Vision as a Metaphor of Safety and Disaster

The metaphor of vision as a metaphor has a rich history in safety, risk and the study of disaster. Sight and blindness have been used metaphorically for millennia and many ancient religious scripts and Greek tragedies draw on the metaphor to frame concepts. One of the first sociologists to study disasters, Barry Turner, referred to a Failure of Foresight. We were told that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred due to Wilful Blindness, where the signs of the disaster were there, but people chose not to know. It has been said that the 2022 Maui fire was due to Risk Blindness, where regulators stopped looking to the past to predict future risks arising from climate. With that introduction, let's explore the two perspectives of this metaphor, beginning with vision.

Shining a Light, Seeing the Way

The metaphor of vision conceptualises light with sight and the notion of intelligence. In mapping the abstract and vague notion of risk with empirical concepts of prediction, vision metaphors signal stability and confidence. To foresee risks involves illuminating an issue, shinning a light on a future risk, predicting danger, and having a vision. Sight involves foreseeing, through the prophetic acts of forecasting and predicting OHS risks, where emerging danger is foreseen, weak signals spotted and future incidents predicted. Vision has a long history of being used to conceptualise knowledge and leadership. Its popularity relates to sight as our primary source of objective information about the world. The metaphor of vision represents intelligence, hence:

Seeing is knowing, knowing is Seeing, and Seeing is believing

To have vision is to look outwardly and see into the future, inspiring others through a unifying purpose and direction. Vision also has a long association with power and authoritative control. For example, in Shakespeare's King Lear, vision is tantamount to power and virility. The loss of sight is equated with the loss of power and induced physical helplessness. Those with vision bring clarity to an issue, are clear, have reflection and a point of view that highlights a situation. Leaders with vision bring perspective and demonstrate their illuminating powers of foresight. And if we are not transparent with intentions, well, we do not create trust amongst our followers. Thus, light enables risks to be foreseen and predicted, hazards observed and leadership to be visible. With vision we have direction, we can scan the horizon, and set a guiding light, hence the popularity of Vision in H&S strategies. Through the prophetic acts of forecasting and predicting risks, emerging danger is foreseen, weak signals are identified and future incidents predicted. We also seek safety leaders with clear vision.

Metaphors of vision signify confidence, authority and trust.

Risk Blindness

The opposite of vision is blindness, and the lack of vision is one of the oldest metaphorical frames. Blindness has negative connotations which corresponds with darkness. When there is darkness, blindness and ignorance. Blindness means that foreseeable catastrophes were missed because of blind spots, failures of foresight or worse, wilful blindness. If you are metaphorically blind, you cannot observe things clearly and you are not transparent about your intentions; your plans are short-sighted and contain blind spots, your thinking is myopic, delusion, distorted and bias, lacking both hindsight and foresight.

In safety and disasters the blindness metaphor is highly symbolic.

Blindness has long been used to frame disasters. Diane Vaughan argued that the real functioning of an organisation is revealed after disasters, when the dark side becomes visible. So the disaster is framed as bringing light to darkness. Whilst blindness was used in the 19th century investigations into rail and mine disasters, Barry Turner was one of the first to use the metaphor in contemporary times when he referred to Failures of Foresight. The Challenger NASA space shuttle was said to be caused by a Lack of Foresight and the Grenfell Inquiry heard evidence of the government being Wilfully Blind of the inherent risks. According to Rae, there may be Probative Blindness, the false assurance that arise from performative activities that ‘demonstrate’ safety but actually detract focus from the real issue. Probative Blindness can be a false flag. In safety and disasters, we must remember that there are gradients of blindness. When blindness is wilful, the myopia shifts from the inability to see the hazards, to denial, apathy and inaction. There is FOFO - Fear of Finding Out.

It is notable that the metaphor of blindness refers to several phenomena. Firstly, it stresses the inability to see and recognise from a cognitive and cultural perspective that could signify the early warning signs. But it can also be related to some failures to learn the lessons from strong signals such as lessons from disasters, as a result of poor knowledge management and a lack of corporate memory. Thirdly, it could also be understood as the inability to react to and address weak signals. There can also be a decoy problem, where the organisation focus on well-defined problems rather than ill-defined problems, and this according to Barry Turner can lead to collective blindness. To overcome blindness, remove organisational blinkers and counter for bias, organisations often need a fresh pair of eyes.

I shall leave the last word to Largier who argues that the very safety processes that organisations rely on create corporate blindness. Safety functions and organisational leadership develop an over reliance of management tools and processes that shine a light on some phenomenon whilst leaving in the shadow many of the more critical considerations. Sound familar? As the telling line goes:

When the audits are clean and the metrics are green the questioning is lean. It is apathy in which disasters breed.

The Last Word

So, there we have it. Vision as a metaphor for knowledge and leadership, and blindness to represent darkness, ignorance and impending disaster. A useful concept or an outdated metaphor that reinforces ancient stereotypes?

???Please let me know what metaphors of vision and blindness that I have missed.

???Do you find these metaphors useful? If so, why?

???Some think that associating blindness with ignorance reinforces ancient stereotypes. Thoughts?

References and Sources

?? Caballero, R., & Ibarretxe-Antu?ano, I. (2009, 12). Ways of Perceiving, Moving, and Thinking: Revindicating Culture in Conceptual Metaphor Research. Cognitive Semiotics, 5(1-2), 268-290.

?? Charteris-Black, J. (2004). Metaphor in Financial Reporting. In J. Charteris-Black, & J. Charteris-Black (Ed.), Corpus Approaches to Critical Metaphor Analysis (pp. 135-169). London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.

?? Dechy, N., Dien, Y., Hayes, J., & Paltrinieri, N. (2020). ESReDA Project Group Foresight in Safety. Enhancing Safety: The Challenge of Foresight. Luxembourg: European Union.

?? Heffernan, M. (2019). Wilful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at our Peril (Vol. 2). London, UK: Simon & Schuster.

?? Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

?? Largier, A. (2008). Dispositif de gestion des compétences et logique métier. Sociologos n°3.

?? Levin, I. (2020, 3). Vision Revisited: Telling the Story of the Future. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 36(1), 91-107.

??Turner. (1978). Man-Made Disasters: The Failure of Foresight (1 ed.). London: Wykeham

?? Wei Choo, C. (2008, 2). Organizational disasters: why they happen and how they may be prevented. Management Decision, 46(1), 32-45.

?? Woods, D. (2009, 4). Escaping failures of foresight. Safety Science, 47(4), 498-501.

?? My previous article on Voice as a Metaphor: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/voice-metaphor-james-pomeroy-bln3e/?trackingId=f9AhYVAvSzK400uTmFLXzA%3D%3D

?? My post of FOFO - Fear of Finding Out: https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/globalhsemanager_psychologicalsafety-fofo-speakup-activity-7025407176747700224-7vjc?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

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