Risk Reality and the Dumbing Down of Discernment

The following news report makes sobering reading.

Vandals recently spray painted a doctor’s house with the term “paedo”.
A paediatrician at a south Wales hospital has been forced out of her home by vandals who thought her job title meant the same as “peadophile”.
South African born Yvette Cloete, a Pediatrician (Paediatrician in other English versions), is a specialist registrar for the Royal Gwen Hospital for almost two and half years. Some dummy confusing the term pedophile (paedophile) with pediatrics, thought she was pedophile, so they spray painted all over her home with the term “Paedo”. When she woke up she saw all the spray painting and got scared and is now in hiding at a friend’s house.
She has told the hospital and her friends, that she no longer will be staying at that area and feels it is less safe to live there.
Gwent Police are searching for the perpetrators and said it shows “extraordinary ignorance” on their part.
The hospital spokesman told Ananova, a news site, that the doctor is very frustrated with the whole incident and would rather see it go away. He also requested if anyone knows about the vandals to contact them or the police.
Marie Thorn, a senior administrator at the Royal Gwent Hospital, said: “I spoke with Yvette after what happened to see how she is and she was dealing with it very well in the circumstances.
It seems Yvette was planning to move from the area for sometime, so this incident made her move quickly.
Marie said it is quite staggering people can make such a mistake, they must be incredibly ignorant. She also said Yvette has worked with her the last few years and she said Yvette is one of the nicest people one could ever meet.
Hope the doctor forgets this incident soon and gets on with her life. Lucky she was not hurt. She shouldn’t let this incident affect her life, she should keep doing her best, if at all they are the ones should worry, they will face far worse situations later in life.
Chris V. Thangham
Digital Journal - Paediatrician Mistaken for Paedophile  May 16, 2007
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/182683

What a sad case of affairs when such ignorance is on display.  The ability to make an ‘informed’ judgment is called ‘discernment’.  A discerning person is generally thought to be able to act with wisdom, balance and perspective.  The root of the word ‘discernment’ actually comes from the Bible and denotes the ability to make an informed differentiation between things.  The opposite of discernment is observed in a lack of judgement and poor decision making.  Poor discernment is often labelled in popular culture as ‘stupidity’.  

The ability to make wise choices is critical in the management of risk.  If we are to embrace risk and learn from it, we must know how to take measured risks and sensible risks.  Risk taking which makes sense enables learning and abundant living.  Risk taking which is reckless does not makes sense.  Furthermore, risk taking which is constrained by fear also does not make sense.

A culture of discernment is cultivated by the experiences and memories of those who have learned from risk.  A culture of discernment cannot be developed by constraining people from risk.  The idea of wrapping people up in legislation and regulation which devalues and constrains risk doesn’t make sense yet this is the purpose of much regulation in today’s workplace.  Every time there is some failure in risk, it seems the regulator can only find a solution in ‘barricades, banning, beltings or bureaucracy’.  The solution to failure in risk, is not the elimination of risk.  Several prominent philosophies in the workplace now foster the elimination of risk and therefore encourage a lack of discernment.

The philosophy or ‘engineer out the idiot’ just creates more idiots, people without risk experience cannot make a decision because the experience and memory required to make sense of risk has been sheltered from them.

Zero philosophy is another philosophy which accentuates micro-risk and fosters an anti-human pro-robot goal.  This goal and it’s discourse makes risk the enemy of evil and distracts people from the need to intelligently embrace risk.

The philosophy of professionalisation, of a risk management class, fosters the idea that ordinary people cannot make sound judgements about risk but rather must consult a professional.  So whilst the building is burning down we must wait for the fire warden.  The same occurs in the professionalisation of the safety and security industries.

The ‘rational-only’ philosophy which is fostered by a preoccupation with measurement in risk management fails to appreciate the important ‘arational’ nature of humans.  Rational-only philosophy fails to understand the non-rational ways humans think and act.  A failure to consider the unconscious and subconscious in human decision making misunderstands the foundation of human judgement.  As a consequence the rational-only approach to managing risk can only see what can be measured and controlled through rational means.  It is important that what is pursued in risk management is not ‘cut off’ from the ‘naive’ experience of humans.  Unfortunately the abstraction of risk in encyclopaedias of paperwork and formalisation creates distance between the policy maker and user.  This ‘gulf of irrelevance’ encourages cynicism and scepticism which in turn manufactures a lack of discernment.  The wider the gulf between the makers of policy, the intelligence of research-based thinking and the user, the less discernment is enabled in the frontline worker.

A philosophy which de-emphasises learning and promotes only behaviour eg. behavioural based safety (BBS) encourages an action-only focus and diminishes the need for critical thinking (discernment) in the workplace.  This is observed in many mission statements and vision statements of organisations where the word ‘learning’ is neither identified or mentioned in self identity.  Rather, the emphasis in often on compliance and policing, zero tolerance and control.

The ‘intimidation of orthodoxy’ fails to encourage thinking ‘ouside the box’.  Yet, critical thinking occurs best when people are exposed to a wide array of competing ideas and philosophies and are given space and thinking tools to discern human-enabling truth and ethics from dehumanising error and moral failure.  Furthermore, the orthodoxy of compliance seeking behaviour encouraged by regulators and legislators fails to entertain thinking and ideas outside their sphere of interest.  Therefore, regulators tend to believe that ideas from psychology, social psychology and arational sources of knowledge have little relevance to risk management.

The current trend in safety, risk and security management is caught in a wave of ‘dumb ing down’ directions.  This was emphasised in the UK in 2009 when the British Prime Minister David Cameron referred to the ‘national neurosis with health and safety rules’.  We are yet to learn this in Australia.  Cameron argued that the UK had to reduce the blame and litigation culture which had developed to a choking level and, adopt “a more realistic approach to the management of risk’.