By Li Hongmei People's Daily Online
It sounds a highly individual question, and as an old favorite topic, being happy or not is nothing beyond a personal feeling—if you feel happy, you are happy. Or in a broad sense, happiness could be a subject of some social survey, and perhaps, an abstract concept injected from outside for people to cultivate a life goal, say, the slogans encouraging people to fulfill a formidable list of have-tos in seeking the so-called happiness.
But to the Bhutanese, happiness should not remain merely a slogan, but a substantial favor felt in the depth of their hearts; and to the Bhutanese government, people's happiness has already become a guiding force for day-to-day economic and political decision-making. A Bhutanese official used to put this Bhutanese philosophy succinctly, 'the ideology of Gross National Happiness connects Bhutan's development with the pursuit of happiness.'
The term Gross National Happiness (GNH) was first expressed by the King of Bhutan Jigme Singye Wangchuck. It is rooted in the Buddhist notion that the ultimate purpose of life is inner happiness. Bhutan being a Buddhist country, its King then felt the responsibility to define development in terms of happiness of its people, rather than by the conventional economic measurements such as GNP or GDP.
The four pillars of GNH are respectively the promotion of sustainable development, preservation and promotion of cultural values, conservation of the natural environment, and establishment of good governance. Thus, happiness in Bhutan has become a more tangible issue in the concrete form of the four pillars, on which the basic social development model will be built with people's happiness being its core target.
However, one may wonder people from different cultural backgrounds could have formed different views of life. After all, whether a person feels happy or not depends on where he has been brought up, as the sense of happiness is mysteriously bound up with national characteristics. This is indeed the case. Bhutan's four pillars for happiness may not be taken as happiness in the least by others perceiving and valuing things from a totally different angle.
For instance, preservation of a traditional model of development is of happiness to Bhutanese, but to those who intensely advocate innovation and reform of conventions is not. Many other nations cherish freedom so much that if it is deprived, they suppose, no happiness will exist, while Bhutanese think otherwise. It seems that no set criteria can be used to judge happiness, as it varies from society to society. In a commercialized society, a person's happiness could be digitalized and measured in terms of money. However, the Bhutanese think money, as such, will seldom bring happiness.
Admittedly, the general growth of GNP is also an important agent to induce happiness, and is commonly accepted as an index to judge a society's well-being. But in a long run, the increase of GNP or GDP will never bring about the general progress of a society. Take the U.S., in the past 50 years, its per capita GDP has risen three times than ever before, but its crime rate has also climbed up by three times, and those suffering withdrawal from social life and even alienation to neighbors have quadrupled in number all these years. Economic prosperity has never made Americans feel happier than ever.
Currently, the globe-sized financial tsunami is catalyzing a sweeping economic recession, and in the meantime, sending people pondering. The mythology of the U.S. development mode is giving way with the burst of its economic bubble. A paradigm-shift to be seen in the post-U.S. era could probably kick start a revolution in ideological sphere, which will force the world to reconsider-- what is an ideal mode for social development?
The Bhutanese model is far from perfect, but it will, at least, serve as a reminder for conventional Western development planners that development can also be based on non-material values, such as cultural, social and environmental values.
That being the case, the Bhutanese model for social development can set an example to all the other countries, as more and more societies are inevitably eroded by capitalism and commercialism and, hence, searching for appropriate yardsticks for sustainable development, trade and foreign investment while respecting cultural and ecological integrity.
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