'Common Knowledge' c/o Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker's latest book When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows...: 

is subtitled: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life.

It is 'common knowledge' that caught my attention. In health care we seek common knowledge on several levels:

person (patient, client) 🠜🠞 healthcare practitioner (whatever their training)
carer - guardian  🠜🠞  healthcare practitioner
person / carer  🠜🠞 team

If we think about the referral processes, interfaces, gateways that people have to negotiate on their way to the above, you see how hard-won common knowledge is.

Critically, the knowledge may be 'common' but how accurate is it?

For the team common knowledge is essential to ensure safety, understanding and continually assessing risk.

In healthcare (and education) for person-centredness we take note of what data is available, but simultaneously begin with a blank sheet. ...

Individual

|

      INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC =========================  MECHANISTIC      

 SOCIOLOGY  :    POLITICAL 

|

Group

When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows:

'Sometimes, though, private knowledge can no longer be contained even if it is desirable; sometimes something is so evident that it does not even need words to express it. The presidential debate brings to mind a joke Pinker tells about a man in the Soviet Union arrested by the KGB for handing out leaflets, which turn out to be blank sheets of paper. "What is the meaning of this?" they demand. The man replies, "What is there to write? It's so obvious!"' Kelly, p.9.

Pinker, S. (2025). When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows...: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life. New York, NY: Scribner.

My source: Jemima Kelly, Life&Arts, FTWeekend, 20/21 September 2025. p.9; and BBC Radio 4 Start the Week - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002k37y

Image source: https://stevenpinker.com/

Previously: 'blank' : '2+2=?' : 'Book: Love's Labour by Stephen Grosz'

RCN Congress 2025 Liverpool i

... the twists and folds of debates

Repeating myself (again) but worthwhile I think(?), the past week brought my second RCN Congress. If you are new student nurse, international (Std) nurse, or nursing support worker and not engaged with a professional body, or union; do try to get involved. Don't leave it as long as I have (I joined a union as a nursing assistant). By way of a small excuse, listening this week it seems I am not the only one to leave it 'late'. Based in Liverpool (again after 2019) means there's a torrent of potential content. So where am I/We? By their nature all the debates are worthy. I have picked a few:

Discussion - Celebrating a nursing career

You can read above the main focus for the discussion. For me it prompted the following (no doubt - familiar)  reflections ...

The number of potential careers in health and social care is amazing:

350 careers. One NHS.

Your future.

Not only what the NHS (for training, education) can 'offer', but within that the number of nursing roles and specialities. The discussion inevitably drew the 'longevity' card. Students do pick on the temperature of their chosen community of practice. They recognise when they are surrounded (not literally!) by colleagues who have careers numbered in the several decades. But like a card the side that presents the occupational safe harbour from the threat posed by artificial intelligence, is countered by the seemingly relentless pressures imposed on nursing staff. The debates also revealed the pressure and negative impact of 'lived' work experiences for students and newly qualified nurses. I remember in the late 1970s early 1980s student nurses being counted as 'staff'. Have we really not progressed? I wrote 'offer' above because many students cannot get jobs once they have qualified. Not the best start to a shiny career. Having to fold, as they qualify.

Speaking of "career", can we please twist that? There is a great deal of talk - soul searching - about how on earth the (so-called) health service truly transforms itself to be health promoting and preventive. In the NHS's history perhaps there was a window of opportunity to begin in the late 1960s. Not so much a 'moonshot' as a healthshot. Now with the demographics that potential is being lost, unless this is positive way that AI can make up the shortfall? Alternately, nursing can utilise the health career, as in Hodges' model which are invariably impacted by an individual's life chances. As such there may be signs and signatures in the person's familial background? We can imagine a timeline composed of Hodges' model as 2x2 frames through a person's life, even prior to their conception and their legacy. 

More to follow . . .

Previously: 'RCN' : 'nursing' : 'power'

Please pardon the 'gambling' analogies, but we are literally asking students to gamble with their careers, financial status and well-being (life chances - no less). Should they be lost to the service, you can't blame young people. They know the logic of care, also known as demographics. They can do the maths? So who is it who can't do basic arithmetic?