Go Lean…Caribbean

Go Lean Commentary

There is the need to build/rebuild Caribbean society on good Community Ethos.

Huh?!

This refers to the values and spirit that may permeate a community. In fact, this is the formal definition of Community Ethos … as defined in the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean Page 20:

noun – (www.Dictionary.com)

1. the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; dominant assumptions of a people or period: In the Greek ethos the individual was highly valued.
2. the character or disposition of a community, group, person, etc.

So what Community Ethos does the Caribbean need to address while considering the reboot of the regional society – our rising from the ashes? Let’s look at one:

Love

Everybody loves love; and want to love and be loved in return. Everybody …

In fact, the Greek language helps us to appreciate the different kinds and love, highlighting exactly what we expect to give and get from our loved ones; consider these excerpts:

• Agápe  ^[1] means “love: esp. charity; the love of God for man and of man for a good God.”^[2] Agape is used in ancient texts to denote feelings for one’s children and the feelings for a spouse, and it was also used to refer to a love feast.^[3]
• Éros means “love, mostly of the sexual passion.”^[6] The Modern Greek word “erotas” means “intimate love”. Plato refined his own definition: Although eros is initially felt for a person, with contemplation it becomes an appreciation of the beauty within that person, or even becomes appreciation of beauty itself. Plato does not talk of physical attraction as a necessary part of love, hence the use of the word platonic to mean, “without physical attraction”.

• Philia means “affectionate regard, friendship”, usually “between equals”.^[8] It is a dispassionate virtuous love, a concept developed by Aristotle.^[9] In his best-known work on ethics, Nicomachean Ethics, philia is expressed variously as loyalty to friends (specifically, “brotherly love”), family, and community, and requires virtue, equality, and familiarity. Furthermore, in the same text philos is also the root of philautia denoting self-love and arising from it, a general type of love, used for love between family, between friends, a desire or enjoyment of an activity, as well as between lovers.
• Storge means “love, affection” and “especially of parents and children”.^[10] It is the common or natural empathy, like that felt by parents for offspring.^[11] Rarely used in ancient works, and then almost exclusively as a descriptor of relationships within the family. It is also known to express mere acceptance or putting up with situations, as in “loving” the tyrant. This is also used when referencing the love for one’s country or a favorite sports team.

• Philautia means “self love” to love yourself or “regard for one’s own happiness or advantage”^[12]] has both been conceptualized as a basic human necessity^[13] and as a moral flaw, akin to vanity and selfishness,^[14] synonymous with amour propre or egotism. The Greeks further divided this love into positive and negative: one the unhealthy version is the self-obsessed love, and the other is the concept of “self-compassion”.

• Xenia (meaning “guest-friendship”) is the ancient Greek concept of hospitality, the generosity and courtesy shown to those who are far from home and/or associates of the person bestowing guest-friendship.^[15] The rituals of hospitality created and expressed a reciprocal relationship between guest and host expressed in both material benefits (such as the giving of gifts to each party) as well as non-material ones (such as protection, shelter, favors, or certain normative rights).

1. 1. 1. Source: Retrieved June 29, 2020 from:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_words_for_love

What would be the opposite of Love? Hate …

… and maybe also Death or death-dealing. There is much for us to learn considering this discussion of Community Ethos while rebuilding a society. One extreme example to consider is that of the German scientist: Fritz Haber – see Appendix A below – his brand-reputation was that he was the “Father of Poison Gas Warfare”. What does that tell you of his ethos?

“He made a deal with the devil”!

The same people he aligned with to kill other people, then turned around to kill his people. He was Jewish and the Nazi Party came to power in Germany and slaughtered 6 million Jews, many who were loyal Germans.

The movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean hereby presents that we must learn from such lessons. So now, we seek to explore lessons on the subject of reciprocal love from antiquity, recent history and even from today.

Antiquity
Remember that great 19^th Century book by Alexandre Dumas – The Three Musketeers. The catch phrase for the book’s heroes spoke volumes regarding reciprocal love – as related in a prior Go Lean commentary:

All For One … and … One For All!
But someone might argue: “the needs of the many out-weight the needs of the few”. This is the principle of the Greater Good. Yes, this is true! This principle is very familiar to the publishers of the book Go Lean … Caribbean; the principle is foremost in the book (Page 37) as a community ethos, the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a society. The region needs to adopt this ethos to forge change in the Caribbean. But it turns out that the Greater Good is not just a priority on the majority, it is very much reflective of minorities. …

[This “All For One … and … One For All“ catch phrase] represents “art imitating life” in it’s meaning:

All the members of a group support each of the individual members, and the individual members pledge to support the group. Source: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/all-for-one-and-one-for-all

… Since everyone is unique, we may all be minorities in some respects.
—-
Recent History
There was no greater atrocity – during the 20^th century – than what was endured by the Jewish ethnicity in Germany and other European countries during World War II. This is branded The Holocaust and it is not to be rationalized, minimized or excused. Truth be told, the Jewish minority in Germany had always demonstrated their love for the Fatherland, many Jewish soldiers even fought for Germany during the Great War, World War I – (100,000 served; 12,000 killed).

They loved their homeland; but the homeland did not love them back. No reciprocal love!

Imagine the betrayal of those who sacrificed blood, sweat and tears for their homeland, then to be faced with extermination of self and family in the ovens of those Nazi concentration camps.

Consider too, the experience of this one German-Jewish Scientist catalogued in Appendix A below.
—-
Today
The American South still has loyalty and affinity for the Confederate emblems and artifacts from the US Civil War 1861 – 1865.

There is no moral high ground associated with the defense of the Pro-Slavery Confederacy; the motives are tied solely to White Supremacy. So for anyone of Black-and-Brown persuasion, participating in any before-during-after Confederacy would be counterproductive. (America double-downed on their bad community ethos toward minorities during World War II with their mistreatment of Japanese-Americans).

And yet, Caribbean emigrants to the US have often relocated to Southern cities; think:

• Atlanta
• Houston
• Dallas-Fort Worth
• Miami

Many Southern communities have Confederate statutes-monuments-memorials and wave the Confederate flags – some communities even have this branding as official signage and icons. Alas, these communities have large Caribbean Diaspora populations even now; our people show love to their new homeland, but rarely, if ever, does the community loves them back.

Reciprocal love – Fail!

—-

Still this is a discussion on Love; the proper-best Community Ethos for a rebuilding society and the Wrong Community Ethos to dissuade and avoid – or to Watch Out for any emergence.

This is the completion of the June 2020 Teaching Series from the movement behind the Go Lean book; this is entry 6 of 6. This movement presents a Teaching Series every month on a subject that is germane to Caribbean life. It is accepted that communities also make changes when recovering and rebuilding from a crisis, be it man-made, natural disaster and/or war.

The full catalog for this month’s series is listed as follows:

1. Rising from the Ashes – The Phoenix rises from the Pandemic
2. Rising from the Ashes – One person – Dead or Alive – can make a difference
3. Rising from the Ashes – Natural Disasters – The Price of Paradise
4. Rising from the Ashes – Political Revolutions – Calling ‘Balls and Strikes’
5. Rising from the Ashes – War – “What is it good for?”
6. Rising from the Ashes – Wrong Ethos could also rise – Cautionary tale of patriotic German Jews

There is the urgency to reform and transform. The Go Lean book asserted that “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste”; it sought to use the outstanding crisis – Coronavirus COVID-19 – to forge permanent change on Caribbean society. But caution is warranted, as many negative Community Ethos can be supplanted. We are looking at how-when to Rise from the Ashes for this and other crises. For this entry, we lament the emergence of many bad attitudes that creep in as a response to our Caribbean communities enduring the consequences of our crises:

• Climate of Hate
• Prejudice
• Xenophobia
• Blame-Gaming

We have seen this before. In fact, some of the indicators of Failed-State status are evident in situations like this; consider the indicators as reported in the Go Lean book Page 271:

In the Caribbean, we are no different! No better and no worst! When push comes to shove, our people will push and shove. It is therefore of utmost importance that we look, listen and learn from other people in other societies. We must Watch Out for the Wrong Ethos that could easily arise – in an evolutionary manner or suddenly in an revolutionary manner – here as they have arisen in other locales. Our history is littered with incidences of Bad Behavior when “Push came to Shove”.

We have addressed this previously; we have elaborated in full details in many prior Go Lean blog-commentaries; consider this sample:

Rather than talk of hate or death-dealing, we would rather talk about the positive Community Ethos that we would rather see. We would rather talk about love.

Remember all of these Love Song lyrics:

1. Learning to love yourself is the Greatest Love of all – https://youtu.be/hRX4ip6PVoo
2. When I tell my Babe I love her, she said “… I love you back” – See Appendix B below
3. “The greatest thing You’ll ever learn Is just to love And be loved In return” – See Appendix C below

These songs entertain us and move us. They also remind us how important it is to make sure that we are loved by the people, institutions and homelands that we may love.

This is only common sense, but common sense is not so common.

If you love a community, and they do not love you back, this is the Wrong Ethos.

This commentary and this June 2020 series reminds us of the Cautionary Warning for societies to double-down on good community ethos, not the bad ones. It would be better for us to reform and transform our communities here in the Caribbean homeland than to try and impact a foreign land like the United States. So our urging is simple:

Stay home – But Watch Out for the Wrong Ethos creeping in here.

For those already in the Diaspora, lamenting the sad state of affairs, we urge:

Time to Go! – We can more readily Watch Out for the Wrong Ethos here.

We hereby urge everyone in the Caribbean to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap to reboot and turn-around the Caribbean homeland. Yes, we must “burn down” the old bad ethos and then make permanent changes towards good ethos only, not allowing hate to seep in. This is how we will make the Caribbean a better homeland to live, work and play.  🙂

About the Book
The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

• Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
• Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
• Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society.

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xii.  Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

xxiv.  Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

————-

Appendix A – Reference Title: Fritz Haber

Fritz Haber (German: [ˈhaːbɐ]; 9 December 1868 – 29 January 1934) was a German^[4] chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his invention of the Haber–Bosch process, a method used in industry to synthesize ammonia from nitrogen gas and hydrogen gas. This invention is of importance for the large-scale synthesis of fertilizers and explosives. The food production for half the world’s current population involves this method for producing nitrogen fertilizers.^[5] Haber, along with Max Born, proposed the Born–Haber cycle as a method for evaluating the lattice energy of an ionic solid.

Haber is also considered the “father of chemical warfare” for his years of pioneering work developing and weaponizing chlorine and other poisonous gases during World War I, especially his actions during the Second Battle of Ypres. …

World War I
Haber greeted World War I with enthusiasm, joining 92 other German intellectuals in signing the Manifesto of the Ninety-Three in October 1914.^[17] Haber played a major role in the development of the non-ballistic use of chemical warfare in World War I, in spite of the proscription of their use in shells by the Hague Convention of 1907 (to which Germany was a signatory). He was promoted to the rank of captain and made head of the Chemistry Section in the Ministry of War soon after the war began.^[7]:133 In addition to leading the teams developing chlorine gas and other deadly gases for use in trench warfare,^[18] Haber was on hand personally when it was first released by the German military at the Second Battle of Ypres (22 April to 25 May 1915) in Belgium.^[7]:138 Haber also helped to develop gas masks with adsorbent filters which could protect against such weapons.

A special troop was formed for gas warfare (Pioneer Regiments 35 and 36) under the command of Otto Peterson, with Haber and Friedrich Kerschbaum as advisors. Haber actively recruited physicists, chemists, and other scientists to be transferred to the unit. Future Nobel laureates James Franck, Gustav Hertz, and Otto Hahn served as gas troops in Haber’s unit.^{[7]:136–138} In 1914 and 1915, before the Second Battle of Ypres, Haber’s unit investigated reports that the French had deployed Turpenite, a supposed chemical weapon, against German soldiers.^[19]

Gas warfare in World War I was, in a sense, the war of the chemists, with Haber pitted against French Nobel laureate chemist Victor Grignard. Regarding war and peace, Haber once said, “during peace time a scientist belongs to the World, but during war time he belongs to his country.” This was an example of the ethical dilemmas facing chemists at that time.^[20] …

Between World Wars
… By 1931, Haber was increasingly concerned about the rise of National Socialism in Germany, and the possible safety of his friends, associates, and family. Under the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service of 7 April 1933, Jewish scientists at the Kaiser Wilhelm Society were particularly targeted. …

Haber and his son Hermann also urged that Haber’s children by Charlotte Nathan, at boarding school in Germany, should leave the country.^[7]:181 Charlotte and the children moved to the United Kingdom around 1933 or 1934. After the war, Charlotte’s children became British citizens.^{[7]:188–189}

Source: Retrieved June 29, 2020 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haber

————-

Appendix B VIDEO – Luther Vandross: She Loves Me Back – https://youtu.be/125bcG9vnjs

Luther Vandross
Provided to YouTube by Sony Music Entertainment

She Loves Me Back · Luther Vandross

Album: Forever, For Always, For Love

℗ 1982 Epic Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment

Released on: 1982-09-21

Composer, Lyricist: L. Vandross
Background Vocal, Keyboards: Nat Adderley Jr.
Background Vocal, Bass, Producer: Marcus Miller
Background Vocal: Michelle Cobbs
Background Vocal: Cissy Houston
Background Vocal: Tawatha Agee
Background Vocal: Yvonne Lewis
Background Vocal: Fonzi Thornton
Guitar: Doc Powell
Percussion: Paulinho Da Costa
Drums: Yogi Horton
Auto-generated by YouTube.

————-

Appendix C VIDEO – Nat King Cole – Nature Boy (With Lyrics) – https://youtu.be/HQerH4nRTUA

Lyrics:
There was a boy
A very strange enchanted boy
They say he wandered very far, very far
Over land and sea
A little shy
And sad of eye
But very wise

Was he
And then one day
A magic day he came my way
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
“The greatest thing
You’ll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return”