Why myth busting should concern us
Myth busting. Why we should be concerned us as an industry and as a society.
Myth busting i.e. viewing a myth as a false story, is a political ideology. It is not rooted in science. Myth busting creates divides, and it amplifies our differences. In this article I will explore what is a myth and why myth busting should concern the risk and safety industry and our society at large. What are the dangers of myth busting and how we can avoid falling into this trap.
The structure of the podcast is:
- What is a myth?
- What is the power of a myth?
- What is myth busting?
- Why myth busting is an ideology (not science)?
- Why myth busting should concern us?
What is a myth?
A myth is a sacred narrative shared between people within the culture. Unlike an absolute truth, a myth is a culture specific truth made true by rituals and symbols of that culture. In Christianity, for instance, nativity is a myth made true by the symbol of Crucifix and the ritual of Baptism and Confession. In risk and safety, ‘All accidents are preventable’ is a myth made true by the symbol of zero harm and the ritual of investigating accidents and counting injury rates. Science also has its own myths. All truth is measurable and reducible to matter. The myth of science is symbolised by an hourglass or a microscope and ritualised by writing peer reviewed papers and conducting laboratory experiments. Think of myths as narratives shared between people within their culture. Symbols are sign systems that we use to interpret the narrative within the myth. Sign systems can include images, text, words, metaphors, slogans and artefacts. Rituals are scripted behaviours and collective emotional responses to conform to the myth. Symbols and rituals are far more complicated than that but for our purpose let us leave it there.
Myths do not live in our brain. Myths are embodied in our unconscious minds and shared between people through their gestures, habits, heuristics, metaphors, intuitions and instincts. Any attempt to explain a myth in its entirety is a myth in its own.
Few people question their myth despite that myths hold the secret to some of the most profound questions of our lives:
- Why was the world created?
- Why does my life matter?
- Why are we born and what happens to us when we die?
- What is afterlife?
- Why do we have so much suffering in this world?
A myth should not be mistaken with a fairytale (magical stories of otherworldly time and space i.e. Cinderella); a legend (exaggerated tales of real people in identifiable time); a fantasy (one person’s imagination) or a propaganda (stories with a hidden agenda). Myth is the truth of every culture.
A short story of a myth
In April 2023, during visiting India to facilitate a workshop to a group of ship managers, I met with a catering staff Arjun. Seeing a tilak on his forehead (an orange dot as you can see), I asked Arjun, “why do you wear this?” Arjun said that his father always believed that smearing your forehead with a tilak would keep you safe.
By coincidence, we were discussing root cause analysis in the workshop. As Arjun shared his story, one ship manager said, ‘At least Arjun believes in what he wears’ and another one said, ‘… and of course his method is more scientific than ours’. Everyone had a good laugh.
At first I thought I understood why everyone was laughing. These men were laughing at their situation. Their own life bears so little meaning when they compare it with a catering staff. But in the days to follow I realised that I didn’t really comprehend the essence of their outburst.
Their real dilemma was not in comparing between Arjun’s beliefs and their own disbelief. What concerned them was that ‘his method was more scientific than theirs’. They understood the limitations of causality in investigating accidents and they knew Arjun’s myth bore more meaning than their science. Myth was more powerful to these men than sciences and that was a jaw dropping moment for me.
The power of a myth
In the days to follow I read more about how Arjun’s myth made sense. A tilak on the forehead will not reduce the number of accidents in the workplace. But the tilak keeps the wisdom of the ancestors alive. Like all myth, the power of the tilak lies in its oral transmission from one generation to another. One does not need the literacy skills to read a book, attend to lectures or become an intellectual to understand how the tilak works; the myth is performed orally through storytelling, symbols and rituals and becomes experientially embodied in the receiver of the story. Arjun does not know how the tilak would keep him safe, he simply lives his myths by following the wisdom of his ancestors in faith.
Does Arjun’s knowing about the power of the tilak really matter? That depends upon what we mean by knowing. Tacit, implicit and expert knowledge is not in our conscious awareness. It lives in his intuitions and instincts and so his body has learned even when he is consciously unaware of his myth. My 9 years old son can solve his rubric cube in less than few seconds but if I ask him how did you do that, he shrugs his shoulder and walks away with attitude. Arjun’s intuitions and instincts are guided by the wisdom of his ancestors although he may not be cognitively aware of his myth. And thank god it is not the other way around because 98% of our decisions are based on our intuitions and instincts (gut thinking).
If you are still debating the war between science and myth or reason and faith then consider this. The tilak is worn on the frontal lobes – part of the brain behind the forehead. The frontal lobes are what make us unique in the animal kingdom so we can use language, make meaning, think in abstract, make choices and compromises between options, reflect, plan and anticipate what lies ahead. A tilak made of sandalwood paste (an extract made from Sandalwood trees) when applied on the forehead will cool the nerves thus avoiding knee-jerk reactions and instinctive decisions. In Genesis, ashes worn on the forehead remind people of their mortality, fallibility and humility. “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” In the event that things go wrong, the ritual of smearing the forehead reminds us of the dangers of being self-centred, ego-centred and animalistic (driven by instinct instead of reflection and thinking).
Myth busting
Now imagine a different encounter with Arjun.
I see Arjun and ask him, what’s this tilak all about? Arjun responds with the same thing. ‘My father always believed it would keep me safe’.
I asked, ‘prove it to me how it keeps you safe.’
‘I cannot prove it,’ Arjun responds.
Well then that’s a myth.
End of conversation.
This is myth busting. If it ain’t proven, measurable or reasonable (by my standard), it is wrong.
Myth busting does not see myth as a sacred story of another culture. Myth busting sees myth as a false story.
Myth busting is an ideology
The Indian word ‘mithya’ (false story) which people often think is where the world myth originates from is perhaps the cause of much confusion. What is false (mithya) cannot be true (satya). The Greeks were more careful in making a distinction between mythos (meaning) and logos (scientific concepts) and the complimentary relationship between the two. The biggest danger today with myth busting is ignoring the Greek wisdom and falling into the binary trap of true and false stories.
Myth busting ignores the Greek wisdom. Myth busting turns to material science for its myth. A search for absolute truth defendable through reason (rationalism), proven through evidence (empiricism), verifiable as either true or false (positivism), governed by universal laws (logic) and measurable to be qualified as the greatest good (utilitarianism). Truth is that which can be reduced to matter, verified and measured. Subjectivity contaminates the truth. Bias becomes an enemy. Whatever I enquire should produce the same result as another person or it cannot be true and so in myth busting there is no place for cultural truths, only universal truth.
It is no surprise that Arjun’s tilak has no place in science. There’s no evidence, no thinking, no logic and no way to validate Arun’s truth. It’s the truth of another culture which has its own symbols and rituals and its own cultural context. If you come to Arjun with a checklist designed on positivism (yes or no) or a risk assessment template based on rationalism what sense would that make? Faith does not make sense when we use the myths, symbols and rituals of science to question the myths, symbols and rituals of a Hindu person.
Think about it from Arjun’s perspective. How would our own rituals, symbols and myths make sense to him? I can hear Arjun saying this. All these people speak the language of efficiency and measurement. They sit for hours discussing KPIs and targets and then manipulate their numbers to meet with their targets. They record each minute of their time at work and then sit in a pub for hours drinking alcohol without any sense of time. How is skin piercing, tattooing, breast augmentation, liposuction, or eating junk food evidence-based decision? Why would someone pop in a painkiller tablet every time they have a headache? Why wouldn’t they sleep more? What sense would it make to count injury rates to prove that people are safe at work? And how is my faith in god so far off from them turning their risk from red to green? When an accident happens the myth of a risk based checklist is as good as the myth of a tilak. Is it not? I would say the myth of the tilak is more scientific than the checklist because at least it is not forced upon us.
Whichever way we see the world, the common denominator remains the same. Humans are the same mythical and non-rational (not irrational) creatures in every culture. We judge and refute another person’s truth but we don’t look at ourselves in the mirror enough.
But that in itself is not a problem. The real problem is when the myth of science is politicised and becomes the basis for proving the myth of another culture wrong. That is the realm of myth busting – proving a myth as a false story based on science. But myth busting is not science; it is an ideology hidden under the guise of science. True science is humble, inclusive and an open inquiry into the unknown. True science is not afraid of being wrong.
Safety management system is based on the same principles of myth busting. Through reasoning, evidence, measurement and logic we can prove another person as irrational and unsafe. What is common between Arjun who wears wears a tilak, Captain Francesco Schettino who navigates the ship to salute the island, a crew member who instinctively jumps into an enclosed space to save his mate, and the captain of the ship Wakashio who turns to the shore for his crew to make a phone call is that they all defy the myth of safety and by extension, the ideology of science. Their myths are not just false stories. These are stories of crime, negligence and human error.
Myth busting is brain-centred
‘I think therefore I am’ said Rene Descartes, well known for his Cartesian philosophy in the western world. Thinking and reflection is what makes us so unique. Myth busting is based on the same Cartesian, brain centred view of science that makes intellectual reasoning superior to embodied wisdom. Think about it. It’s the myth of science and so deeply problematic in its own. It downgrades the wisdom of experiential knowledge and elevates the glory of academic credentials. It gives far too much power to someone who holds a certificate or a 5 why template but knows so little about the functioning of embodied mind. Tell me how you do it or I will mark you down. If only I knew I would.
Think of experts and people with years of experiential knowledge. Experts do not know how they make decisions; they don’t work out their intuitions and instincts in advance. Myth busting shines light in the head but it misses the point that myths are not in the brain, myths live in our bodies. But what happens when experts become too sure about themselves, impose their myth and control another person’s truth? Think of the symbolism of Arjun’s tilak at the centre of his forehead. It reminds us to become aware of our ego, arrogance and self-centredness.
Why myth busting should concern us?
Myth busting is here to stay and it should concern us all. You can type the word ‘myth’ in your search engine and look at the marvels of AI for yourself. Myth busting is now a scalable disease and what Cathy O’Neil, the author of the book, Weapons of Math Destruction would call a threat to the world’s political landscape, democracy and humanity at large.
In myth busting we see another person as a hazard and an object to control. It is a relationship between I and It. The starting point is to prove another person wrong. There is no listening only assuming, telling and winning. There is no conversation and no meeting.
Myth busting does not allow me to meet with Arjun because it sees confusion, curiosity and diversity as a threat to be destroyed. A meeting requires that I leave my own myth on the one side, let go of the urge to control and listen to Arjun as he shares his myth. In a meeting, we don’t need myth busting, because we have to walk alongside, feel and experience another person’s myth.
Our world needs science but not only material science (I will use the visual of transdimcipliary science here) and certainly not the ideology of science. We need the kind of science that creates space for love, humility, reciprocity, acceptance and curiosity to understand another person’s myth.
In a world increasingly threatened by diverse perspectives, it is my hope that this episode will bring us one step closer by … Embracing differences.
