Comments on: Kevin’s “Law of Common Sense” and the Right To Disconnect https://safetyatworkblog.com/2024/08/26/kevins-law-of-common-sense-and-the-right-to-disconnect/ Award winning news, commentary and opinion on workplace health and safety Sun, 25 Aug 2024 21:35:23 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.1 By: Kevin Jones https://safetyatworkblog.com/2024/08/26/kevins-law-of-common-sense-and-the-right-to-disconnect/#comment-171318 Sun, 25 Aug 2024 21:35:23 +0000 https://safetyatworkblog.com/?p=107988#comment-171318 In reply to Jason Wagstaffe.

Jason, Rob Long’s first couple of books were very good but everything since has been of less use and interest as he becomes more esoteric. “Common Sense” has been a thread in this blog for nsome time (https://safetyatworkblog.com/?s=common+sense). I found Martin Lindstrom book on the issue more useful.
On the state of knowledge of the busienss advocates. There are no journalists that I know of who focus on OHS in Australian newspapers, only industrial relations. And on the business end, industrial relations considerations override OHS every time, regardless of what they say.

]]> By: Jason Wagstaffe https://safetyatworkblog.com/2024/08/26/kevins-law-of-common-sense-and-the-right-to-disconnect/#comment-171317 Sun, 25 Aug 2024 21:13:39 +0000 https://safetyatworkblog.com/?p=107988#comment-171317 In 2012, Dr Robert Long [1] published the first of his many risk and social psychology books, “Risk Makes Sense” [2]. In this book Long discusses the “myth” of “common sense”. To quote “In practical reality there is no common sense; there is no self-evident norm of knowledge which is somehow magically self-evident to everyone (p4)…Common sense is apparently a form of knowledge that someone somehow just knows, or is expected to know (p5)…Common understanding is not something that can be assumed, it has to be created and assessed as something that is actually held in common (p6)…”. Long’s opinion regarding “common sense” is something that I have used as a means to understanding why incidents occur, be it in the workplace or elsewhere.
The fact that Chris Lucas “relies” on the “common sense” approach for his workplace IR policies, means nothing more than, “its my way or the highway”. To follow with “…Silly legislation that is more ideological than practical doesn’t have a real role,’’ he said. ‘‘That sort of stuff will be reformed or expunged in a couple of years’ time once they work out it was a waste of time…’’ clearly indicates that he has not read the legislation and has only commented on what the journalist, who interviewed him, told him what was in the legislation. It is also my view that like many journalists, the individual who interviewed Lucas for the AFR had not read the legislation either and had probably went on information provided by the neighbour of his cousin. The unfortunate thing is, a lot of people (mostly business owners) will now have a view of the legislation that is not congruent with the actual meaning of the legislation.

[1] https://www.humandymensions.com/our-people/dr-robert-long-executive-director/
[2] Long, Dr. R., and Long, J., Risk Makes Sense: Human Judgement and Risk (2012, Scotoma Press, Kambah, ACT)

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