitive_
linguistics.pdf ). You can read more about body
language here: https://e-edu.nbu.bg/pluginfile.
php/331752/mod_resource/content/0/
Allan_and_Barbara_Pease_-_Body_Language_
The_Definitive_Book.pdf
Interestingly, whilst on The Bund with loads of
tourists I couldn’t help but notice the use of the
common ‘V for victory’ sign in photos taken by
Asian tourists. We know this also as the peace
sign (https://time.com/2980357/asia-photos-
peace-sign-v-janet-lynn-konica-jun-inoue/).
Some suggest that the V sign is associated with
‘cuteness’ or that it started from a habit after
World War 2. Others associate the V sign with
happiness. Regardless, this gesture is important
to Asians-as-tourists and not to other cultures
in tourist photo opportunities. See Figure 168.
On The Bund.
So we see in this story about Shanghai the criticality
of gesture as it is embedded in language. So, when we
think of what we are trying to say we need to consider
language holistically if we are seeking to be effective in
communication. This means including an understanding
of Semiotics, gesture, ritual and the unconscious in
how we understand the use of language, paralinguistics,
the meaning of Discourse and the non-text, non-verbal approaches to exchange, connecting and engaging with
others.

Language Acquistion as Embodied

If we go back to the roots of debate on language acquisition it was all Behaviourism until Chomsky endeavoured
to challenge such ideology. What Chomsky did was upset the Behaviourist applecart but since the debates in the
1970s and 1980s much has moved in research into language acquisition, Linguistics and the nature of learning.
The rise of research on Embodiment has changed the face of how we understand language acquisition and
language development. Starting with research by Polanyi in The Tacit Dimension (1966) we now know that much
of our knowing and enacting is embodied that is, we create in out bodies (not brains) the many heuristics we
need for decision making. I have discussed this in other places in the One Brain Three Minds model.
The following are a suggested list of readings (and scholars) in Embodiment research:
• Colombetti, G., (2014) The Feeling Body, Affective Science Meets the Enactive Mind. MIT Press, London.

Chapter 7: What are You Trying to Say? 219

• Damasio, A., (1994) Descartes Error, Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. Penguin, New York.
• Damasio, A., (1999) - The Feeling of What happens, Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness. Harvest
Books, Orlando.
• Durt, C., Fuchs, T., and Tewes, C., (eds.) (2017) Embodiment, Enaction and Culture, Investigating the
Consitution of the Shared World. MIT Press, London.
• Fuchs, T., (2018) Ecology of the Brain, The Phenomenology and Biology of the Embodied Mind. Oxford
University Press. London.
• Ginot, E., (2015) The Neuropsychology of the Unconscious, Integrating Brain and Mind in Psychotherapy.
Nortons, New York.
• Jasanoff, A., (2018) The Biological Mind, How Brain, Body, and Environment Collaborate to make Us Who We
Are. Basic Books. New York.
• Lakhoff, G., and Johnson, M., (1980) Metaphors We Live By. University of Chicago Press. New York. (http://
www.cabrillo.edu/~ewagner/WOK%20Eng%202/Lakoff%20&%20Johnson%20-%20Metaphors%20
We%20Live%20By.pdf )
• Noe, A., (2009) Out of Our Heads, Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from The Biology of
Consciousness. Hill and Wang, New York.
• Ravven, H., The Self Beyond Itself, An Alternative History of Ethics, the New Brain Sciences, and the Myth of Free
Will. The New Press. New York.
• Taversky, B., (2019) Mind in Motion, How Action Shapes Thought. Basic Books. New York.
• Van der Kolk, B., (2015) The Body Keeps the Score, Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Penguin.
New York.
• Varela, F., Thompson, E., and Rosch, E., (1993) The Embodied Mind, Cognitve Science and Human Experience.
MIT Press, London.
However, these are just a start. There is so much research now that confirms that language and Semiotics are
NOT just a collection of cognitve symbols as an abstract system situated in the brain. The idea that language
and Semiotics are about a disembodied mental symbol system couldn’t be further from the truth. Much of the
findings of the Embodiment research has been confirmed recently by extensive research in Neuroscience made
possible by the invention of technology such as fRMI scanning and other methods for measuring neural actiivity.
Language is not representational of the world inside the head but a form of Embodied Intersubjectivity. The
acquisition of language in infancy is not achieved through an abstract attribution of symbols to references but
rather an infants participation in shared practices of interacting in the world. The brain only becomes an organ of
symbolic mediation through social interaction.
We know through the work of Lakoff and Johnson that a systematic understanding of bodily metaphors are
acquired by infants prior to speech. All Para-linguistics are critical to understanding language and the medium as
the message.
All of these bodily metaphors are related to actions such as: pointing, grabbing, sucking, nodding, in and out, up
and down, front and back, warm and cold, fast and slow because of the way infants respond to their mother, carer
or father. All of the objects in the infants world make meaning by what they are anchored to - sucking, finger
point, lick, head movement etc are all physically linked to co-enactment between parent and child. There is strong
evidence for a Somatotopy of language. A great deal of evidence indicates that mirror neurons are excited by
certain actions and even the words that represent those actions.

220 Envisioning Risk

As a child engages with their mother they are immediately engaged by faces, posture, eyes and expressions.
Children learn quickly to immitate adults by sticking out their tongue, opening their mouth, frowning etc. This
is accomplished by discovery and perceiving how adults respond to mimicking. Embodiment scholars suggest
that imitation is an innate capability or a ‘Primary Intersubjectivity’. Communication at this level is known as
‘Motherese’. The infant learns quickly that welcome reactions, eye contact, musical utterances (Paralinguistics),
facial expressions and gestural signs all have meaning and create affect. Infants learn in the womb the tone,
rhythm, pitch and timbre of their mothers voice and anchor to it.
One of the most powerful gestures and infant learns is pointing. The gesture of pointing is a triadic
communication, it creates hand-air-eye connection between the i-thou. Pointing indicates to someone something
else. The Embodiment research calls this ‘We-Intentionality’. All of the gestures a child learns will later be
accompanied by language/words anchored to the action and so meaning in anchoring is how children learn
language. All gestures are Embodied Interaffectivity.
One of the classic gestures learned by infants is the shaking of one’s head for ‘no!’. An infant quickly learns the
power of ‘no!’ and later the nodding for ‘yes!’. This is common to most cultures and they think evolved from
actions withdrawing away from the breast in feeding (sideways shake) and yes nodding learned by bowing in
agreement. Thus the early development of Paralinguistic Musicality and deiktic (pronounciation) and iconic
gestures lay the foundation for the anchoring of words to embodied experience. Words make sense to children
and are comprehensible because they anchor to meaningful actions. Musicality is a big part too of language
acquisition and the way in which language resonates with the child. In this way words serve a poetic function for
the child such as a deepened voice for ‘no!’ from the parent and or a higher pitched sound for pleasing words.
The Embodiment research suggests that all communication between adults and children is an interpersonal
resonance system for goal-directed movements. Neuroscience shows that gestured exchange excites the same
areas of the brain in mutual participants. So, speech should not really be thought of just as a symbol system
but rather a transformational gesture system for evoking action. Later children learn that words are carriers of
intersubjective meaning. Indeed, research shows that hearing words for gestures triggers the same mirror neuron
space in the brain as if the action itself was being enacted.
It is through these studies that we can now appreciate the importance of Semiotics in language and discourse
not just for the aquistion of language but for how the whole of language in its many forms communicates to the
human unconscious.

Ritual
We can now make a jump from the power of gesture to power of ritual. In ritual we see the combination of the
power of gesture embedded in the meaning and significance of ritual. It is in ritual that humans embody the
Semiotics of gesture and performance and create Semiosis.
Many enactions come together in ritual, these are:
• Language as performance • Communicating to the • Heuristics
Unconscious
• Gesture • Embodiment
• Poetics
• Dance/Drama • Semiosis and,
• Rite and sacramentalism
• Musicality • Semiotics
• Habit

We need to understand all of these if we want to be effective in what we are trying to say. This is the key thesis
of this book.

Chapter 7: What are You Trying to Say? 221

However, before we start assembling these together as a way of communicating we first need an interlude to
review the notion of myth as symbol and symbol as myth. The use of the language of myth/symbol in SPoR
throughout this book is as follows.

Myth and Symbol

Myth is defined by Ricoeur (1967) as:
Myth will here be taken to mean what the history of religions now finds in it: not a false explanation
by means of images and fables, but a traditional narration which relates to events that happened at the
beginning of time and which has the purpose of providing grounds for the ritual actions of men of today
and, in a general manner, establishing all the forms of action and thought by which man understands
himself in the world.
Myth connects the empirically real with the mystical and sacred in the form of signs and symbols and
thus portrays how the world is with how people would like it to be. We see such an appropriation of this
understanding of myth in popular culture and movies. Many of the blockbusters in the last 10 years have been
focused on transcendence, the sacred and mythological explanations of the world.
A myth doesn’t have to factual or real to be symbolically powerful. Myth and symbol are the flip side of the same
coin. Once something has symbolic power it has mythological power, it doesn’t matter any longer that it is not
‘true’, the symbol holds efficacious power. This is embodied in the power of gesture in ritual.
It is through myth and symbology that we mediate our understandings of life. When we deny what is fallible
with the language of infallibility (zero) in discourse then no wonder Dekker describes bridging the gap between
engineering and psychology as ‘ontological alchemy’. The more the risk industry endeavours to measure the
immeasurable, the more it can only drift into religious mythology in its Discourse. No wonder the DuPont
Bradley Curve describes the human propensity to err in the discourse of Original Sin (https://safetyrisk.net/
nonsense-curves-and-pyramids/). How else could one atone for total human depravity and get to zero without
infallibility?

The Manufacture of Risk Mythology

I was speaking to a friend recently who described the safety person at their work as the person ‘who
everyone hates’. He told the story of how this person ‘armed with the Act and Regulation’ ‘crusaded’
about everywhere tagging out everything because it was a hazard and somehow ‘we were all liable’,
he would say. Some of the tagged out items included a six wheel book trolley with one wheel that
occasionally jammed. Apparently he tells everyone of his days in the army and how only he knows what
safety is all about, only he knew about hazards and only he can see what is unsafe. Not an uncommon
story, how did it get to this?
The risk industry is an industry consumed with Soteriology, the discipline of salvation. It makes perfect sense
that it would be an industry that creates sacraments in ritual to promote security, confidence and trust in the
efficaciousness of the rituals it creates. It doesn’t matter so much that these rituals don’t work (especially to
exonerate in court) so long as Social-Politcial power is maintained.

Risk as Performance
We learn from Elam (2010) The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama how the ritual of performance works. Elam (p.51)
notes the following communicative characteristics of performance:

222 Envisioning Risk

• Systemic conventions
• Spacial conventions
• Rules for dress and
connotation
• Make up conventions
• Scenic conventions
• Spacial sub-text
• Musical and poetic
conventions
• Staging norms
• Linguistic codes
• Modes of performing
• Rules of delivery
• Coding in paralinguistics
(voice, intonation, rhythm,
pitch, timre etc)
• Dialectical factors, i-thou
• Actors traits
• Expectation in delivery
• Expectations in expression
• Mimmetic principles
• Metatheatrical conventions
• Organisation of theatrical
‘frames’
• Symbolic semiotic
conventions
• Acting conventions
• Ethical and Moral norms
• Historic coding
• Social and economic
influences
• Ideologies
• Psychological motivations and
perceptions
• Traditional conventions

All of these are present in dance and ritual as performance. Whilst these can all be considered cognitvely they all
operate uncosnciously in the ‘dance’ of the ritual. Similarly, in the ‘theatre’ of the risk industry we observe these
at work in the symbolic gestures embodied in risk and safety rituals. many of the rituals of risk and safety are
embodied in paperwork and are attributed as being efficacious.

The Social Politics of Ritual

Humans create rituals so that they don’t have to think rationally about a process that is symbolized and
embodied in the ritual. In this way meaning is transferred quickly and doesn’t require arduous concentration
or rationalisation about meaning in the ritual itself. All rituals construct symbols and myths that embody the
meaning of something in the ritual. Unfortunately over time humans tend to forget the meaning of the ritual and
the ritual then becomes an end in itself – for identification, belonging, political gain and sorting ingroupness and
outgroupness.
Rituals are visible acts of performance and are foundational to cultural transference. The questioning of rituals
and any form of iconoclastic deconstruction or resistance is often interpreted as an attack on a culture. Yet such
critcal thinking is essential to the nature of envisioning. Acceptance of certain rituals helps a culture protect itself
and the assumptions that form the foundation of the ritual. So what are the characteristics of ritual?
• A ritual has a distinct form as an act that transacts with those as a medium for meaning.
• Rituals have a social context even when others are not present ie. The ritual is shared by a group.
• Rituals are collections of symbols that are enacted.
• Rituals convey psychological meaning through act and symbol to the Collective Unconscious of a group.
• Rituals codify something shared and the code is understood and accepted by the group.
• The codes of rituals are often put into text, rules and processes of order and given authority for a group.
• Language codified in the ritual is shared amongst the group and becomes a litmus test for consensus.
• Rituals through repetition become a heuristic and habit and are moderated by the group to ensure ‘proper’
enactment of the ritual.
• Rituals embody a collection of choices as indicators of the following of rules and cultural identity.

Chapter 7: What are You Trying to Say? 223

• In this way rituals can be used to create political association of a group and are used by the power elite of a
group to modify membership of the group.
• Rituals are accepted as cultural identity for a group especially when they are unconscious and initiated
through bodies of knowledge and specialized language that is often ‘professionalized’.
• Rituals are a framing device and serve a boundary for association and acceptance to a group.
• One enters group identity by accepting without question the assumptions of the ritual.
• Rituals acquire over time an aura of sacredness in themselves and a form of becoming unquestionable.
• Rituals reify the cultural world of a group and the protectors of the rituals become elevated in status and
power.
• Rituals sometimes invert accepted norms of other groups and society and explain identity in
contradistinction to outsiders.
• Worldviews are hidden in rituals and are rarely questioned.
• Rituals are often used to polarize identity and use binary dynamics to demonsise ‘others’ outside of a group.
One of the values of understanding Semiotics, myth, gesture and symbol is to understand how rituals work to
create in-groupness and out-groupness. Rituals in and of themselves need not necessarily be bad but when left
unquestioned assist the creation of cultic practice and in a way are made sacred and automatic. Rituals take on
a sense of religiousness in time and are often identified with being ‘saved’ or salvation. In the risk industry the
Soteriology of saving is profound.
Rituals call for belief and restrict diversity, plurality, transparency and integrity and as such become tools that
hide unethical conduct because identity is accepted by performance not methodology.
It is from this perspective that Mary Douglas offers a helpful construct to explore the rituals of risk and safety
and what they do in ritual. See further: Purity and Danger (1966) (https://monoskop.org/images/7/7d/Douglas_
Mary_Purity_and_Danger_An_Analysis_of_Concepts_of_Pollution_and_Taboo_2001.pdf )

Risk Rituals
I was at a school function for my grandchildren and happened to be talking to the Deputy Principal
(DP) and he mentioned in passing that he wanted to bring in some ‘free play’ into the curriculum. In our
discussion he mentioned he had downloaded a risk assessment and was content that the risks of ‘free play’
in the playground were ‘covered’. I asked to see the assessment and so he emailed it to me. I received 16
pages of unmitigated safety gobbledygook, and when reading it realized that most of it would make the
school more liable in a court should something go wrong.
In the document of course were the sacred sacraments and rituals of the Risk Matrix, Bow-Tie, Pyramid
and Hierarchy of Controls. The DP had no idea what these were but felt comfortable that some safety
person had sacralised them as essential to a risk assessment. When any of these are challenged most
people in the risk industry can’t even rationalize why they are used or how they make sense. This is similar
to most theologies in religious ritual. And this is how the risk industry turns a process in to an essential
sacrament. Once something is sacralised it becomes a social-political-object and is nearly impossible to
remove, whether it has any value or not. You don’t have to know what a ritual means gesture in order to
believe it is efficacious. Such is the interaffectivity of embodiment in ritual.
I read the document and on return asked the DP if I could go on a walk and do an actual risk assessment.
We took nothing with us, no checklist, no ritual sacraments and no mumbo jumbo rituals. All we needed
were some basic questions about how children think and behave at play along with some mutual study in
the study of child development psychology. We walked for about 40 minutes and I wondered what all the

224 Envisioning Risk

 anxiety was about, there was only one place in Figure 169. School Free Play Area
the school yard where there was any significant
risk and if anything this was over-supervised.
The school was easily covered by how it had
tackled risk and clearly exercised due diligence.
As we walked back to his office I offered to
write his risk assessment and to keep it under
two pages. You would have thought I’d given
him a birthday present, he was so appreciative.
It’s so easy to mistake Papersafety (https://
www.waylandlegal.com.au/post/paper-safe)
for a risk assessment, when unfortunatley most
of it is ritualistic sacrament as indoctrination.
Unfortunately, in the risk industry, the attachment of analysis to meaningless rituals and sacraments in
risk assessment adds no value to thinking about risk. But when a sacrament becomes a political tool for
belonging/identity it actually creates legal liability because none of this could ever be explained rationally
in court (https://vimeo.com/162637292, https://vimeo.com/167228715, https://vimeo.com/166158437,
https://vimeo.com/162034157). This is the theology of the risk industry. The sacrament of the risk matrix
will get you in a whole heap of trouble in court if you think you know how to explain its efficaciousness.
You can see the school ‘free play’ area at Figure 169. School Free Play Area.
This free play area is simply an unused space of the extended playground where the ground is rough. The
school provides rope, tarpaulins, plastics, crates, sticks, logs etc for the children to assemble and create as
they wish. It is extremely popular whilst orthodox and traditional play equipment is less used.
Most of the rituals and sacraments in risk are delusional myths that convince people that they have
undertaken a risk assessment. Most symbols, myths and rituals are much more about acts of faith/belief
than thinking about risk. They serve the same values as a sacrament/ritual in a cult. Similarly, all this
preoccupation with injury rates and Total Recordable Injuty Frequency (trifr) Rates is also ritualistic
mumbo jumbo that has no cultural meaning. In this case a 40 minute walk and chat about supervision
and we achieved a sensible outcome. Here we were with 500 children in 5 different areas of the school all
playing, running about, excited and being normal, what a responsibility it is to be accountability for the
risk of 400 people’s children. Could there be any greater responsibility? Why then would someone want
to ruin that life with the rituals and sacraments of risk that adds no value to tackling risk?
Rituals are the foundation of cultural belonging and identity. You can’t really understand or influence culture
without a good grasp of rituals and artefacts. The idea that behaviours (‘what we do around here’) define culture is
one of the grand delusions of simplistic risk and safety. For those who are unfamiliar with rituals the January 17
Issue of New Scientist (‘Dark Rites’) is a good overview.
The dimensions of ritual is extraordinary, from the way we get up and have breakfast or brush our teeth, to
elaborate social festivals and religious celebrations. Most rituals are practiced religiously, although the ritual itself
may not be religious. Rituals make for comfort, belonging, security, acceptance and learning, all very powerful
social psychological forces that influence daily individual and organizational life. Sometimes the best way to learn
about a ritual is to break one.

Ritual and OCD

The excess of rituals can lead to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) so that a person with OCD
cannot function without the ritual or rituals. I know a number of people who don’t feel safe unless they
have conducted a number of rituals before entering a car or plane. This may include touching things a
certain way, sitting in a certain position or undertaking some routine with superstitious rigour.

Chapter 7: What are You Trying to Say? 225

 I know one such person who has to walk around the car and touch every handle with the back of his
hand before he gets in and drives. He rubs the steering wheel in a certain way too and eventually starts
the car but his rituals take up to 5 minutes. All of these rituals are connected to his feeling of safety and if
he can’t do them, he won’t drive.
Often the development of ritual occurs through attribution (or Fundamental Attribution Error) when success or
luck is attributed to some thing or action. This is how superstitious rituals of sports people start.
Rituals are not ‘stupid’, nor ‘irrational’ but rather non-rational and often have enormous social psychological
power through attribution and social belonging. To the uninitiated or non-member of a group, rituals appear
‘stupid’, irrational and illogical. Regardless of perception, rituals make sense. If one cannot detect and understand
ritual, one is not likely to understand and influence culture.
Many acts of faith (religious or non-religious) are powerful and formative, often through symbolic and Semiotic
value. Often rituals tell a story, create identity and manufacture meaning. So, rituals need to be understood
culturally and historically not rationally. It doesn’t matter whether one joins a bikie gang, in-group at work or a
church, rituals make sense. Rituals are a way of organizing to help manage belonging, identity and dissonance.

Political Demarcation in Ritual

Rituals are also methods of demarcation, a way of constructing in-group and out-groupness. It doesn’t
matter whether it is a tattoo or a small piece of skin cut off the end of a penis, wars have been fought for
less. The growth of brands and territory between religious groups and denominations, are often signified
by rituals with water, food, body actions and dress. How much water you use in baptism and the mode of
using it can make all the difference. The amount of hair at the side of the head or how hair is shaped can
make one either ‘in’ or ‘out’.
When I was a kid teenage groups of ‘Bodgies’ and ‘Widges’ were a symbol of adolescent rebellion.
Hair and dress became sub-cultural artefacts and a ‘language’ to all. Artefacts are grammar in cultural
formation. I remember my eldest brother putting on layers of ‘Brilcream’ and getting the front tube-curl
just right before he could go out on a Saturday night. The style (completed with a brush-type ‘bug rake’)
was sides brushed back and front pushed forward. Elvis and James Dean were symbols of the style. Later,
with the Beatles it was long hair over the ears and with Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Cream , down to
the shoulders.
So, what has all this got to do with risk and envisioning? Let’s just explore five things about ritual as a starter.
1. It’s time rituals and artefacts, language and Semiotics were brought back into an understanding of culture. The
Behaviourist nonsense and BBS delusion of culture as ‘what we do around here’ simply mis-educates everyone.
2. Rituals have meaning and can lose meaning. People can be desensitized to thinking through rituals so that
tasks are performed that have lost meaning and sense. I wonder what meaningless risk and safety rituals are in
your workplace? Are there things being done that are nothing more than ‘going through the motions’? Do some
rituals need to be re-invigorated? Sometimes rituals have to be jettisoned in order to envision a new trajectory.
3. Rituals can have religious and ideological power with dangerous effect. For example, adopting the language
of ‘zero’ ritualistically without thinking how its language and discourse drives absolutism, brutalism and
perfectionism. What happens in your workplace when you question the sacredness of zero? Has your workplace
renamed the safety person with the sacred ‘zero’ name and removed the word safety from cultural language? The
idea that someone could be a Zero Harm Manager is nonsense.
4. Establishing rituals in risk and safety can establish superior and subordinate roles. This makes it clear who
gives the orders and who takes them, who are in authority and who are ‘idiots’. So, without raising questions
demands are put on the subordinates allowing some to repress others in the name of safety. There are no qualms
or protests on assaulting others freedoms and dignity if we invoke the sacred name of Safety. Are you aware how

226 Envisioning Risk

safety is being used this way? Do those in authority Figure 170. Semaphore (Visual Code)
hide behind Safety when indeed, when what is enacted
has nothing to do with safety at all?
5. Have you become OCD in risk and safety? What
rituals have more to do with the feeling of safety than
safety? Are there some rituals that should just quietly
slip away to nowhere? Are there rituals at work that
have much more to do with superstition, security and
belonging than safety?
The next brief discussion is to demonstrate how gesture
has been formally coded for effective communication.
The discussion seeks to demonstrate how gesure is Figure 171. Morse Code
embodied and made intuitive.

Gesture as Semiotic Code

Semaphore is a semiotic signalling system first
developed in 1866. Semaphore code is a form of
telegraphy that uses gestures to communicate language.
The flag system of semaphore can be see at Figure 170.
Semaphore
The Semaphore process is a way of helping us
understand gestural codes and body movements to
convey language and meaning.

Morse Code (Audible Code)

Similarly Morse Code was developed around 1837 to
communicate audible signs through telegraphy. Morse
code works similarly to binary computer code through
an on/off system of pulses generating a short sound, no Figure 172. Braille
sound or long sound. From this code one can compose
words. See Figure 171. Morse Code

Braille (Kinesthetic code)

Braille is another Semiotic code developed for people
who are visually impaired. The code was developed by
Louise Braille in 1827 and later included musical code.
See Figure 172. Braille. Braille is composed by simple
dots raised on a pages and gaps, similar to the binary
morse on/off code.

Chapter 7: What are You Trying to Say? 227

Code, Gesture and Sign Figure 173. National Museum of Australia
One of the fascinating features of the National
Museum of Australia (NMA) is not just its
weird design built around the symbol of an
endless Moebius Strip (https://mathworld.
wolfram.com/MoebiusStrip.html). The building
is a weird twist of Post-modern architecture
shaped in an ‘e’ from an aerial view to represent
the word ‘Eternity’ made famous by Arthur
Malcolm Stace, known as Mr Eternity. He
became an alcoholic but later converted to
Christianity and spread his message by writing the word ‘Eternity’ in copperplate writing with chalk on
footpaths in and around Sydney, from Martin Place to Parramatta, from 1932 to 1967.
The building also uses Braille code in its surface to make politcial statements silently as if to speak the
words of Australia’s First peoples. Foot (https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2008/10/rehabilitating-
australia-s-national-museum/) states:
As originally inserted into the building’s surface, these dots spelled out a coded political
message—in Braille. No one not in the know, can have realised what they meant, and it was not
intended that they should be. This was for the insiders only. ‘Forgive us our genocide’, read one;
‘Sorry’, read another. These phrases, obviously, were intended as a hidden challenge to the policies
of the then Government with regard to the Sstolen Generations” and Aboriginal Reconciliation.
They shouted it out, but in silence. No doubt the sight of a conservative prime minister opening
the NMA below a boldly displayed but secret message that contradicted his own policies would
have afforded the NMA designers keen delight as they laughed behind their hands.
Sadly, at least for them, it was not to be. A few days before the NMA opened in 2001, Craddock
Morton, who later became the NMA’s second Director, rendered the messages illegible by adding
new panels or moving the existing ones around to make the Braille letters meaningless. This
was not generally known at the time, and it was only some years later that the media revealed
what kind of trick the NMA had intended to pull on us. You can see the current surface of the
National Museum of Australia in Figure 173. National Museum of Australia
You can read further about the attempt to put political code in the building here: https://www.
smh.com.au/opinion/disclosed-at-last-the-embedded-messages-that-adorn-museum-20060402-
gdnaec.html; https://www.change.org/p/director-of-the-national-museum-of-australia-mathew-
trinca-nma-gov-au-removal-of-braille-censorship-on-australia-s-national-museum.
It is however interesting that Canberra is awash with Semiotic code as intended by Walter and
Eliza Burley Griffin and others who as architects knew only well the power of Semiotics. This
is why Canberra is such an amazing place to undertake days of Semiotic walks (https://vimeo.
com/221858545).

Sign Language (Visual Code)

Auslan is the majority sign language of the Australian Deaf community. The term Auslan is ‘Australian Sign
Language’, coined by Trevor Johnston in the 1980s, although the language itself is much older. Auslan’s grammar
and vocabulary is quite different from English. Auslan like all sign language, continually evolves over time as does
spoken language.
Auslan and sign language is much more than just a hand code for letters, it is a whole of body gestural symbol
system. Auslan uses the following:

228 Envisioning Risk

• Hand Shapes
• Body Orientation
• Location
• Movement
• Gestural Expression (face, eyes, mouth, body movement) and,
• Fingerspelling
It is now common in all public presentations in the Australian media to have an Auslan presenter in the
corner or on stage. You can learn more about Auslan here: https://australiantranslationservices.com.au/
australian-sign-language/

The Embodiment of Ritual

One of the most powerful learning about rituals and gesture is how knowledge and belief are embodied. When
a body of knowledge is embodied it moves from being brain-centred to body-centred thinking. In this way the
enactment of a ritual becomes a codified performance and its intuitive nature says more than we know (Polanyi).
The embodiment in ritual creates a shared sense of alignment without any need for debate about theory. Indeed,
compliance to ritual is not only essential for cultural in-groupness but for social-political identity. If you don’t
follow the ritual as it is intended then it’s efficaciousness is the cause of separation and alienation from the group.
Ritual is about repetition and with it comes the possibility of desensitization and meaninglessness. However,
ritual puts the meaning of itself in body memory and its enactment affects the unconscious. I don’t have to be
aware of how the ritual affects me unconsciously because rirual is not designed for conscious enactment. Music in
ritual is most common even if only about the rhythm of enactment, pattern of action or the movement of an act.
Musicality often indexes the ritual performance making memory of its demands easier to hold in body memory.
It is through mirror neurons that the enactment of ritual creates a sense of oneness and belonging in a group. In a
way it creates ‘interactional synchrony’.
Many rituals in risk and safety are attached to acts that are considered essential for salvation. In risk and safety
certain acts over time have been given Soteriological (saving) effectivenss. That is, if these are not done and
enacted someone will die. Everything from risk matrices, bow-ties, pyramids, coloured controls and a host of risk
industry rituals have been attributed with saving power. This is what the repetition in ritual does. The reason for
the ritual often disappears over time and then the act of the ritual itself becomes the meaning in itself. This is
how ritual can be used to quash envisioning.
The attribution of saving effectiveness then becomes a social-political tool for ingroupness and outgroupness. This
is how many of the rituals attatched to zero ideology such as ‘life saving rules’ and ‘cardinal rules’ are attributed as
indespensible but are meaningless.

Life Saving Rules

The safety industry is characterized by a narrow compliance Mentalitie and a failure to consider
by-products and trade-offs in tackling risk. This is no more evident than in the quest to develop hyper-
safety through ‘Cardinal Rules’ or ‘Life-Saving Rules’ (https://safetyrisk.net/commandments-cardinal-
and-life-saving-rules/). It’s such a fascinating language this religious quest for absolute certainty, when
there is none. The idea of locking in certainty through rules is a direct contradiction to fallibility and
adaptability.
The idea of something ‘Cardinal’ comes from the 12th century and denotes being principal, essential and
chief, in the church. The language of ‘life saving’ also has its roots in Soteriology. Both concepts share
more in common with the Ten Commandments than reality.

Chapter 7: What are You Trying to Say? 229

 The story of the origin of the Ten Commandments is instructive for the world of Cardinal and Life
Saving rules. The story of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17) says a great deal more about
the human quest for infallibility than it does about Theology. The projection that these 10 rules say
something about the nature of god is a distortion of the story/mythology. There are of course a thousand
rules recounted in the Old Testament as well as the Ten including rules to:
• Affirm slavery (Leviticus 25: 44-46)
• Killing of children for disloyalty to religion (Deuteronomy 13:6-11)
• Death for disobeying the Sabbath (Exodus 31:12-15)
• Consumption of shellfish (Leviticus 11:9-11)
• Eating meat and dairy together (Exodus 23:19)
• Touching a chair which a women menstruating has sat on (Leviticus 15:22)
• Killing those who practice other religions (Deuteronomy 17:2-5)
• Rape rules (Deuteronomy 22:28-29)
• And hundreds more.
The main meaning in the stories of Ten Commandments and many other rules in the Old Testament is
that fallible people can’t keep them. The purpose of the rules is to demonstrate that humans can’t keep
rules and so need avenues of grace, adaptability, understanding and forgiveness to live humanly in the
world. This however is not the meaning of the Cardinal and Life Saving Rules in the risk industry. The
purpose of Cardinal and Life Saving Rules is to set a standard for absolute blame and justification for
sacking.
Now, there is nothing wrong with setting standards but standardization can never match the variability,
fallibility, randomness, unconscious Mind and messiness of human living. All standards need a back door.
All standards must be matched by movement, relationship and adaptability.
Interestingly, when the disciples asked Jesus about his view of the Ten Commandments he rejected the
lot and stated there was no adequate rule except to ‘love our neighbor as we love ourselves’ (Mark 12:31).
It is amazing to read all this theological stuff in the risk industry from people who know nothing about
Theology. Most often people in risk get hung up on Soteriology and suffering and then just regurgitate
religious nonsense to which they have been enculturated.
One thing we learn in being human and the intent of standardization is the exception to the rule.
When context changes sometimes breaking the rule is the safest option. We learned in the Grenfell
Fire Inquiry that those who complied with instructions died (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-05/
grenfell-residents-in-london-fire-wrongly-told-to-stay-inside/9833990). When the fire started people
were advised to stay in their rooms according to safety policy. Those who thought for themselves and
disobeyed safety policy lived.
Disaster is a good reference point for saving lives by breaking rules. The most valuable asset people
have in a crisis is not compliance but critical thinking. Unfortunately, the intent of standardization is to
diminish critical thinking and create unthinking lemmings. Such is the dynamic to quash envisioning.
Uncritical thinking is often fostered by ritual.

Taboo - Language and Discourse

One of the interesting things we do in SPoR workshops is an audit of language, just a simple
psychoanalysis of words associated with a key word. For example, ask any group what they associate with
the language of ‘safety’ and the responses are dominated by: controls, hazards, compliance, regulation,
injury, fatality, SWMS, Risk Assessment, protection, Litigation, legal, training, PPE, Hierarchy of

230 Envisioning Risk

 Control, duty, paperwork, rules, competence, Figure 174. Recording and Sorting Process
ALARP and mitigation.
We usually start the activity with a brainstorm
in groups, rank order by level of perceived
importance and then transfer to sticky notes
and place on a board see Figure 174. Recording
and Sorting Process.
We then look at the assembled language and
see the collective discourse of the group. In a
class of 20 people for example we would have
5 groups of 4 so 50 words listing on the board
together see Figure 175. Language Discourse.
What is fascinating about this activity is not Figure 175. Language Discourse
the words present but what is absent from
the list. Critical words such as: care, helping,
trust, learning, listening, understanding,
ethics, empathy, imagination, creativity and
unconscious rarely make the list. If any of these
words do make the list they usually amount to
less than 5% of the total words listed. Such is
the un-vision of the risk industry.
What this audit demonstrates is a range of
invisible social taboos that shape the language
of the risk industry. This self-imposed
silence on critical words for humanizing and
professionalizing the industry acts as a form of
social censorship. The higher up the career chain
one goes the more one is likely to see the word
‘zero’. If ever this is done with people on the
tools at the face where the real risk is, zero never
appears. I have undertaken this activity with more
than 15,000 people over the last 10 years. No-one
who faces the most serious risks associates the
language of ‘zero’ with risk and safety.
It’s also fascinating how the safety industry
cultivates ‘hard’ talk about risk and relegates people skills to ‘soft’ skills. The reverse is the case, it is a piece
of cake to be mean and brutal to someone by demonizing their name or race but much harder to express
care, help and tolerance for someone who doesn’t seem to understand the world as you.
The reason why social censorship prevails in this way in the industry is because it is closed to the domain
of a few disciplines. Just observe what happens when something goes wrong or an enquiry is required:
first cab off the rank is a Regulator, Scientist or Engineer, a sure recipe for keeping social censorship in
place. Most incident and disaster reports and reviews are classic examples of ensuring everything stays the
same, paperwork increases and the solution to risk is more systems.
We all censor language and we know we are doing it. When young children are about we all know what
language doesn’t make it to airspace. People know how to control their language consciously and this
often leads to being able to maintain a certain discourse unconsciously. Similarly, those who hear their

Chapter 7: What are You Trying to Say? 231

 own children saying obscenities back to them learn quite quickly just how much their unconscious
language takes effect.
In social contexts we all know what language is taboo and what is not. We learn this quickly in a group
when we speak language deemed inappropriate. We all know what to say and NOT to say. This is why
legislated warnings against gambling are stuck in the corner of a poker machine venue in gold on gold
plaques in font 6. If you wandered around a casino talking about the harm of gambling, you would be soon
ushered out the door. Casinos are places where we talk about winning, not misery, addiction and harm
When we examine cultural conventions for politeness and impoliteness we observe orthophemism
(straight talking), euphemism (sweet talking) and dysphemism (speaking offensively). When my steelfixer
mates are about it’s quite normal to ‘swear like a trooper’ and pretty soon you will be told to ‘drink a cup
of concrete and harden the f*#k up princess’ if you start crusading about safety. I find it so entertaining
when I hear Regulators and Managers run a campaign about ‘speaking up’ when they run a fear campaign
on zero for the other 50 weeks of the year driving distrust, hiding and suppression.
When we are saavy about what we are saying it is rare that we expect direct language to ‘hit’ the
unconscious. If the spoken word is incongruent with actions, symbols, artefacts or discourse then what
message sinks in has nothing to do with the overt message that Managers seem to think work. Most
taboo is not learned overtly but covertly. .
The constructive way forward can’t come from the same old sources. You can’t get vision from consulting
the same old source. You can’t seek improvement in discourse from Technique. Risk and Safety is yet to
have any focus at all on the nature of language, discourse, Socialitie, the unconscious and social-political
ethics. However, this is not about throwing out the baby with the bathwater but rather expanding the
horizons of an industry bogged down with little vision beyond more of the same.
No amount of measurement, IT systems or data is going to shift a culture bogged down in the deficit
language as evidenced at the start of this section. We’re not going to humanize the risk industry with
nonsense language like ‘Resilience Engineering’. The discourse has to shift away from systems, numbers,
metrics and objects, and this will only come when Risk makes the move to a Transdisciplinary notion of
learning.

Transition
This chapter has hopefully opened up your thinking and reflection on the nature of engaging, connecting and
communicating with others. The idea has been not so much to take one particular position on Linguistics but
rather to enter into a dialectic of mystery with all of the many theories and methods of ‘speaking’ to others.
One thing is for sure, there is much that we say to others through all the senses that speak to the unconscious.
In this consciousness we ought to then be much more conscious of the unconscious. We need to be much more
aware of what we think we are trying to say and what is hidden in what we say.
Often people wonder why messages and the meanings of messages don’t get through to others. I often look at
what people are trying to say and see huge contradictions in the purpose and intent of their communication and
the medium with which they try to say it. Often people are quite naive about communication and about what
they try to say. Language is neither objective nor neutral, all language as all symbols are interpreted. This is why a
study of Hermeneutics is essential in understanding SPoR.
In the next chapter we are going to close all this out and bring together this book on envisioning. It was
Martin Luther King who made the famous connection between vision and dreaming, between imagination and
prophetic knowing. Not Prophecy that foretells the future but Prophecy that forthtells the bleeding obvious. In
this sense vision is apocalyptic. Moreso, envisioning and vision also has to be practically doable. Whilst its nice
to be able to envision a better future and better trajectory, one also needs some skills to help the transition to that
better future. This is the discussion of the final chapter of this book.

232 Envisioning Risk

CHAPTER 8
EnVisionary Practice
I have spoke with the tongue of angels

I have held the hand of a devil

But I still haven’t found

What I’m looking for - U2

8
I have a dream - Martin Luther King - https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/
mlkihaveadream.htm

An Anthem for Unknowing

In echoes of 1 Corinthians 13 the famous passage by Paul on the nature of love, U2 capture the mystery
of fallible human being in their song ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’. This song was
released in 1987 on The Joshua Tree album inspired by the band’s experience of America.
Three of the members of U2 — Bono, guitarist The Edge and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. — were
members of a Christian fellowship called Shalom which is how they met. Bono once expressed that their
music was a kind of prayer, a unique way of explaining the ritual of Musicality. How intersting that one
of the greatest and most followed pop bands in the world couple their spiritual search for meaning in
what they do. Theologian Sarah Dylan Breuer agrees. In the early 2000s, she founded a worship service
called the U2charist.
Bono told Rolling Stone ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ is ‘an anthem of doubt more
than faith.’ I disagree, this search and wanting is very much an expression of faith in the face of fallibility.
Such is the search for meaning, purpose and certainty in the face of uncertainty. In such uncertainty some
search for meaning in Transcendence. In the risk and safety industry the search is for more certainty,
contol, power and Transhumanism in the delusional quest for zero.
It is interesting in a chat to Bono for Rolling Stone magazine Bono stated: ‘It’s a song about searching
for meaning or transcendence,’ he says. ‘And to me, the most interesting thing about it is that you don’t
find it. It’s about the search.’ In another way I would say its about the dialectic, it’s about the i-thou.

Chapter 8: EnVisionary Practice 233

The Certainty of Uncertainty
I have written on the nature of uncertainty (https://safetyrisk.net/radical-uncertainty/) and its relationship
to risk. I have also written about a psychosis that accompanies the fear of uncertainty (https://safetyrisk.net/
hoarding-as-a-psychosis-against-uncertainty/). The fear of uncertainty can drive a range of mental health
challenges that emerge from insecurities with wanting to have control and power of both the environment and
fallible ‘being’.
One of the strategies people attempt in control of fear of uncertainty is to accumulate, the build up material
distractions that create a sense of certainty. Buying things is a great distraction from reality just as substances like
alcohol also serve as a distraction from the uncertainties of Covid19 (https://www.crikey.com.au/2020/05/15/
alcohol-consumption-in-australia-alcohol-sales-coronavirus/).
I have found several thinkers most helpful in tackling the fears of uncertainty. Erich Fromm (The Revolution of
Hope) defines faith as the certainty of uncertainty. Karl Jaspers work is also helpful in helping understand the
psychology of uncertainty. Here are two of his works that I have found enlightening:
• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/298650565_Karl_Jaspers’_Philosophy_and_Psychopathology/
link/5776a4cc08ae4645d60d7e21/download
• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/295704147_Karl_Jaspers_From_Selfhood_to_Being
Whilst I don’t necessarily agree with all of the arguments of Fromm and Jaspers, the nature of Existential
Dialectic does help in understanding why humans seek power and control in The Denial of Death (Becker -
https://humanposthuman.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/ernest_becker_the_denial_of_deathbookfi-org.pdf ). One
thing is for sure, masking the question of uncertainty with materialism or other distractions in substances never
ends well.
We have all been alerted to the challenges of Covid 19 and mental health (https://www.lifeline.org.au/get-help/
information-and-support/covid-19/). We also know that the foundations of mental health are not helped by
individualist ideologies or behaviourist ideologies but rather are helped most by social connection. A tough ask
when in lockdown and social distancing is the norm.
Jaspers was an ill person born with Bronchiectasis, a disabling and incurable lung disease. For most of his life
his outlook was uncertain. He often stated that it was futile to try and tame the unknowable and fight fallibility
but rather one has to learn to live with fallibility and the unknowable. He also despaired at those who wanted
to make humans into automatons and puppets that would rob humans of experience and the vitality of learning
in risk. He found that those who tried to deny fallibility were indeed both delusional and lived a psychosis. He
stated that ‘Limit Consciousness’ was the healthiest way to engage in life and with others. Limit Consciousness is
about empathy with life and being, and this generates sympathy with other fallible humans. Only the delusional
ride roughshod over other’s mistakes as if they themselves are immutable. Such is the delusion of zero and the
dehumanizing of Behaviour Based Safety (BBS).
Jaspers used the metaphor of sleeplessness to define the problem. If we relate to sleeplessness as a pathology
and treat it with sleeping pills, sleep hygiene, meditation or therapy we will eventually wake up. Although we
sleep an enormous amount of time in our lives, we ultimately don’t know why, nor what happens during this
time. Some of us dream and we have no idea where it comes from or why we do it. But such uncertainty doesn’t
stop us from accepting the realities of sleep. Why then resist other uncertainties in fallibility? (https://www.
humandymensions.com/product/fallibility-risk-living-uncertainty/)
How strange this industry that fixates on controls and absolutes in zero but so easily accepts the realities of the
sleeping unconscious (https://safetyrisk.net/daydreaming-and-safety/). How strange this fixation with behaviors
(https://safetyrisk.net/the-bs-of-bs/) and controls that puts its head in the sand about consciousness. How
strange this Technique Discourse that imagines that fallible people in a random world can be perfect. What a

234 Envisioning Risk

strange delusion all these believers that claim ‘all accidents are preventable’ (https://safetyrisk.net/human-error-
is-unpreventable/) and ‘safety is a choice you make’ (https://safetyrisk.net/all-injuries-are-preventable-and-other-
silly-safety-sayings/). What strange discourse that seeks to deny the certainty of uncertainty.

Mystery and Awe

When I was 12 my Mum and Dad gave me 2 Figure 176. Four Horseman of the Apocalypse
books for Christmas. The first was a Scofield
Chain Reference leather bound Bible and the
second was a Reader’s Digest book on Mysteries
and the Unknown. Both books were intended to
give me a thirst for faith and questioning and
certainly did that.
At the time I didn’t know that a Scofield
Bible was a completely manipulated text to
drive a clear Fundamentalist agenda. Scofield
interpreted all texts about the mystery of
the Apocalypse in to a mathematical jig saw
to certify knowledge on the end times and
the Rapture. This interpretation of the Bible
is a very popular translation for right wing
Trump followers of 2016-2020. The Scofield
version of the Bible is about about Premillenial
Dispensationalism, a common belief in the
White House in 2016-2020 (https://www.
theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/11/trump-
administration-evangelical-influence-support)
particularly with the Vice President (https://
www.eternitynews.com.au/world/us-vice-
president-pence-links-israel-policy-to-bible/)
and the Secretary of Defence (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/30/us/politics/pompeo-christian-
policy.html).
The Scofield Bible reference edition comes with ‘help’ notes in the column and commentary in red
to help one theoretically ‘understand’ the text. The Prophetic books of the Bible such as The Book of
Revelation in this Scofield version of the Bible is more red than black in text. So I was brought up on this
stuff and all of the interest in Semiotics and symbolism that accompany it. In artistic terms this kind of
stuff is best represented graphically eg. Albrecht Durer see Figure 176. Four Horseman of the Apocalypse.
Mystery is about what is unknowable and about valuable knowledge that is kept secret. In pagan
antiquity the word ‘mystery’ was used to designate certain esoteric doctrines, such as Pythagoreanism, or
Mythraism or certain ceremonies (rituals) that were performed in private or whose meaning was known
only to the initiated.
It was actually the second Reader’s Digest book on mystery that captured my interest most at the age
of 12, I couldn’t understand anything in the Bible anyway, I just took my Dad’s word for it which I later
jettisoned when I was an adult.
The Reader’s Digest doesn’t really stand the test of Historiography either but at the age of 12 I was
captivated by all these mysteries. How did the statues get on Easter Island? Why do so many things
disappear in the Bermuda Triangle? What is the meaning of crop designs found all over the globe? Why
did the Inca civilzation just disappear? Ankor Wat, the Pyramids and Machu Picchu? What do we know

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 of their construction mysteries? Then there were stories of mysterious disappearances, unsolved crimes,
unsolved questions about life and existence, all demonstrating that many of the things we know about we
know so little about. The book helped me accept the fact that humans know a lot about a small number
of things but know so little about such fundametal things and questions of Faith.
Amongst the many things we know so little about is the nature of dreams and dreaming and this is what
comprises the many apocalyptic revelations in the Bible. I have never understood the meaning of dreams
and wondered how Daniel’s dreams were so easily ‘known’ and why John’s dreams were made ‘Scripture’?
We certainly don’t give value to dreaming in this way today.
If you are intesrted in a few recent mysteries in Australia you can read this: https://listverse.
com/2016/04/14/10-creepy-unsolved-mysteries-from-australia/

Radical Uncertainty
I’m not an economist but we have much we can learn from other disciplines. Kay and King’s book Radical
Uncertainty (Kay, J., and King, M., (2020) Radical Uncertainty, Decision Making for an Unknowable Future. The
Bridge Street Press. London should be a compulsory read for people in the discipline of Risk, moreso for anyone
spruiking the nonsense of zero.
Kay and King have produced an easy to read book on the nature of uncertainty, the nature of human cognition
and the way humans make decisions. They show how human thinking is composed on narratives and how some
narratives do not serve us well in tackling risk.
They start the book with some big picture surprises, failures and mysteries with which we are familiar, like:
the decision to raid Osama Bin Laden’s lair, Churchill’s decision styles and the Steve Jobs Second Coming.
They do so to draw a difference between solving puzzles and tackling mysteries and make the point that the
framing of both is critical for success. They show through the stories of Wang, Nokia, Blackberry, Kodak, IBM,
Microsoft, Lehman Bros etc. just how volatile and uncertain the world is. They draw on that famous speech by
Donald Rumsfeld who cited the ‘unknown unknowns’ to justify the attack on Iraq and pull apart the constructs
and narratives humans compose to assert certainty, when there is none. They show how false faith is placed in
‘probablistic reasoning’ and the delusions of mathematical certainties.
Several chapters discuss the assumptions and weaknesses of ‘Behavioural Economics’ and particularly the
assumptions of Kahneman and Tversky. Personally I think the binary book Fast and Slow has done more damage
to the risk industry than anything else. The assertion that human biases and heuristics are a deficit or flaw in
human disposition is pulled apart most effectively by Kay and King. They also look at the work of Klein and
other populist models like Sunstein’s ‘Nudge’ theory and the vacuous nonsense of vision and mission statements
that have no vision. From my perspective it seems that we tend to name such documents by what they are not.
I’ve rarely seen a vision statement that is visionary. The more conservative and compliance–focused an industry,
the less vision there is.
Kay and King are not anthropologists but spend a number of chapters trying to understand the worldview of
Anthropology, including some experiments where anthropologists and economists are given the same problem.
They also look at legal narrative reasoning and again compare this to how economists construct understandings
of risk. The outcome of their studies demonstrate how different worldviews and Transdisciplinarity enhance
understanding and enlarge strategies for tackling risk.
The spirit of enterprise dies when mathematical expectation takes over
is a neat quote that frames the way Kay and King explore the limits of numerics and metrics in understanding
risk. Considering the date of the writing of this book and publication they state this:
But we must expect to be hit by an epidemic of an infectious disease resulting from a virus which does
not yet exist. (p.40)

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as a way of framing a discussion about the false certitudes of ‘Behavioural Economics’. The discussion shows just
how crazy it is to talk about ‘predictive analytics’, big data and ‘future proofing’ against the realities of ‘radical
uncertainty’. All of this certainty discourse is popular in risk and safety.
The book is structured in five parts and the final part is focused entirely on economics and risk. There is some
helpful material in section 5 but the best stuff for me was in the first four parts of the book.
It was good to read Kay and King pull apart the nonsense assumptions of Scientific Method and the crazy
assumption that validity is limited by repetition and quoting Max Planck who stated
science makes progress funeral by funeral
Kay and King’s discussion on ‘false stories and bogus statistics’ reminded me so much of the concocted
attributions of the risk industry and its religious-like belief in bogus rituals that don’t work.

The Mysterious Unconscious

When I bought Chalmers book The Character of Consciousness I was so expectant. I thought ah! at last someone
new will shed more light on the nature of consciousness. I was sadly disappointed. What Chalmers names as
Consciousness is ‘the feeling inside your head’, a pretty poor understanding of ‘being’.
We have discussed much earlier in this book the idea of a soul, this is what Chalmers seems to waffle about or
as Damasio states The Feeling of What Happens a much beter book on the nature of Embodied Interaffectivity
and the living world. One thing the Australian Chalmers has done is help ignite debate between scientists and
philosophers about the nature of being revealing how little we know about ‘being’ human. Morseo, we have no
idea what consciouness is or why humans are conscious of their consciouness. It’s a mystery.
Most people in risk and safety seem to take little interest in the phenomena of the conscious and unconscious
self, despite the fact that this industry is consumed with Materialism, Behaviorism and Cognitvism wants to
know why people do what they do. In many ways, the discussion of consciouness is ‘taboo’ in this industry.
One would think such fundamental questions such as: how we learn?, store memories, develop language or
perceive things? would be important to people in the risk industry. Why on earth should all those complicated
brain processes we know ‘feel’ like anything from the inside?
One of the most fascinating aspects of the debate about cosnciousness is the problem of brain-centredness. It
doesn’t matter how deep we delve into the brain we still have no idea about Damsio’s Feeling of What Happens.
When it comes to the risk industry any question of Metaphysics has been made taboo. The Engineering and
Science framework of the risk industry has ensured that this Discipline offers nothing for its edification.
Burkeman (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jan/21/-sp-why-cant-worlds-greatest-minds-solve-
mystery-consciousness?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other) articulates the problem:
When I stubbed my toe on the leg of the dining table this morning, as any student of the brain could tell
you, nerve fibres called “C-fibres” shot a message to my spinal cord, sending neurotransmitters to the part
of my brain called the Thalamus, which activated (among other things) my limbic system. Fine. But how
come all that was accompanied by an agonising flash of pain? And what is pain, anyway?
One of the great distractions in this debate is the fixation on the brain-as-mind and the brain-as-computer
metaphors.
Daniel Dennett, Professor at Tufts University argues that consciousness is an illusion: there just isn’t anything
in addition to the spongy stuff of the brain. I encountered one such believer when I was lecturing at Griffith
University in the Safety Innovations Science Lab.
Where has the yearning in Science to tackle mystery gone? Why is Science so captivated by its own faiths that it
denies a discussion of Metaphysics and faiths?

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Consciousness, according to Dennett’s theory, is like a conjuring trick, a neat way of dismissing everything from
dreams, hallucinations and daydreams. This kind of denial is the same kind of denial of fallibility one needs to
believe in zero.
All of this is actually Poetic because it seems that one of the greatest mysteries of all is the fact that the
human Mind is incapable of comprehending itself.

Daydreaming and Risk

I can remember when the song Daydream was released (https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=wnlCtPh25jk), I was 13 years of age and the music of the time was astounding even
revolutionary. The Lovin’ Spoonful’s version of this song raced to the top of the charts in 1966. It
captured the times as well as ‘California Dreaming’ by The Mama’s and the Papa’s, ‘Paint it Black’ by The
Rolling Stones, ‘Good Vibrations’ by The Beach Boys, ‘The Sound of Silence’ by Simon and Garfunkel,
‘Psychotic Reaction’ by The Count Five and ‘Nowhere Man’ by the Beatles. All these hits are about lucid
dreaming, that mysterious state between being conscious and fully unconscious.
The semi-conscious state is so interesting to observe when you look after little kids. I’m often playing with the
grand kids and then all of a sudden they are not with me, their Mind is somewhere else. Sometimes we use the
language of ‘being spaced out’, have ‘drifted off with the fairies’ or in a ‘trance’. We see signs of the roads warning
us about ‘microsleep’. This is the state of Semiconsciousness.
We have all experienced lucid dreaming, we know exactly what it is but we can’t explain it, unless of
course your name is Safety. It’s easy, just get your alertness package from your regular snake oil safety
spruiker and its: eyes on the task, change habits, turn off fatigue, mind on the task and host of simplistic
phrases for being alert, concentration and try harder that have absolutely no connection to the complexity
of seeking to understand the human unconscious.
The next step is to label a complete lack of expertise and knowledge as ‘Neuroscience’ as a mask for Behaviorism
(https://safetyrisk.net/safety-and-non-neuroscience/;https://safetyrisk.net/behaviourist-neuroscience-as-safety/)
and job done.
Of course those with even the slightest bit of expertise know that Behaviourism has no interest in studying
consciousness. You won’t find a safety behaviourist discussion anywhere across the globe that discusses the nature
of lucid dreaming or Semiconsciousness. Those in the know with remarkable expertise still have no idea what
Semiconsciousness is.
• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318946859_Lucid_dreaming_A_Wake-Initiated-Lucid-Dream_
WILD_approach
• https://escholarship.org/content/qt5j65h7n6/qt5j65h7n6.pdf ?t=mp96zm
• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/26808995_Lucid_Dreaming_A_State_of_Consciousness_with_
Features_of_Both_Waking_and_Non-Lucid_Dreaming
• https://www.pdfdrive.com/exploring-the-world-of-lucid-dreaming-e118474.html
What we do know is that the brain-as-computer metaphor doesn’t help in understanding Semiconsciousness.
Consciousness is about embodiment not just the brain. If you go to the brain looking for the source of
concentration as if it can be switched on and off, you might sell lots of safety programs but you will find no help
with understanding what Semiconsciousness is. Even the slightest chemical imbalance in the body can have
dramatic influence on decision making and consciousness. This is what Anesthetists study.
If you are interested in the nature of Semiconsciousness then these are a start:
• Turcke, Philosophy of Dreams
• Windt, Dreaming, A Conceptual Framework for Philosophy of Mind and Empirical Research
• Hill, Confrontation with the Unconscious

238 Envisioning Risk

• Wegner, The Illusion of Conscious Will
• Farady, Dream Power
• Varela, The Embodied Mind
• Ginot, The Neuropsychology of the Unconscious
• Fuchs, Ecology of the Brain
Unfortunately, you are not likely to find such research or reading in any safety text or the AIHS BoK, yet Safety
wants to know why people ‘drift off ’, lose concentration and drift out of heuristics. How convenient for the
Behaviourism (BBS) to fall on the language of ‘errors’ and ‘violations’ without a skerrick of definition, research or
competence in seeking to understand Semiconsciousness. Lets make it all simple, black and white and completely
delusional. Ah, controls that’s it, only BBS thinks it can control the unconscious.
Just do a search for understanding consciousness and risk and see what you end up with. Whilst Risk loves to
talk about ‘consciousness’ what it really means is being aware of risk whilst at the same time having no discussion
about the psychology of awareness or perception. Similarly, the Psychology of Goals, motivation and perception
are not things of interest to the Behaviourist dominated industry of risk (https://safetyrisk.net/the-bs-of-bs/).
The criticisms I make are not about ‘hating safety’ but rather the opposite. If you care about humans and risk
then why would you not try to at least understand another view, an approach that at least tackles the challenges
of consciousness?

A Review of Heuristics
I have discussed heuristics previously in other books but at this stage of the book a brief review is in order
particularly with the discussion to follow about vision and envisioning for Risk.
Everytime I speak at a conference on risk or safety I get astounded that noone has heard of heuristics, despite the
fact that it is well presented in the Handbook to the Risk Management Standard - HB 327. See Figure 177. HB 327.
Here we have a document that has been about for a decade and noone in the risk industry knows about it or its
contents? How strange. So in order to highlight the text from the Handbook I will quote directly from page 12
and 13.
Heuristics are judgemental rules or “rule of thumb” shortcuts that people use to help gauge situations
and help them to make decisions. Three of the most influential shortcuts used when people evaluate risk
are “availability”, “representativeness” and “anchoring and adjustment”.
Heuristics are valid risk assessment tools in some circumstances and can lead to “good” estimates of
statistical risk in situations where risks are well known. In other cases, where little is actually known about
a risk, large and persistent biases may give rise to fears that have no provable foundation; conversely, such
as for risk associated with foodborne diseases, inadequate attention may be given to issues that should be
of genuine concern.
Although limitations and biases can be easily demonstrated, it is not valid to label heuristics as
“irrational” since in most everyday situations, rule-of-thumb judgements provide an effective and efficient
approach for estimating risk levels. It’s not unusual for specialists to also rely on heuristics when they
have to apply judgement or rely on intuition.
But heuristics often leads to overconfidence. Both lay people and specialists place considerable
(sometimes unjustified) faith in judgements reached by using heuristics. In particular, “awareness” of a
hazard does not imply any other knowledge than that the hazard exists, but people may be tempted to
pass judgement and make decisions based on this alone.

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Far be it for me to canvas something so prominent in publication Figure 177. HB 327
or to point out its significance but researchers like Giggerenzer and
others have demonstrated conclusively how important it is to have
an understanding of heuristics if one is to tackle the challenges of
risk. Some of Gigerenzer’s publications worth reading are:
• Gigerenzer, G., Todd, P., and the ABC Research Group.
(1999) Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart. Oxford. London.
• Giggerenzer, G., (2000) Adaptive Thinking, Rationality in the
Real World. Oxford. London.
• Gigerenzer, G., (2002) Calculated Risks, How to Know When
Numbers Decieve You. Simon and Schuster. New York.
• Gigerenzer, G., (2007) Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the
Unconscious. Viking, New York.
• Gigerenzer, G., (2008) Rationality For Mortals, How People
Cope with Uncertainty. Oxford. London.
• Gigerenzer, G., (2014) Risk Savvy, How to make Good
Decisions. Viking. New York.

Figure 178. Heuristic-Biases

240 Envisioning Risk

So many of our decisions perhaps up to 95% are Figure 179. SPoR Social Influence Map
made unconsciously as heuristics. Heuristics are
ways of making decisions without requiring the
time or speed to process that decision rationally. MAPPING SOCIAL
Heuristics are not irrational but a/Rational. INFLUENCE STRATEGIES
Some of these heuristics are mapped effectively
on the Cognitve Bias Codex, a free semiotic that
shows (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
File:Cognitive_Bias_Codex_-_180%2B_biases,_
designed_by_John_Manoogian_III_(jm3).jpg): how
humans make decisions unconsciously when they
are: overwhelmed, need quick recall, are flooded
with information, lack meaning and purpose
and when stuck for memory. See Figure 178.
Heuristics-Biases.
Heuristics are a non-conscious mode of decision
making and people in risk and safety don’t know
anything about it. Everytime I present at a safety
conference I am always asked: what are heuristics?
Then add to this the more than 250 social influences
that shape decision making (Figure 179. SPoR
Social Influence Map) and you get a rough idea just
how much we act and enact in a semiconscious
and unconscious state. This is explained using the
One Brain Three Minds Model (https://vimeo. human
dymensions

com/156926212; https://vimeo.com/106770292).
Why is the risk and safety industry simply not intersted in the Unconscious? Why is it that all this silly talk of
disruption, ‘thought leaders’ and vision does not inlcude any vision for a Transdisciplinary approach to the wicked
problem of risk? One thing has now become certain within the industry of uncertainty, there is no vision unless it
is more of the same. More Regulation, more Behaviourism, more Cognitivism and more Bureaucracy ie. no vision.
and just for interest have a look at any risk and safety associations so called vision statement. See what I mean, no
vision.
Unless the industry that seeks to tackle the uncertainty of risk becomes prepared to tackle a bit of mystery and
uncertainty, it will never develop a sense of vision.

Our Mysterious Emotions

One of the puzzles of human ‘being’ is the uncontrollability of the emotions. The idea that the brain can just ‘will’
or ‘turn on or off ’ the emotions is one of the delusions of the Behaviourist/Cognitivist construct. Why is it that
some people have less fear than others? Why are some people less risk averse than others? Why do some people
get uncontrollably angry? Why can’t humans just ‘self-regulate’ their emotions? Why do we cry when sad? Go to a
funeral sometime and count the number of people wearing sunglasses. Don’t watch me cry, tears must be hidden.
You may hear some of these statements about the place that demonstrate the problem: ‘just wake up to yourself ’,
‘stop crying’, ‘get a hold of yourself ’, ‘don’t be anxious’, ‘you hurt my feelings’ and ‘stop being depressed’.
An emotion preceeds cognition as of an unconscious evaluation of a situation. Emotions move towards or away
from something. This is why we call it an ‘e-motion’ and all learning is about movement. Our emotions direct
learning. Emotions reveal the orientation of our unconscious, which of course cannot be controlled by will or
some crazy neurological algorithm. The Behaviourist nonsense now parading about Safety as Neuroscience

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(https://safetyrisk.net/behaviourist-neuroscience-as-safety/) completely distorts the way in which embodied
humans respond to ‘being-in-the-world’. Without emotions the world would be without meaning. Nothing
would attract or repel us to act. All enactment is the result of an emotional movement. Without e-motion, there
would be no living. Emotions could be better called ‘Bodily Affectivity’.
Our emotions are present at birth, well before the development of language or cognitive rationality. Babies
‘resonate’ with their mother’s smile and mother’s ‘resonate’ back. All humans ‘resonate’ with other humans
through many gestures and expressions that take the form of Semiotic language. We call this ‘Inter-affectivity’.
That is, we are all ‘affected’ by others because we are social beings. This complex process is the foundation of all
empathy and understanding. The Behaviourist idea that people can be ‘objective’ and disconnected from social
context is nonsense.
Most emotions precede brain representation. Usually an emotion bursts in on the scene before one realizes
(assesses and analyses) what’s going on. Emotions are not just ‘individual’ states within a person but are more
often a ‘shared’ state in inter-bodily ‘affection’. That is, try as you might to will indifference, you will be affected
emotionally by the emotions of others about you. This is why emotions are not controllable by individual ‘will’.
The idea of ‘will power’ is a delusion of Technique. Of course in Mental Health, depression is a loss of inter-
affectivity. People with depression become ‘disconnected’ with the world and themselves, sometimes losing
e-motion as ‘connection’ with others. Just as depression and anxiety are social constructs, so too is resilience
(https://safetyrisk.net/the-social-construction-of-mental-health/). The Individualist/Cognitivist construct of ‘pull
yourself up by your boot straps’ doesn’t work. Similarly, one can’t just suppress an emotion through will power.
Humans need supportive communities to escape from most human challenges including: addiction, mental
health issues, fundamentalisms, loneliness and racism. And you won’t find ‘community’ through social media’.
When things go well and someone is euphoric, the group becomes euphoric. When a cloud of depression comes
over a few leaders and things unravel I’ve witnessed a whole organization drift into depression. Even as we
witness the many Defense Mechanisms (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_mechanisms) people exhibit
unconsciously and daily we realize that many of the things we blame people for are not conscious. You will even
hear the unconscious speak today when someone says: ‘you’re being defensive’, ‘no I’m not is the reply’.
What are the implications of this for risk?
1. We need to move away from Individualist/Behaviourist constructs that devalue the importance of the ‘social’
and ‘communal’ structures that provide identity, belonging and support. Unless the challenges of Mental
Health are tackled through a social lens it is not likely that much will improve.
2. We need to drop the Behaviourist and Objectivist nonsense that supposes disconnectedness as a good
thing and start reshaping what we do through the lens of ‘being-together-in-the-world’. Eg. most incident
investigations set up this notion of disconnectedness as beneficial, making it impossible to ‘help’ in grave
situations through pastoral care.
3. It would be helpful if people could step outside of the closed focus of the risk industry and step into a more
Transdisciplinary approach to understanding risk. I have no idea why we keep turning to regulators for
vision in safety when their purpose mitigates against it.
4. Drop the slogan ‘safety starts with you’ and make it ‘safety starts with us’. Whilst you are at it, dump
‘safety is a choice you make’ and ‘all accidents are preventable’ or any other sloganistic rubbish that divides
community.
5. Embrace an embodied sense of emotions and what constitutes ‘in-group’ and ‘out-groupness’. We need not
be ‘afraid’ of emotions but rather need to understand the nature of the human unconscious much more.
6. Better understand social influence and how much of what we do is influenced by social dynamics (https://
safetyrisk.net/mapping-social-influence-strategies/).

242 Envisioning Risk

7. Start to investigate things like: aesthetics, design, ‘somatic markers’, Semiotics, place and space trigger
emotions and uncontrolled decisions.
8. Make better use of expressions and gestures in the way we tackle risk.
9. Think more of the brain as a mediating organ and focus more on how the human ‘mind’ constructs ‘being-
in-the-world’. This means dumping the mechanistic ideas and language in safety that suggest people can be
controlled through behaviourism.
10. Start to give greater significance to connecting with the emotions of a group rather than thinking that safety
is some kind of cognitive decision.

What Can Jung Tell Us?

Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who has had a profound influence on Western thought and
practice. His theory of Archetypes is the foundation of the Myer-Briggs Type Indicator which is in constant
use and has been undertaken by millions over the past 60 years. Regardless of the controversy surrounding
the work of Jung, his work on the Collective Unconscious, Archetypes and ‘complexes’ serve as useful tools for
understanding human judgment, decision making, the unconsious and Collective Unconsious. Similarly, Freud’s
work on defense mechanisms, ego, id and super-ego (One Brain Three Minds https://vimeo.com/106770292)
and the unconscious, have provided us with many useful ways of understanding decision making.
Any study of curriculum in risk will demonstrate that the notion of the unconscious and non-conscious decision
making is totally absent in discourse. For some reason the industry has been hi-jacked and evolved into a
discipline of Engineering and Science, and not even true science at that. The version of Science practised in the
risk industry is Positivism not the search for mystery and enquiry. Indeed, just look at the 5 core units required
in a Diploma in WHS and the absence of any connection to human skills and understanding decision making
is apparent. The risk industry seems to be the only industry that prepares people to engage with objects not with
subjects (people). Yet, I get inundated every day with people who want to learn more about human judgment and
decision making, the Psychology of Risk and, understanding motivation, perception, goals and communication.
It was Jung’s work that brought into discussion the importance of dreams, intuition, non-conscious knowledge,
tacit thinking, imagination and heuristics. The Rationalist-Materialist and Reductionist-Behaviourist paradigm
ushered in by Descartes and Newton banished such things to the scrap heap until revived by Freud and Jung in
the early 20th Century. Strange, because every society prior to Descartes and Newton valued deeply the meaning
of dreams, visions, Metaphysics and the unconscious.
In our private lives we are attracted to stories of the unconscious. The highest grossing movies of all time concern
the story of a group of people who believe in ‘the force’. The classics studied in all schools and universities,
especially Shakespeare, maintain the importance of the unconscious. History is littered with world changing
critical decisions being made on the basis of a dream (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Reagan). Many of
our great poets, musicians, composers, performers, artists and thinkers place great importance on transcendence
and the unconscious. Many try to get into a state of unconscious influence through psychedelics. Yet in risk, all
decisions are made rationally and materially.
I was asked once to undertake a MiProfile survey with an organization that has just embraced
the trend in ‘hot desking’ and ‘clean desking’ (http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/
blueprintforliving/where-office-meets-prison/7120782). The idea that we are not greatly affected by
social arrangements is a nonsense projected by the Technique mindset is turned on its head by the
toxicity of this crazy development in management. The evidence shows that we are profoundly affected
by our social contexts. For example: the challenges of getting kids out from behind screens and into
play and activity is a huge challenge for the future (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mental-
wealth/201402/gray-matters-too-much-screen-time-damages-the-brain; http://theconversation.com/

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 why-screen-time-before-bed-is-bad-for-children-46464). It has also been demonstrated that hot desking
increases risk aversion, limits creativity and debilitates vision. For more on the trade-offs and by-products
of ‘hot desking’ see below.
• http://www.brw.com.au/f/video/national/clean_desks_kill_creativity_Aa6Le2NSTDWmZY6KDUXmmK
• http://theconversation.com/mess-or-nest-do-clean-desk-policies-really-help-us-work-better-3037
• https://bluenotes.anz.com/posts/2016/01/long-live-the-messy-desk/
• https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/clean-desk-policy-please-think-twice-anetta-pizag
It’s quite straight forward. All the evidence shows that hot desking harms people. How strange that the
organisations that practice hot desking most advocate such a harming practice. It seems money is more important
than psychological well being beyond the tokenism of an R U OK day.
So whilst the rationalist-materialist and Reductionist-Behaviourist mindset is fixed on KPIs and objects
(hazards), the Social Psychological paradigm knows that money is not a motivator over meaning and
purpose (http://ideas.ted.com/what-motivates-us-at-work-7-fascinating-studies-that-give-insights/?utm_
campaign=social&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=linkedin.com&utm_content=ideas-blog&utm_
term=humanities) People are not the sum of inputs and outputs. Human judgments and decisions are not just
about rational and irrational decisions.
• Thanks to Jung we now can give greater weight to the importance of imagination. Without Imagination and
dreams there is no vision. How can someone know what a hazard is without imagination of how a human
will interact with an object?
• Thanks to Jung we now know that extroversion and introversion change people’s modes of communicating
and learning. So much of why risk inductions are so poor is due to the paradigm of Technique? Data is not
learning.
• Thanks to Jung we now know that many of the things that influence decisions and judgments are unseen
and communicated unconsciously through signs, symbols and Semiotics. How much does a symbol of
absolutes in zero drive the acceptance of bullying, sociopathy and tyranny in a culture?
• Thanks to Jung we can now value premonitions, tacit knowledge and the value of heuristics. How important
is it to value that something doesn’t feel or look right?
• Thanks to Jung we know that synchronicity is critical in understanding causality and emergence (http://
www.aiprinc.org/para-ac08_Storm_1999.pdf ). How often does Safety ‘construct’ cause, rather than ‘discover’
cause?
So these are just a few of the ways Jung can broaden and develop the narrow confines of the Technique mindset
that constricts the risk industry. Once one steps outside the rationalist-materialist and reductionist-behaviourist
construct one sees a whole new world of how risk can be tackled with the unconscious in Mind.

Dreams and Visions

The key to being visionary and being able to envision risk is to welcome and be attuned to the unconscious not
just in ourselves through reflection but with others and the world. There are many now who believe the world
itself is conscious, it has its own energy and we resonate with it and we live in it as a ecological Life-Force.
Whilst I am unsure of Panpsychicism (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/panpsychism/) it is intersting that the
Apostle Paul talks about the whole of Creation yearning for meaning (Romans 8: 22-24). Paul is quite happy to
give the material world anthropomorphic identity as are scholars like Bateson. We give similar personifications
as Archetypes to ‘the Economy’, ‘The Market’ and ‘Government’. It’s like saying the world can collectively ‘think’

244 Envisioning Risk

and desire. Paul uses language such as: ’the world groans’, ‘the world waits’ and ‘the world grieves’. Is this perhaps
how we understand the stress of climate change? Is this perhaps a Poetic way of relating to a world under the
stress of war, pestilence, plague, pandemic and greed? Plenty of poets and song writers have certainly expressed
their understanding of the world this way. It makes me think of the lyrics of one of the greatest anthems of all
time Imagine by John Lennon:
Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today

Imagine there’s no countries

It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace, you

You may say I’m a dreamer

But I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharing all the world, you

You may say I’m a dreamer

But I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

This yearning for peace and oneness was Lennon’s dream sadly brought to an end by crazed violence. the very
violence he dreamed would be eradicated from the world. Yet no-one would say that Lennon was NOT a
visionary and in his song Imagine he recognises how the notion of dreaming is used in a society of Technique as a
perjorative state. How bizarre that the Ancients thought that dreaming was of visionary importance and now our
society deems dreaming and dreamers as ‘a waste of time’.

Dreaming as an Insult
How fascinating that we insult people by calling them ‘a dreamer’ and we use this language to nominate
someone as other worldy, seeking impossible things or ‘wasting time’. How fascinating it is to use time as
a commodity and metaphor for diminishing imagination, creativity and discovery.
When we think of dreaming what comes to mind?

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 • Nightmares
• Fantasy
• Pleasure
• Hope
All of these things and more.
When Martin Luther King spoke his famous vision ‘I have a dream’ speech (https://kinginstitute.
stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/i-have-dream-address-delivered-march-washington-jobs-and-
freedom) he captured the imagination for a better world. Noone called Martin Luther King a dreamer
even though many years latter we see in the Black Lives Matter movement that the USA has not come
very far and has indeed gone backwards under the un-visioning of Trump.
It was at that Civil Rights March August 1963 that Peter, Paul and Mary got up before Martin Luther
King and sang ‘Blowin in the Wind’ another anthem for a generation that sought hope in a vision for
a more human society. When it comes to envisioning words are not enough and Poetics are needed to
express the inexpressable, the Collective Unconscious. As they sang those words by Bob Dylan their
Poetics captured the questions of a society that had lost its vision to be human.

How many roads must a man walk down

Before you call him a man?
Yes, ’n’ how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, ’n’ how many times must the cannonballs fly
Before they’re forever banned?

The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind

The answer is blowin’ in the wind

How many years can a mountain exist

Before it’s washed to the sea?
Yes, ’n’ how many years can some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free?
Yes, ’n’ how many times can a man turn his head
Pretending he just doesn’t see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind

How many times must a man look up

Before he can see the sky?
Yes, ’n’ how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, ’n’ how many deaths will it take till he knows

246 Envisioning Risk

 That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind
Whilst I don’t know what the dreams and hopes are of the younger generations today I do know that
during the 1960s and through the Poetics of the Dylan anthem ‘The Times They are a Changin’ we
experienced a new hope for the world and a humanised future amidst great fear and concern by my
parents for this new movement.
Some of my best ideas come from dreaming, when I don’t worry about time and don’t seek Technique
but rather learn to wait, relax, meditate and reflect. This is where envisioning is discovered. It is not in
busyness, consuming and production that we see vision.
It is funny that when our body is worn out from work, when we exhaust the energy of our body that we
have to enter the unconscious and sleep. When our body won’t let us any longer pursue the quest for
Technique we dream. Isn’t it strange that some of the greatest songs of all time are about dreaming.
Whilst our culture tells us we are wasting time in dreams we spend most of our lives in an unconscious
state dreaming.

The Power of Poetics

The idea of Poetics stems back to Aristotle and denotes (https://www.iep.utm.edu/aris-poe/) experiences and
non-Technique (Ellul) focused modes of knowing and thinking (namely STEM/Positivism). Poetry is one form
of Poetics but any form of non-technical expression and non-measueable experience defines what it is to be
Poetic. Examples of Poetics are:
• Semiotic • Dance • Aesthetics • Spirituality • Hospitality
• Literature • Art • Gardening • Meditation and food
• Music • Drama • Walking • Mindfulness • Camping and
(Zinn) • Yoga

Poetics acts in dialectic with Technique and if taken seriously can inform a Transdisciplinary approach to risk
(https://safetyrisk.net/transdisciplinary-thinking-in-risk-and-safety/). This is the foundation for what is known
as Holistic Egonomics (https://cllr.com.au/product/holistic-ergonomics-unit-6/). How fascinating that all the
work done in Safety in Design doesn’t consider SPoR or Holistic Ergonomics.
In previous writing I described the nature of trauma and what I had learned from experiences with highly
traumatised young people and adults (https://safetyrisk.net/wrong-headed-safety/). I have hundreds of stories of
how health and healing were realized through Poetic strategies of engagement in my work in Galilee, for example:

A Lesson from Galilee

Galilee was located on a farm and many of the things we did that were therapeutic were about being
not doing, relationships, community and listening. We would often get visits from people who wanted
to see why the program was so successful and often those from schooling or technical backgrounds
were amazed that we had no formal curriculum. Their view of the world said that if we concentrated
on Numeracy and Literacy these young people would re-enter society and be successful. Nothing could
be more destructive. PTSD and trauma are not about wrong rationality, wrong-thinking or cognition.
PTSD is often about being disconnected from community and the world. Strangely, the less we focused
on Numeracy and Literacy and the more we focused on Poetic strategies of engagement, the greater
the success in connecting At-Risk Young People back into the community from which they had been
alienated.

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 The young people in Galilee were defined as ‘At-Risk’ or ‘High-Risk’ Young People and the extremes of
their enactments demonstrated a great deal about how each had embodied their trauma (https://www.
academia.edu/34890820/THE_BODY_KEEPS_THE_SCORE_Brain_Mind_and_Body_in_the_
Healing_of_Trauma). I remember Mary, a 15 year old girl who was a fire-lighter and self-harmer who
came to us with a long history of family abuse, rape, violence, drug-abuse, out-of-home living, school
failure and detention. Mary was so destructive and violent when she was in detention that she couldn’t
be held in such an institution, she required he own around-the-clock 24 hour intense supervision. She
has already burned down a Youth Refuge and accommodation centre and was attracted to cutting up
razor blades and swallowing them so the pieces would cut up her internal organs leading to emergency
hospitalization.
Any form of restraint simply sent Mary ballistic and was sensed as a re-enactment of previous abuse.
Sometimes without warning she would simply take off all her clothes and this certainly drew a response.
Much of what was done to Mary as supposed therapy simply drove her more deeply into self-harming
behavior and this provided her with great comfort. Any attempt at Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
or Rational Emotive Ttherapy simply made things worse as these are often framed by binary STEM
thinking and the idea of humans-as-brains on bodies. By the time Mary came to us she had been
completely institutionalized by Technique-focused approaches to therapy and she was in and out of
hospital on a monthly basis.
The first thing we did was to build Mary into our community through total acceptance and non-
judgmental activity. We discovered quickly that she was attracted to Gardening and Art and she often
chose these each day. The curriculum of Galilee was undertaken by the Young People themselves in
a kind of Summerhill approach (http://www.educationrevolution.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/
AERO_EdRev40.pdf ). I had taught Alternative approaches to Education at Canberra University for
several years and based the non-formal structure of the program on extensive research. This was discussed
in my sixth book Tackling Risk, A Field Guide to Risk and Learning (https://www.humandymensions.com/
product/tackling-risk/). The success of Galilee was informed by the work of: Apple, Gardiner, Freire,
Goodman, Reimer, Postman, Weingarter, Blishen, Illich, Macklin, Barrow and A.S. Neill. All of these
researchers we considered as ‘De-schoolers’, ‘Free-schoolers’ or ‘Un-schoolers’.
What I learned from the success at Galilee was just how much of what we do and embody does not fit
the brain-as-computer or ‘Engineering Resilience’ metaphor. The idea that a human is an individual that
can have their head ‘reprogramed’ about risk, couldn’t be more removed from reality. Engaging in Risk,
being attracted to Risk and understanding Risk requires a completely different worldview than what
dominates risk orthodoxy.
Much of what we are told is ‘Mental-Health’ is really embodied ill-health. When we have been
traumatised we embody that suffering and harm in every sinew of our body. Many of the behaviours
of Young People in Galilee (and WorkAssist) were reactive, nervous responses not something that
was ‘thought-through’. As Claxton informs us (Intelligence in the Flesh - https://yalebooks.yale.edu/
book/9780300208825/intelligence-flesh), most of what we do is driven by our Endocrine system,
Nervous system or Immune system in pre-cognitive decision making. One example of this is known as
the ‘fight or flight’ response. We discuss this in our training on One Brain Three Minds (https://vimeo.
com/156926212).
When we move away from the binary Technicist worldview of STEM-only we begin to understand approaches
to risk that address the power of the human unconscious in decision making. Semetsky (https://www.routledge.
com/Semiotic-Subjectivity-in-Education-and-Counseling-Learning-with-the-Unconscious/Semetsky/p/
book/9781138290211) is one of the pioneers in understanding how the unconscious informs and directs
learning. With a different worldview to risk we can then envision the challenges of risk holistically and in a
Transdisciplinary way.

248 Envisioning Risk

 Engaging in Poetics is not a rejection of STEM thinking or worldview. Transdisciplinarity is not about
binary rejection in either-or thinking but rather an extended inclusion in methodology. One of the
reasons why approaches to risk and safety are both closed and unsuccessful is because Technique deems
what ‘culture of knowledge’ is accepted. When one validates Poetic approaches to knowing then one is
more likely to have an holistic understanding and approach to tackling risk.
Van der Kolk’s work (Van der Kolk, B., (2015) The Body Keeps the Score, Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of
Trauma. Penguin. New York) supports this approach I discovered 30 years ago and demonstrates why the current
challenges in Mental Health are not working.

No Vision in More of the Same

As we approach the end of this book and we think of envisioning risk we need to review the important focus of
Humansing and Envisioning. A method that dehumanises others cannot be visionary.
I have already discussed in Chapter Four what stifles vision. If ever there was an industry that lacks vision it is the
risk and safety industry.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s injury rates, percentages, zero or trifr etc, the understanding of risk is consumed by
numbers not vision. Anything captivated by Technique is anti-vision.
I saw some Safety Propaganda recently about some big ‘safety innovation’, ‘the next thing’, ‘the global way forward’,
‘a global collaboration’, ‘the number one idea’ and one would think with such language there would be some sense
of vision attached to the announcement. Nup, the way forward was yet again another number. What is this industry
that doesn’t know how to talk about people, Personhood and helping? What is it about this industry that so lacks
trust in others it multiplies systems and bureaucracy every time it spews more propaganda about yet another number.
As long as the risk industry frames its world around numbers it will never have vision. As long as Safety deludes
itself that numerics and metrics determine safety it will play the same merry-go-round and then wonder in 10 years
why people have no interest in safety. If a number is all you can see and talk about then you have no vision, you
simply have a counting disorder.

A Tatooed Tongue
It’s so strange, when speaking to helping professions they never talk about numbers. Helping professions talk
about their concerns to serve others, to help people be their best, to improve and develop quality services so
that people can better live. People in helping professions recognize that a priority on numbers dehumanizes
people, this is what the Nazis understood so well in World War 2.
I once met an ex-prisoner-of-war from Dachau when I was 12 years of age and he showed me his prisoner
number tattooed on his tongue. He explained how the Nazis dehumanized everyone by using numbers. If
one ever mentioned a person’s name the punishment was severe or one could be shot. The Nazis knew more
than anyone that the best way to dehumanize people is to frame all discourse on numbers. We see this also in
the workers compensations system. How insulting to call a company iCare that has no focus at all on caring
(https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-24/icare-workers-compensation-insider-speaks-out/12583058). Ah
yes, but they are great at numbers, particularly those that build their bank accounts.
How soul destroying to think that all that matters is a number or to be considered as a number. Just imagine if your
child’s Teacher didn’t call your child by name but changed their name to 13. I wonder how long you would keep your
child in that school. Numbers are about Technique not about humans, community or helping.
This is the tyranny that consumes the risk industry, it is so addicted to numbers it doesn’t know it. Just look at any
disaster or enquiry that is launched by this industry and look where they turn for a vision for the future. Why is it
that this industry thinks that vision can come from more Regulation, Engineering and Science.
A great exmple of a lack of vision is The Brady Review of 2019-20.

Chapter 8: EnVisionary Practice 249

Brady Review
One of the things that the risk industry does well is keep the doors closed to critical thinking outside of
its own paradigm. Dialogue within the discipline of risk is tight, engaging similar worldviews, ensuring
that nothing changes. This was confirmed with the release of the Brady Report to Qld Parliament on 6
February 2020 (https://www.amsj.com.au/qrc-welcomes-brady-review/), Boland Report in 2018 (https://
www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/doc/review-model-whs-laws-final-report) and in the release of the AIHS
BoK on Ethics (https://safetyrisk.net/the-aihs-bok-and-ethics-check-your-gut/).
If you want to know anything about tackling risk just keep your exploration within the disciplinary club.
In that way you can predict the same kind of review with the same kind of outcomes. That way nothing
will change but the industry looks really busy on the pathway to zero. The Brady Review is a classic
example.
The first thing we learn in the Brady Review into fatalities in Queensland Mining over the last 20 years
is that the review takes a particular view that it doesn’t disclose. This view, though not openly disclosed,
is entirely consistent with many other reviews. The review is fixated and endorses the Regulator, data
myopia and naïve mythologies believed in the sector eg. sustaining the ideology of Zero, human error,
‘safety is a choice you make’ and that ‘accidents are preventable’. This is a Review in Technique.
Of course, the review makes no connection between mythologies in risk and later concerns in the report
about excessive paperwork, problems with reporting, blaming and problems with measurement. These are
the non-vision of the industry and must not be dismantled or criticised.
Indeed, the report has no discussion at all about any of the mythologies that influence culture creating
cultural norms such as ‘tick and flick’, hubris, ‘flooding’ and risk naivety. Further, the review says nothing
about culture at all except to project the naïve idea that a culture can be a ‘reporting’ culture. The report
doesn’t define culture.
Aspects of the report accept the construct by Dekker that organisations ‘drift’ into failure. Of course,
there is no such thing as ‘drift’ into failure, the metaphor conjures up an idea organisations were somehow
‘successful’ and now slowly and ignorantly, they are not. Brady then takes the Dekker thesis and applies
it to data. One could easily get the opposite view by applying the data to a construct such as ‘Wicked
Problems’ or applying the construct of fallibility to Persons or systems. Yet people will read this review
from the Engineering-Regulation bias and deem that is somehow objective!
At no time in the review is the ideology of Zero explored as a causal factor in the increase in fatalities in
Qld. This is despite the fact that the Regulator committed to zero in 1999 and has clearly failed by any
measure. The ideology of Zero projects a fixation on: minutia, counting and numerical claims of success
eg. catch any plane to western Qld and see all the shirts with zero mantra and ‘1 millions hours with out
injury’ etc. Thereby creating mythology that injury rates are a measure of safety.
The cultural norms of counting, fixation on minutia, Technique and numerics are indeed part of the
problem but will never be entertained by such a review. One of the most important things in safety since
the global ideology has been made zero (http://visionzero.global/node/6) is to ensure this sacred mantra
remains untouched. So, 20 years later after the Qld Regulator embraced zero (https://www.worksafe.qld.
gov.au/construction/articles/zero-harm-at-work-leadership-program), fatalities continue to increase but
Zero remains unquestioned? Hmmm. Questioning Zero is the great taboo!
Another bias of the Brady Review is the way it interprets the works of Prof K. Weick through the lens of
Hopkins. Weick comes from the discipline of Social Psychology, one needs to frame what one knows of
Weick through such a lens. Weick’s first book The Social Psychology of Organisaing is a must read (1969)
and helps one understand the way in which he thinks about High Reliability Organising. Weick makes
it clear in his later writings that there is no such thing as a HRO! There is no such thing as a static High
Reliability Organisation. There is no stasis for humans nor place where we ‘arrive’. There is only HROing

250 Envisioning Risk

 and ongoing participle. You can read here how his colleague Suttcliffe explains the problem: (https://
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3388695/)
Despite everything we know about HROs, there is no recipe for transforming an organization
into an HRO. Put another way, there is no easy path to achieving safe and reliable performance.
Some HRO scholars emphasize the idea of high reliability organizing rather than high reliability
organizations to highlight two issues. First, high reliability is not a state that an organization can
ever fully achieve; rather, it is something the organization seeks or continually aspires to. Second,
reliability is fundamentally a dynamic set of properties, activities, and responses.
In the Weick meaning of HRO, one never arrives or can arrive. All organisations are fallible and grouped
around fallible people, there is no ‘drift’ into failure. Yet, the Brady Review states: ‘In all industries there
is a tendency to simplify – in part because of a Newtonian drive to break a system into components (7.4
p.70)’. The opposite is the case. The reason why there is so much excess of paperwork in the risk industry
is because Safety loves Bureaucracy and Minutia. This is because Safety trusts no one and believes that
knowledge in risk is cognitive. The opposite is the case. There is no discussion in the Brady Review on
intuitive knowledge and the part heuristics play in incidents.
Weick was right, the human disposition and that of organisations is a ‘reluctance to simplify’. One thing
I will predict from this Brady Review is that paperwork and complexity will further increase. We can see
this in the logic of the recommendations:
Recommendation 1. Drawing causal connections between fatality rates and increasing or decreasing
vigilance is unfounded (p.iii). There is no evidence to demonstrate that fatalities are due to a lack of
vigilance but that’s what Brady asserts. So, what comes with increased vigilance? More policing, more
detail because the culture of Safety is dominated by a lack of trust. It’ s only Safety who knows what is safe.
Recommendation 2. Shows the Engineering worldview in the review. Once again the focus is on a
fixation with causation and systemic failures.
Recommendation 3. More training of course will lead to more paperwork, again the assumptions is that
fatalities occur due to problems in cognition.
Recommendation 4. Similarly a focus on more supervision under the rubric of vigilance will lead to more
policing.
Recommendation 5. Predictably, in comes the ‘enforcement’ of controls and the mythology of the
Hierarchy of Controls. Just what Safety wants to hear.
Recommendation 6. Is founded on the mythology of the HRO. There is only HROing. Organisations
never ‘arrive’ neither do they ‘drift’ into failure. Such constructs imposed on organizational life come from
an assumptional positions of either completeness or perfection. Perfect for the ideology of Zero.
Recommendation 7. In comes the focus on the Regulator. Regulators are not institutions of learning,
neither are they able to approach the challenge of risk through a methodology of learning. To shift the
Regulator from its current punitive focus would take nothing less than a cultural revolution.
Recommendation 8. The key question here is: Why is it that people and organisations don’t report? Of
course, one would need to look here at deep cultural issues, the Psychology of Motivation/Perception and
the Psychology of Goals, something the review doesn’t do.
Recommendation 9. Next incomes more measurement and different measurement. Shifting a measure
from LTI to LTIFR changes nothing. Indeed, now the mining industry will not drop the old measure but
start fixating on both. Neither are connected to safety. There is no relationship between injury rates and
safety, it is all an attribution.

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 Recommendation 10. Again, more measures Figure 180. Seaside Lounge
this time Serious Accident Frequency Rate
SAFR as a measure of safety in the industry.
Read the sub-text, more measures and more
paperwork.
Recommendation 11. High Potential
Incident Frequency Rate (HPIFR) as a
measure of the level of safety in the industry.
Read the sub-text, more measures and more
paperwork.
So, that is it. There you are Mining Qld, you
have your review. Keep up with Zero even
though fatalities are increasing, keep up
your vigilance, counting and measures, keep
up with more policing and mystically hope
that things will improve. Keep thinking within the disciplinary bubble that creates your own intellectual
and cultural comfort because the next review from within the club may be in 5 years.
I can think of no better illustration of a lack of vision and non-envisioning in tackling risk.
Similarly, one can read about vision within the risk associations in Australia and of course there is no
vision for anything more but more of the same:
• https://www.visions.org.au/
• https://www.aihs.org.au/about/vision-and-values
• https://www.nsca.com/globalassets/about/nsca-strategic-plan-summary.pdf
• https://www.rmia.org.au/membership

Vision is an Art
One of the things I am not good at is Art. Whilst I admire Art and love Art I cannot do Art, I have
trouble even drawing a stick figure. I do however have an elder brother who is an amazing Artist. Bruce
was born with a lung condition and also severe Dyslexia. Bruce has always had trouble with text, writing
and learning text. One of the reasons Bruce left school early at the age of 14 years of age was because of
how brutal the school system was on him for failing to write text. Getting caned for every spelling error
was the school system’s idea of effective
Figure 181. Bruce in Lounge
learning, so much for Technique and
Brutalism in the name of ‘good’.
Over time Bruce found his niche as a
tradesperson (Ceramic Tiling) and an
Artist. Some of his work hangs in the most
amazing places in Australia. Bruce has
run for sometime The Studio of Mosaic Art
(http://thestudioofmosaicart.blogspot.com/).
People travel from far and wide to learn
Mosaic Art with Bruce.
An example of Bruce’s vision is evident
in all his work but one piece I love the
most is his Seaside Lounge see Figure 180.
Seaside Lounge. In this piece Bruce captures
the dreaming of people embodied in the delights of surfing and ocean love. This lounge (that weights a

252 Envisioning Risk

 tonne) was positioned by the sea for an Art competition in Adelaide. For me Bruce is th embodiment of
the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice dialectic.
You can see Bruce in Figure 181. Bruce in Lounge sitting in the lounge waiting for it to be lifted by fork
lift onto a truck for the exhibition.
Whilst we don’t all have to be Artists to think and express vision Poetically we do however need to embrace
perception differently and give value to Poetics as a valid form of knowing. Particularly with regard to the
pivileging of Technique in our society, moreso in the risk and safety industry.

Visualising Vision
In the world of risk it is astounding just how much of the focus is on objects, spreadsheets and checklists. When
one explores any icons used to represent this industry it is always about numbers and objects. These are the tools
of non-Vision.
Vision is best expressed in Poetics/Semiotics and this includes all kinds of visual and audible representation.
Cartographics (particularly Concept Mapping) is critical because it is an effective way to envision relationships,
the foundation of the Social Psychology of Risk. If a so called ‘vision’ is put forward and it is not about
humanising, advancing the well being of the community or about social good, it is not likely to be visionary. As
we have already discussed, in order for something to be visionary it must incorporate the Faith-Hope-Justice-
Love dialectic. The Faith-Hope-Love-Justice can be envisioned in many ways and one effective way is using
many kinds of Informational Graphics.
You can read a host of material on Information Graphics here:
• Tufte, E., (2001) The Visual Display of Quantative Information. Graphics Press. Cheshire Connecticut
(http://www2.jufejus.org.ar/www.jufejus.org.ar/images/doc/ACTIVIDADES/Estadisticas/Jornadas%20
de%20Capacitacion/Material/JornadasX/Tufte/The%20)
• Wildur, P., and Burke, M., (1998) Information Graphics, Innovative Solutions in Contemporrray Design.
Thames and Hudson. London.
• Harris, R., (1999) Information Graphics, A Comprehensive Illustrated Reference. Visual Tools for Analysisng,
Managing and Communicating. Oxford. London.
In many ways Information Graphics is able to ‘say’ things that words can’t say. It can express social relationship
better than anything else, just as Song and Music can carry the emotion of Heart knowledge.

Infographics, Cartographics and Pinterest

One of my favourite services on the Internet is Pinterest (https://www.pinterest.com.au/). When you
subscribe to Pinterest you simply register your areas of interest and you will see all kinds of information
sent to you graphically: in Cartography, Semiotics, Infographics, cartoons and an assortment of images.
Some of the Occult, Alchemy and Alternative Medicine graphics are a fascination. It is amazing the
mumbo jumbo, weird and mysterious graphics of Alchemy. Whilst I don’t suggest spending too much
time on such material it is an insight into the mind of Fundamentalism and conspiracy lunacy. One such
point of interest is the Alchemy/Occult notion of embodied anatomy. See Figure 182. Occultic Anatomy
Whilst I don’t believe theOoccult or its ideology it is fascinating how the mysteries of the human body
and the nature of Embodiment have been the fascination of the Occult and Alchemy for centuries. In the
Disciplines of Naturopathy, Oriental and Chinese Medicine, iChing (https://www.carl-jung.net/iching.
html), Acupuncture (https://www.livescience.com/29494-acupuncture.html), Yoga and massage therapies
there is a host of evidence to show that the ‘energies’ of the body are mysterious and beyond the confines
of the Mentalie of Technique.

Chapter 8: EnVisionary Practice 253

 My brother Bruce who I introduced you to Figure 182. Occultic Anatomy
in the previous discussion on Vision in Art
has also been a practising Massage Therapist
for 20 years and helps many people with
bodily ailments where drugs, Physiotherapy
and Orthodox Medicine have not helped.
At my local Medical Clinic we have
General Practictioners and a resident
Naturopathist such as Bruce. My daughter
who is a Teacher undertook her first career
in Naturopathy in the area of diet and
bodily chemicals.
So whilst I have a healthy scepticism against
Quackery that is common in Naturopathy
(see Kang, L., and Pedersen, N., (2017)
Quackery, A Brief History of the Worst Ways
to Cure Everything. Workman Publishing,
New York.) I nonetheless don’t throw the
baby out with the bathwater. Some of this
stuff remains a mystery as to why it works.
Perhaps some of this is a kind of ‘Faith
Healing’ a kind of Mind over matter thing.
However, it is a fascination that this stuff
does work for some people and that the
training of Naturopathists includes much
of this Semiotic visualisation of the human
anatomy.

Information Graphics
One of the most lauded Cartographics
in history is the work of Minard and his
representation of the Napoleonic campaign
(https://www.nationalgeographic.com/
news/2017/03/charles-minard-cartography-
infographics-history/). You can observe
a full discussion of Minard’s work and
the power of Infographics here: https://
www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-
a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0002yI. Tufte’s
work is considered THE authority
on the Discipline of Infographics. (Tufte, E., (2001) The Visual Display of Quantative Information.
Graphics Press. Cheshire Connecticut - http://www2.jufejus.org.ar/www.jufejus.org.ar/images/doc/
ACTIVIDADES/Estadisticas/Jornadas%20de%20Capacitacion/Material/JornadasX/Tufte/The%20
Visual%20Display%20of%20Q%20Info.pdf ). Tufte’s book Envisioning Information (http://okhaos.com/
tufte.pdf ) should be compulsor reading for anyone in the risk and safety industry.
Tufte discusses Minard’s Infographic of Napoleon in Chapter 9 of his second book (2001). In this
discussion Tufte shows how visual information in Semiotics can say much more than hundreds of pages
of text. I guess ‘a picture tells a thousand words’. It is for this reason that so much of SPoR is represented
graphically, visually and semiotically. This is why all the books in this series on risk are linked around a

254 Envisioning Risk

 central theme of the leap of faith across a chasm. It is why so many of the books have so many pictures,
graphics and stories linked to graphics.

Concept Mapping as Envisioning

One of the foundational tools of SPoR is Concept Mapping and why Concept Mapping has been illustrated
in this book. Concept Mapping to many seems messy and inaccurate and in some ways they are right. Indeed,
it is the best tool to try and understand Wicked Problems and what Dr Ashhurst calls Transcoherence ie.
Transdisciplinary understandings across multiple disciplines. Indeed, Craig’s outstanding PhD One Team Where
Worlds Collide: The Development of Transcoherence for Tackling Wicked Problems is a phenomenal work and unique in
the world of PhDs because he uses Information Graphics and Semiotics throughout his thesis. You can read and
download his PhD here: https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/202932.
In the world of Academic the idea of including graphics is usually considered inappropriate. It is why so many
academic texts are boring and poor at communicating. Even so, a table or graph in a text is still considered by
many Academics as not being Academic. Not so Craig’s PhD. It was Craig who first introduced me to Concept
Mapping 35 years ago and its power for envisioning.
Whilst Concept Mapping is not a ‘cure all’ for envisioning, it is a vital tool for understanding relationships and
the outworking of vision. You can read more about Concept Mapping here:
• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263751666_Making_learning_visible_The_
role_of_concept_mapping_in_higher_education/link/54d356880cf250179181faae/
download
• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276420008_Concept_Mapping
In a number of Modules in CLLR we develop and expand skills in Concept Mapping often starting with a
simple drawing of contributions and then to complex codes that reveal hidden aspects of learning and
unconscious messaging. You can see one such concept map at Figure 183. Holistic Ergonomics.

Figure 183. Holistic Ergonomics

There are also many Applications that are Concept Mapping tools for computer and iPhone.

Chapter 8: EnVisionary Practice 255

• Bubbl.us • Creately • Lucidchart
• Popplet • Coggle • Mindomo
• MindMup • MindMeister • Spiderscribe

I tend to prefer Omnigraffle (https://www.omnigroup.com/omnigraffle/) for all my Concept Mapping work. But
don’t get me wrong envisioning can be transported through any of the senses, it’s just at the end of this book I
want to highlight the way SPoR envisions risk and how SPoR creates tools to envision. It would take another
book to discuss having Voice, Linguistics, Dialogue, Discourse, Homiletics and Language in risk. There are also
many people who say nothing really well. They are entertaining, funny and fluent but their content is fluff. If one
is going to focus on Voice, it is important that whatever one speaks is envisionary.
For the moment these two speeches are among my favourites where Vision is captured in a speech.

Vision Spoken

There are many excellent visionary speaches that convey the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice dialectic, two of my
favourites are here:

Jim Carey - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAzTIOy0ID0

Jeff Daniels - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMqcLUqYqrs

A Practical Way of Envisioning

When we first introduce people to SPoR we start by teaching people how to listen and provide
tools to make listening targeted to SPoR. We run a free Introduction to the Social Psychology of
Risk every 3 months. You can regsiter for that free online Module here: https://cllr.com.au/product/
an-introduction-to-the-social-psychology-of-risk-unit-1-free-online-module/
In the Introductory module to SPoR we introduce four ways of visual thinking that assist in moving away from
checklist thinking to SPoR envisioning in risk, these are:
• iCue Listening
• Engagement Boarding
• Questioning and Conversations
• Mandala Thinking
I will discuss each of these in turn and then the book will conclude but let me say, the best way to understand any
of this is to do it, engage in it, practice it and ‘feel’ how it works. Envisioning has to be embodied to be effective.
As with everything in SPoR the focus is on practicality and practice of SPoR. SPoR is not just some theory of
risk, it is most importantly a way of practising the tackling of risk.
There are of course many tools in SPoR that assist envisioning and risk, these are just the introductory ‘tools’.

iCue Listening
iCue Listening is based around the idea that Listening is the foundation of all relationship and that listeing
to critical cues is the best way to understand risk. For this task we provide participants with the iCue Listening
tool and some simple practical processes to better listen for risk, raise questions and facilitate learning in
conversations. This tool is at Figure 184. iCue Matrix and Figure 185. Open Questions iCue. These have been
introduced in previous books.
An iCue is an intelligent cue and comes from the idea that risk intelligence can be heard.

256 Envisioning Risk

 Figure 184. iCue Matrix Figure 185. Open Questions iCue

The Matrix provides a structure for concept mapping and can graphically represent an envisioning conversation.
This structure intitally is learned consciously but later becomes unconscious as just a natural way of listening.
We listen with intent for iCues in risk and ‘chase’ those iCues according to what the person ‘confesses’ to us.
These ‘confessions’ have nothing to do with anything religious but rather represent what the person tells us
unconsciously. ‘Confessions’ are often matters we did not ask for but that the person tells us unconsciously.
It is important that people know how to ask effective questions and this involves much more than just having
some Technique. The following section gives an overview of the kind of disposition required for effective iCue
listening. Whilst the iCue tool gives some examples of effective open questions it is much more important to
have the right disposition in conversation. For risk and safety people they must jettison the following:
• Telling
• Controlling
• Sermonising
In particular these dispositions lack vision and quash relationships.

Questioning Skills
It is unfortunate that the word ‘investigation’ in the risk and safety industry has come to mean ‘interrogation’.
However, the word really just means a systematic enquiry and analysis. Perhaps this focus on interrogation comes
from the idea that if someone has been harmed then someone must be at fault or have committed a crime? Any
analysis of an event should be undertaken in a nature of discovery learning, exploration and ‘sifting’ and this relies
on skills in effective questioning.

Chapter 8: EnVisionary Practice 257

When we do the SEEK program (https://cllr.com.au/product/seek-the-social-psychology-of-event-
investigations-unit-2-elearning/) I get surprised at how many people in risk and safety have never had training in
the fundamental skills of questioning and listening. It tends to be assumed that such skills are natural, objective
and simple. It is also assumed that risk and safety is about ‘telling’. Telling quashes vision.
In some ways questioning and listening skills are simple but in other ways not, it all depends on one’s disposition.
Whilst it is good to know what an open question is that doesn’t mean one will be good at asking it. Effective
questioning and listening are not about Technique.
One can see questioning and listening as a matter of Technique but that is not where questioning and listening
skill development starts. Yes, it’s good to know what the skills of questioning and listening are (https://www.
mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_88.htm) but none of this will ‘work’ unless one brings an attitude of
Personhood to the conversation.
Here are a few disposition tips:

1. Purpose
One of the most important aspects of questioning concerns purpose, this will unconsciously affect how you
approach the person or persons.

2. Power and Control

If one comes to a conversation with a need to ‘tell’, hold power and control, then there will be no discovery
learning, exploration or listening.

3. Relinquishing Power and Control

One cannot come into a conversation with some pre-set idea of where it will go. A good questioner knows how
to relinquish control to the other, listen and pursue their agenda, not one’s own agenda.

4. The Self
It is interesting that one needs to be confident in one’s ability to ‘ad lib’ and follow the other. If one doesn’t really
know what to do, is anxious and focused on technique, things won’t go well.

5. Silence
Many people think you need to fill the silence in the air with something and miss the point of effective stance,
body language and what counsellors call ‘attending’.

6. Waiting
Impatience to get an outcome can be one of the worst approaches to questioning. I often say to people in SEEK
training that if they are busy and things are hectic, don’t go out expecting an effective conversation.

7. Practice and Supervision

The only way to get really good at questioning and listening is to undertake practice and be supervised and
mentored. In SEEK we often do this through micro-training methodology. Micro-training has been common
in the helping professions for 50 years. Getting effective at questioning and listening takes some time to become
experienced and requires extensive practice.

8. Pitching, Framing, Priming, Anchoring, Mirroring and Reframing

These skills are essential in any enquiry and in SEEK we spend considerable time practicing them. Even then to
do them naturally takes much more practice and time.

9. The Atom and Cup of Coffee

258 Envisioning Risk

In SEEK we use the metaphors of the atom and a coffee cup to denote what a conversation is about. The atom
reminds us that reductionism rarely works in effective questioning. The atom reminds us that drilling down to
detail and focusing on objects rarely engenders trust in the other. The coffee cup reminds us that we need to
suspend our agenda when approaching others and this is the foundation of effective listening. This is often the
biggest challenge for safety people, they find it so hard to let go of power in the moment.

10. Hello, My Unconscious is Speaking

Part of the skill in listening is hearing when someone gives you vital information, language and metaphor you
have not asked for. Indeed, when people trust you, you will be surprised what they will tell you.
It would be wrong to see these 10 tips as also Technique or some kind of engineering mechanism. Good
conversation, questioning and listening is much more about poetics than measurement. It is a strange paradox
that the more you quest for important detail, the less you will get it and, the more you attend to the person, trust
and listening, the more important detail they will give you.

iCue Coding
iCue Listening is a disposition and is something that one learns to turn on and off as needed. It is not something
one can keep focused on all the time. In particular it is turned on for conversations about risk in toolbox talks,
risk assessments and investigations. You certainly don’t ‘turn on’ iCue Listening if at a party or the pub.
Generally conversations about risk don’t involve direct concept mapping on a board or template but may involve
just listening and tranfering recollections onto the template at a later time. It is up to you if you should feel the
need to document a conversation or not.
iCue Listening starts with a blank template as at Figure 186. iCue Template.

Figure 186. iCue Template

Chapter 8: EnVisionary Practice 259

Let’s imagine you have just had a chat to someone or a group and you return to your place and map your
recollections. In this case you start with a blank iCue template comprised of the two foundational concepts in
SPoR thinking: Workspace, Headspace and Groupspace and One Brain and Three Minds.

Figure 187. iCue Recollection

Figure 188. iCue Conversation

260 Envisioning Risk

These icons are placed in a matrix or one can easily just write WS, HS, GS and 1B3M on a quadrant and are used
to direct recollection. In the Workspace area of the quadrant one notes physical things in both their negative and
positive state, then in Headspace recollections of things and language that is psychological and in Grouspace things
that are Cultural and about matters between people. The 1B3M icon sits in the middle as a reminder of physical,
heuristical and automatic modes of decision making. Often lines of recollection are drawn through this icon.
The following Figure 187. iCue Recollection is a conversation with someone about a process in which something
had failed. For the moment it is not important to recall the details of the problem as much as to demonstrate
how the model of iCue Listening works.
This map looks like Figure 188. iCue Conversation as it what drawn on a whiteboard.
Once we have transposed the conversation into the Omnigraffle application it is then easy to code. However, it
doesn’t need to be necessarily coded immediatly once the conversation is captured. In some of the organisations
who practice SPoR iCue Listening they just take a photo and file it as either a Risk Assessment, Toolbox or
Investigation.
Once the conversation has been mapped it can be coded as Figure 189. Coded iCue Conversation. None of this
is developed easily and usually it takes a few months of practice to get the nature of this method. All those who
learn this method then rave about how it works to assist listening, recollection, learning and envisioning risk.
Normally identifiers are placed in the top right hand corner but these have been covered and removed for the
purposes of this book.

The iCue Coding Process

Coding the iCue Listening process just involves learning to hear what is significant in a person’s responses to
open questions and then coding according to the following symbols:
1. Shapes (mostly rectangles) around text to denote actual words and phrases of emtional significance
2. Lines connected and coded according to + = or - according to the positivity or negativity of the transaction.
3. Coded leter pairs to suggest temperament listening SJ, SP, NT and NF per Jungian temperament type

Figure 189. Coded iCue Conversation

Chapter 8: EnVisionary Practice 261

4. Some text in red to denote intonation, amplification or emphasis in language
5. Text in circles to denote thoughts and biases of the questioner
6. Language looped or though 1B3M to denote particular focus on a heuristics or automaticity
7. Upper case ‘C’ to denote confessions and unconscious utterances
8. Boxes in bold to denote the things of greatest risk significance
9. Lines denoting values and ethics in dialectic
10. Arrows indicate directionality and musicality/paralinguistics
All of this is eminently doable and practical revealing much that is hidden in the conversation of others and its
significance for how that person is going to tackle risk.
Once noted and mapped and coded this can easily be presented as evidence if needed for court or for a report if
others in the organisations understand the code.
This method can easily replace checklisting and lengthy bureaucracy that has no relational relevance and is most
often a meaningless ‘tick and flick’ exercise. Such documentation has more relevance and credibility than most of
the paperwork that is currently ineffective in court (https://vimeo.com/162034157). Most importantly this helps
envision risk.

Engagement Boarding
Many of the clients who utilise SPoR methodology use the method introduced above in their iCue Listening in
Investigations, Toolbox Talks and Risk Assessments. One such client is Mondi Group (https://www.mondigroup.
com/en/home/). You can see a video of the Group Head of Safety and Health talking to me about their use of
Engagement Boarding here: https://vimeo.com/390609359
Engagement Boarding is when the iCue Listening process is applied to a group gathering around a whiteboard
or mechanism to record mutal conversations. The same process is used as explained previously but in this case
all the employees are made familiar and inducted into Workspace, Headspace and Groupspace and 1B3M
and understand how these are mapped on a board. Most of my clients in SPoR have their own induction and
instructional videos and processes to teach people these simple concepts.

iConic Thinking
A critical aspect of working in SPoR is Semiotics and iconic thinking. Through Semiotics people are stimulated
in both the conscious and unconscious space to elicit responses in conversation and envisioning. In SPoR we
teach the initial use of the WS, HS, GS icons and 1B3M and then progress to teaching people how to have iCue
Conversations..
The following icons (see Figure 190. iConic Conversations) are just some representations of possible conversations
as part of the skill development process:
These icons and combinations of icons are used to trigger discussions and conversations about risk across
various layers of risk and help employees better listen for iCues in risk in Risk Assessments, Toolbox Talks
and Investigations. Most organisations also have these icons as magnets that can be easily positioned on an
Engagement Board to open up discussion.
Once people become fluent in iCue Questioning and Listening and can use an Engagement Board they
gain a whole new vision of how risk is envisioned.

262 Envisioning Risk

Figure 190. iConic Conversations

Figure 191. Star Mandala Figure 192. Wheel Mandala

Chapter 8: EnVisionary Practice 263

Mandala Thinking Figure 193. Quadrant Mandala
One of the other tools we use in the Introduction to
SPoR is Mandala Thinking. This has been developed
from the work of C. G. Jung (1959 Mandala Symbolism.
Bollingen Foundation. Princeton) and enables a
semiotic understanding of conflicts, values, dialects
and competing values in an organisation or group. This
process of cartographics enables people to visualise the
complexities of competing forces in their organisation
and often helps reveal tension points and balances in
tackling risk.
The following three examples give an idea of some
of the mandalas that are developed by people in this
introduction Module. In Figure 191. Star Mandala we
see the hyphen dialectic represented by a spiral vortex
positioned between the polarities of listening-telling;
compliance-creativity; trust-control and global-local. In between each faultline are tensions between closes-open;
fear-joy; obey-own and bottom-top. For the person drawing this mandala these are the tensions in her work on a
daily basis with the dialectic being the balance somewhere in the middle. The three mandalas presented as follows
are by leaders in HSEQ in some of the largest organisations in the world.
In Figure 192. Wheel Mandala we see a quite different structure using squares to make a circle between the
outer tension points of person-centric and object centric, knowing and not knowing. The idea of the tensions
and rotations for this person represent the way his organisation affects him. The wide open space in the middle
represents his opportunities to enter the dialectic and invoke change.
In Figure 193. Quadrant Mandala we see the main tension points between zero ideology and trial and error;
teaching and learning. The telling-engaging dialectic is also a feature. The use of the arrows and triangular
sub-sets in each quadrant shows how matters such as following, leading, change and stasis are challenges in his
organisation. The symbolism of pushing and pulling arrows shows just what kind of pressures are present in the
dialectical cross in the middle.

Closing This Book

So this brings to the close book nine in the series on risk.
The Social Psychology of Risk (SPoR) seeks to offer the risk industry a new vision for understanding and
practising the way it tackles risk. SPoR proposes a new way of envisioning risk juxtaposed to the methodology of
risk orthodoxy and Technique. If ever there was an industry that needed vision it is the risk and safety industry.
Everywhere you turn in this industry it is simply more of the same: excessive bureaucracy, excessive legislation,
excessive regulation, dehumanising people and endless punitive Behaviourist discourse. Even those who claim
to have a new vision, new view or new approach to tackling risk are wrapped up in discourse of Engineering,
Scientific Positivism, numerics and metrics. If ever an industry needed a Faith-Hope-Love-Justic dialectic it is
this industry.
It is in the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice dialectic that humans can envision a humanised way of tackling risk. There
is certainly no vision in zero. So much of what is paraded as vision in this industry is the opposite. In all its
anxiety and self-preoccupation with being ‘professional’ it acts unprofessionally. Until it it can step outside of its
fortress Mentalitie and embrace a Transdisciplinary approach to risk it will never become a helping profession.

264 Envisioning Risk

The Three Legged Race Figure 194. Three Legged Race
When I was a young boy there were always
‘novelty races’ at school athletic carnivals and
Sunday School picnics. Prizes were given
for these races and competitions but never
considered as significant as the 100 metre sprint
or High Jump. These events were nontheless
extraordinary fun and were often targetted at
collaboration, cooperation and team skills.
In 2018 my youngest brother Andrew had
moved to a small town on the Hawkesbury River
called Spencer, a beautiful little village between
Gosford and Wiseman’s Ferry. During his time
at Spencer Andrew met the Caravan Park owner
and amongst several conversations the surname
Long was raised. The owner of the Caravan Park
asked Andrew if he had a brother called Robert
and the caravan park Owner Greg stated that he
knew me and indeed, we competed together and
won First Place in the school’s Three Legged
Race. Greg then went to his room and came out
with two certificates and showed them to my
brother having kept them since 1964! See Figure 194. Three Legged Race.
In that year I visited my brother and after 55 years I met Greg again and we had a quiet drink and a chat.
The serendipity of such moments no longer surprises me. Life indeed brings together many things that
seem a million to one.
A three legged race is a wonderful metaphor and symbol for envisioning risk. This is a race where two
people are coupled together at the ankles (usually tied tight together with an old stocking) and have to
run together with their middle legs tied together as fast as they can for 100 metres. You can see what a
Three Legged race looks like here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46n3-W-Awx0&pbjreload=101
Life is like this, we are often joined together with others, other ideas and run the race in living. It all
depends on how we work with others and across dialectical tension points in how we compete. The
stocking is much like the dialectic (hyphen) that joins yet pushes on the two runners as they endeavour to
run this race together.
You could always run much faster on your own but the point of the race is to see how well you can work
in tandem. It is a race that intentionally makes one vulnerable and fallible, it’s so easy to be tripped up
and fall over, but you go on and finish the race. This is how we live life, not in some perfectionist dream
but in the realism of dialectic and with a vision for completing the challenge tied to others. If anything,
silly language and discourse serve as a distaction from the task, one doesn’t focus on the impediment of
the stocking but rather the other person to whom you are joined. We can only envision risk if we know
we are joined to others in humanising risk.

Chapter 8: EnVisionary Practice 265

I’ve Seen You
Well I’ve seen you
a little bit
And I’ve known you
a little bit
And I know
oh yes I know
You are the light
you are the light
That satisfies, that satisfies my soul

Other help me see you

Other help me know you
Other I really love you with
a new kind of light
kind of light
That satisfies, that satisfies my soul

Can you see me

a little bit
Can you know me
a little bit
Can you know, can you know
We are the light
we are the light
That satisfies, that satisfies our soul

266 Envisioning Risk

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274 Envisioning Risk

Dr Robert Long
PhD., BEd., BTh., MEd., MOH, Dip T., Dip Min.,

Rob is global founder of the Social Psychology of Risk and, Executive Director of Human Dymensions, The
Centre for Leadership and Learning in Risk and Social Psychology of Risk Pty Ltd.

Rob has a creative career in teaching, education, community services, government and management. Rob works
across all sectors and has a range of clients Internationally in oil, gas, petrochemicals and security.

Rob has lectured at various universities since 1990 including University of Canberra, Charles Sturt University,
ACU and is currently an associate at Federation University. He has also held distinguished positions outside
of academic life including Manager Evacuation Centre during the Canberra Bushfires in 2003, Emergency
Coordination Operations Group Beaconsfield 2006, Community Recovery Beaconsfield 2006 and Risk
Management Coordinator World Youth Day (Canberra Goulburn) 2008.

Rob is the founding Principal of the Galilee School which he established in 1996 to educate the most high-risk
young people in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). He was Director of Youth, Community and Family
Support services in the ACT Government and has served on numerous Australian inter-governmental task
forces, committees, ministerial councils and working groups in areas such as gambling, crime, homelessness,
indigenous disadvantage, social infrastructure, child protection, youth-at-risk, drug addiction, prisons and social
justice.

Rob founded the social psychological perspective in risk, safety and security in 2003 and is engaged by
organisations because of his expertise in culture, learning, risk and social psychology. He is a skilled presenter and
designer of learning events, training and curriculum.

Contact
rob@humandymensions.com

rob@cllr.com.au

rob@spor.com.au

Chapter 9: References 275

Further Research and Study
The Social Psychology of Risk can be formally studied at The Centre for Leadership and Learning in Risk
(http://cllr.com.au/).
The Centre for Leadership and Learning in Risk accredits studies at Certifcate (4 units), Diploma (4 more units)
and Master Levels (4 units or thesis). A prospectus can be downloaded from the CLLR home page.
Once participants have completed at least two units of study face-to-face, they can then complete up to 5 more
units online. A study calendar can be viewed here: http://cllr.com.au/events/.
Videos on CLLR activities and ideas can be viewed here: https://vimeo.com/cllr
To be qualified to teach SPoR people must complete 8 modules to hain access and authroity to SPoR Intellectual
property and training materials.

Risk Programs and Resources

Human Dymensions offers practical training programs in The Social Psychology of Risk (http://www.
humandymensions.com/). The many programs, tools and services of Human Dymensions can be viewed here:
http://www.humandymensions.com/services-and-programs/.
Videos on Human Dymensions activities and ideas can be viewed here: https://vimeo.com/humandymensions.
Human Dymensions offers a range of programs on:
Executive Learning and Change
Program Reviews and Development
Strategic Integration of Services, Employees and Contractors
Problem Solving with Visualisation
Strategic Influence using Visualisation and Semiotics
Master Class Workshops in Visualisation, Semiotics and Influence
Understanding Pedagogy, Curriculum, Presentation and Motivating Learning
Master Class Moderation
Innovations in Inductions for Learning
Tackling Risk for Maturity and Wisdom
Risk Intelligence and Visualisation for Changes

Links
The Social Psychology of Risk (SPoR)
https://spor.com.au/
The Centre for Leadership and Learning in Risk
http://cllr.com.au/
Human Dymenesions
https://www.humandymensions.com/

276 Envisioning Risk

Chapter 9: References 277
This is a book about seeing: Physically, Psychologically, Teleologically, Socially, Mystically,
Transcendently, Imaginatively and Unconsciously and then applying such knowledge to the tackling of
risk. What we see (and understand) is neither straight forward, simple or objective and this affects the
way we perceive the world, living and risk. We see the world through our worldview, the paradigm that
constructs meaning of what life means and from this we understand being, our semiosis (purpose and
meaning) and our visual perception.
This book is structured in three parts:
• The Phenomenon Vision
• The Meaning of Vision and,
• The Practicality of Envisioning

We read and talk about visionaries and leaders with vision but what do they see and why are people
inspired by them? Why do we understand something as visionary and something else as non-visionary?
Why are some people able to envision (discern) the outcome of a risk and others not? How do they see
something and others not? What is the connection between insight, vision, perception, imagination,
discernment, intuition, wisdom, sagacity and risk? Surely if risk is about faith and trust in the face of
uncertainty then one might want to know why some people have better vision than others; physically,
intuitively, metaphysically, prophetically and poetically. These are some of the dimensions of vision that
will be discussed in this book.
The choice of the word ‘envision’ for this book has special meaning, it conveys the concept of something
in one’s own Mind (embodied in head, heart and gut being) and articulated to another. Envisioning
is associated with the transference of vision and involves: learning, dreaming, imagining, visualisation,
discovery, discerning and creating. The idea of envisioning is about much more than just looking
and seeing. Envisioning is about more than just physical perception and extends to an holistic way
of knowing that extends beyond simple cognition. Envisioning is about images in the Mind (read
embodied person, not the brain), about possibilities and forseeing, sometimes things (socially, politically
and ethically) that others don’t see.
Vision is synonymous with risk, no risk - no vision. Those with vision and visionaries don’t play life ‘safe’,
there is little vision in safety and compliance. If one sets one’s sights on safety and compliance as a rule
of life then vision has very little chance of emerging. Anyone who envisions presents a risk trajectory.
Envisioning is only visionary if it embraces the Faith-Hope-Love-Justice dialectic.

ISBN 978-0-646-82743-8

9 780646 827438 >