Lyonchhen addresses GNH Conference in Brazil

24 November 2009

Following is the keynote Address by H.E. Jigmi Y. Thinley, Prime Minister of Bhutan, at the 5th GNH International Conference, Itaipu, Brazil

“I and my delegation are most delighted to be here in Itaipu, on the banks of the mighty Rio Parana and Iguacu with its awe inspiring Iguacu Falls. It is an honour and a matter of deep satisfaction for the Royal Government, the people of Bhutan and myself, that the 5th Gross National Happiness (GNH) International Conference is taking place, for the first time in South America, in this vast and great country of Brazil.

Our gathering here bears testimony to the growth of the idea of GNH as an international movement far beyond the confines of a single nation. Your presence here is indicative of your devotion to the search for a better way to live toward making this planet a safer, more sustainable and happy abode for mankind and the many living species which have no voice but whose fate is shaped by our actions.

At the outset, I would like to thank the Itaipu Binacional for hosting this conference, and the Brazilian government for facilitating it. I also wish to express my gratitude in particular to three individuals for the enthusiasm and the hard work with which they brought this important international conference to fruition.

First, I would like to thank Dr. Susan Andrews, Founder and Director of Future Ecological Park. She took on the enormous responsibility of organizing the conference a year ago during the 4th GNH International Conference held in Bhutan. Its realisation today is attributable to her resourcefulness, commitment and, no doubt, her conviction that GNH is good for all of humanity. The amazing work she is doing in this country to promote GNH living, as opposed to talking about it, deserves our heartfelt admiration.

Secondly, I am very grateful to Dr. Nelton Freidrich, Brazilian Director for Environment and Sustainability at Itaipu Binacional for his unstinting support and for promoting inspiration to the conference. Dr Jorge Miguel Samek, Brazilian Director General for the Binacional deserves our sincere thanks for his generous support in hosting the conference.

I would also like to express my gratitude to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil, Foz do Iguacu Municipality and Iguacu Binacional. All of us from Bhutan are overwhelmed by the gracious hospitality. Evolution of the concept and practice of GNH As some of you may not be familiar with the evolution of GNH, let me begin with a short background.

Bhutan’s journey on the path of GNH was flagged off in the early 1970s with a simple pronouncement by His Majesty the Fourth King of Bhutan. He stated that “Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

In so doing, he questioned the validity of the prevailing belief that Gross Domestic Product alone is a measure of societal progress. He reasoned that the general well being of his people was more important than economic growth which is the singular activity measured by GDP. Well being, he was convinced, is to be seen in the extent to which the people are happy.

He held the conviction that his responsibility as the king and that of his government was to create the conditions that would enable the people to pursue and increase happiness. This, he asserted could be achieved through a holistic approach to development whereby the needs of the body and the mind are balanced, where one complements the other as opposed to the GDP led growth which has come at the cost of spiritual and mental impoverishment.

It was a refreshingly bold and profound questioning, more so because it came out of the mind of a teenager. The pertinence of his question is to be seen in the world-wide development experience of the last four decades. Much of the rising prosperity has failed to provide satisfaction and subjective well-being, especially in the industrialised, wealthy north where, in fact, happiness level has stagnated.

The actual alignment of the road map for holistic and sustainable development in my country was undertaken methodically in the clear light of GNH throughout the reign of the Fourth King. This was done principally through enabling laws and public policies. Believing in the primacy of public deliberation, public dialogue and public opinion in defining any national goal, His Majesty ensured that GNH gained public consensual ownership and subscription not so much through persuasion as by causing introspection.

Such belief and practice logically guided the King and people to set the country on a deliberate path to democracy with an aspiration for the higher goal of an enlightened citizenship. What followed was the abdication of the throne by HM the King, at the age of 51, to make way for complete democratization Working in partnership with His successor, they gave to the country a Democratic Constitutional Monarchy which came into being in 2008.

As such, Bhutanese democracy sprang from the womb of GNH.

His Majesty the 5th King, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, who ascended the Throne in 2006, provided further stimulus to GNH. In addition, our Constitution describes the state and government as having to be guided by the philosophy of GNH. Developing the concept of GNH has therefore, gone hand in hand with practising GNH through policies and programmes.

It is thus, only natural that the first democratically elected government that I lead, came to power on a political manifesto committing the party to continuing on the path of GNH.

More recently, we have augmented our attempts to transform and develop institutions that are structurally aligned to apply GNH concepts in policy formulation, programme design and implementation. This, as we all know, is not the normal way in which governments are structured or function.

They normally echo the GDP conditioned development paradigm whereby, it is the practice to have ministries corresponding to sectors such as agriculture, trade, industry, banking and finance that maintain their own separate accounts.

A society’s pursuit of GNH ought to be reflected in the organisational structure of its government. This would mean the creation of ministries or departments that would correspond to those functions or domains which promote or create enabling conditions for GNH. These would typically include such agencies as ministry for psychological wellbeing, community vitality, cultural resilience and ecological integrity etc.

If such were to become true even in one country, then it is conceivable that other leaders and their citizenry will shift to follow suit, just as organisations dealing with environmental issues arose rapidly within the last 20 years. Essentially, my proposition is that form and substance must go together.

Without substance, form, in the case of organizations will ultimately die from lack of purpose and irrelevance just as an idea that has no form to its furtherance will simply dissipate. When likewise, there is no relationship between an organization and the GNH concept, it is likely that at some stage the two will function divergently and become counter-productive.

I am happy to inform that new institutional structures and decision-making processes that reflect GNH objectives continue to evolve in Bhutan. The country’s socio-economic planning office, known earlier as the Planning Commission, has been renamed the GNH Commission and its role substantively altered in order that strategic plans are aligned to support and achieve GNH values. Every policy, programme or project must now have some GNH value. At the very least, it must be GNH neutral. To this end, project screening tools are being tested to ensure that optimal GNH values can be incorporated and realised by way of project designs while removing elements that are opposed to GNH.

How GNH is internalised by the polity and how it is implemented depends significantly on governments that must skilfully direct their resources towards higher goals, primarily by causing an upward shift in collective consciousness. These then will, in my mind, enable people to shape the nature of our political economy, our legal foundation, our health and education systems in ways that will render them distinctively different from the way they are over time.

Concept of Happiness At the core of GNH is collective happiness, which has several characteristics. Over the centuries, happiness has been relegated to the private realm, while provision of many other goods and services of public nature was brought to the fore of public realm.

But like the concept of justice, happiness is a public good, even though it is experienced subjectively. While happiness is influenced by a frame of reference and, in that sense, it is partly relative to a person’s experiences with respect to others or to the past, it is more importantly, relational in character. Happiness is, indeed, more relational than relative because the quality and depth of relationships with others influence our happiness far more than a comparative possession of a commodity. One can be richer than one’s neighbour but apart from a fleeting pleasure, one is back to ‘unhappiness’ in comparing oneself with some one who is even richer and so on. Relative success does not lead to genuine happiness. True happiness which arises from a deeper sense of satisfaction reaches beyond the pleasurethreshold of commodity possession.

Since happiness has so much more to do with relationships than relative advantages over others in terms of money, status, rank or possessions, creation or improvement of conditions that promote relationships deserve far greater time and resources than we have been prepared to give.

People are happier when they are surrounded by others who share their joy. Likewise, the pains of misfortune are far more difficult to bear when one must suffer and weep alone. Loneliness and separation magnify one’s misery and are often the causes that drive people to despair and suicide. Happiness rises when relationships are secure and blossoming.

It dissipates with relationships that suffer erosion of trust, affection and care. Relationships can be conditioned by the physical environment even though they are largely creations and products of an individual’s character, personality, behaviour and social skills. Having resilient and enduring relationships and creating organisations and settings that breed such positive relationships, is a crucial challenge and responsibility for the state that aspires to raise the well being of its people. In this regard, I am convinced that relationships thrive best in the rural setting where interdependence is a way of life and where living in harmony with nature is a compulsion.

It is disconcerting to find that rural urban migration is universally, an irreversible trend. Within the last century, the world has become more urban than ever before, with almost 50% of the global population living in urban settings. As our social networks transform from small, rural settlements into a more urban lifestyle, there is an obvious dislocation and breakdown of community and social life – and the values that underpin community vitality.

Urban growth is not inevitable. Urbanisation or rural urban migration, in particular, is an escape that is compelled by the failure of states to plan and achieve holistic, balanced and equitable development. It becomes appealing when rural populations feel deprived and frustrated by lack of opportunities, see obvious disparities and fall prey to the illusions of a better and more exciting life in the cities.

The way out of this is through the localisation of production and the scaling down of planned urban expansion particularly where it is avoidable.

But that is easier said than done. It is in the cities and its peripheries where all forms of economic activities take place, it is where people like to do their hustling and bustling, because it makes economic sense. But gleaming sky scrapers of steel and glass – icons of engineering feat and symbols of prosperity conceal in their shadows a story that is not as radiant. Disillusionment, despair, crime and slums of misery are often a reality among a disproportionately high number of inhabitants.

The deep carbon foot prints and ecological horror that are discernible to the caring eye are the outcomes of population concentration and consumerism that thrives best in cities.

Food that feed the urban millions travels perhaps, the longest distance, leading to the longest “food-miles’’ which, very often, stretch not just from one urban area to another part of the country, but from one city to the most distant parts of the globe.

It is a nightmarish challenge for city managers to dispose of the stupendous quantities of urban waste, much of it hazardous, and cannot be metabolised by the concrete and metal ecology of the urban settlements. Above all, the consequences in terms of breakdown of the social links and communal affiliations that urban life entails are no less severe. It is here that the paradox of loneliness amid crowds occurs in stark reality. And it is city life that spawns the nuclear family.

There is much that is being done and much more that needs to done to enhance the quality of urban structures, urban services and urban ecology. Much more resources need to be spent on efforts to improve rural life.

For most of us, the pleasant sensations of the five faculties (touch, smell, taste, hearing and sight) are the sources of happiness and satisfaction. However, happiness of the nature that depends on external stimulants is not only ephemeral but even dangerous for the most part, unless it is balanced with inner contemplation or meditation to generate internal sources of contentment and happiness through the understanding of the true nature of our mind. The very nature of the market within a consumerist society is to keep the flow of fleeting pleasures from external stimuli continuous and rising.

This happens through more and more extraction of earth’s finite resources to produce more and more of what we actually need less of so that more and more can be consumed or wasted through alluring commercials.

Ultimately, even as insatiable consumerists, we as an otherwise intelligent beings, will have to reconcile with reality and come to terms with the idea of a ‘sufficiency condition’ for the survival and happiness of our own selves and, if we have any moral conscience, for the sake of future generations and humanity itself. We will come to understand that, beyond a certain level of affluence, acquiring more cannot enhance happiness. We will realise that our greed is destroying the ecology that sustains our life. There is no boundlessness in the source of our material wealth that must come from nature whose capacity to give is fast depleting. Our level of material demand and consumption must be determined by the capacity of the specific ecology of our setting at an objective level, and by what is intelligently and responsibly deemed sufficient at an individual level.

The balance between economy and ecology is a key consideration in GNH.

A Happiness Oriented Society I shall now try to explain how the pursuit of happiness is a good thing to do not only for one self but for society and why the ‘collective’ is an inseparable part of the concept of GNH. The experience of happiness is not static over the life cycle of an individual. Its meaning changes with sensitivities and with our understanding and appreciation of interdependence.

We cannot be truly happy as an individual while there is suffering around us even though we may have nothing to do with it. The broader the horizon a person has, the more sensitive and holistic he is. The more he realises his happiness is connected to others, the more encompassing his ethical motivation for enabling happiness of others becomes.

A happy person is one who not only values happiness for himself but for others, even if it sometimes costs him individually. The good thing is the pursuit of happiness is also consistent with moral and ethical notions. As social creatures, our reasons to be happy often involve undertaking morally right and worthwhile endeavours.

This feeling of happiness is a direct response to such action. In the conceptual structure of GNH, happiness is truly multidimensional; it is constituted by many elements and domains in life. If every individual is assumed to want happiness only for himself, GNH would be no different from the concept of the well-known utility for maximising figures in economics, motivated only by their need for personal satisfaction.

The pursuit of GNH means the endeavour to create a society or nation in which the facilitation of progressive collective happiness is the goal of governance. To serve this purpose, society which adopts and adapts to changing goals and thereby defines itself, must want it against barriers and competing ideas that may have the force to push society in different or opposing directions.

The meaningful enjoyment of life as a whole is hindered not only by individual circumstances, cognitive fallacies and our lack of positive will, but also by the legacy of past generations in the form of structural conditions which can either prevent – or help us – in achieving the harmony of existence or certain pursuits.

Thus, building consensus, motivating, creating and maintaining a truly conscious wish to pursue collective happiness among the people becomes a major function of government.

This is what has been the case in Bhutan, where a King raised the consciousness of the people of their own single most important desire and articulated it as the national goal. GNH is not a goal willed by the King on the people but a shared vision the King helped to articulate.

The endeavours of a society that is guided by GNH must be to promote a successful life-cycle of birth, living, ageing and dying, quite unlike ‘the biological trap’ of which Hemingway writes. Successful birth must mean achieving a minimal infant and maternal mortality rate, followed by a happy childhood, education and upbringing with equal doses of firmness an affection. This can come mainly from good parenting afforded by a secure and stable marriage.

Successful living means a healthy, productive and fulfilling working life in which one earns a living from doing what gives satisfaction without the cost of moral or ethical compromises.

Building and enjoying strong and genuine relationships is what makes life good. Successful ageing means remaining vital in our advancing years, without succumbing to early infirmities; without having to suffer the indignities of being marginalised by society; and without suffering the lack of respect, love and supportive care from those one considers family.

Finally, successful dying is about a natural, calm and soft passage from a life without regrets amid dignified mourning by those who must bear the loss. I am of the mind that true greatness in people is to be seen in the moment of death – in the wisdom with which they embrace the ultimate truth-not with resignation.

At the most fundamental level, collective happiness and wellbeing depends on two absolute imperatives that we must nurture, value and protect: relationships and the environment. I have already elaborated on the first fundamental variable.

The second imperative is the natural environment, without the integrity of which life itself cannot be sustained.

Yet, the very sustainability of nature itself has become questionable. Its brilliant colours are being polluted to turbid hues. The soothing silence interspersed with nature’s own rhythm and melody no longer exist or have become less visible and audible, for we have been numbed and deafened by shocks of every-day life and the noise of rising ‘decibels’.

I remember how in my youth, we would hear the resonance of the approaching earth quakes in our valleys before they actually struck. The air we breathe is progressively being laced with a range of emissions carrying noxious fumes and particles. Our rivers are either running dry, or unable to withstand the poisoning from toxic effluents, dying along with much marine life forms. Yet with benign neglect, we make adjustments, among other ways, by coining strange new terms and practices such as ‘detoxing’ our bodies.

There are many other worrisome trends. As I mentioned earlier, consumerist aspirations will keep rising to exhaust our resources and the chances for survival of future generations. Population will continue to rise.

Climate is changing to bring erratic weather behaviour that is confusing man, animal and crops to yield catastrophic results. More frequent and havoc wreaking floods, land-slides, drought, fire, pestilence are the order of the day. Rising sea levels are a growing threat. And relocations and migrations away from coastal settlements are separating families, undermining traditions and eroding culture and social systems.

Then there is the steady collapse of biodiversity, emergence of vectors and viruses in hitherto unfamiliar territory, acidification and so on. All these threaten to undermine everything we have achieved so far, socially and economically. Nature is dying. Ours is an ailing planet. The restoration of the quality and purity of air, light, noise, water and soil are urgent not only for our well being but our very survival and that of all other species.

We need to begin a restorative and de-contamination process. We must work fast, and on every level: individual, communal, national and global against the root causes of these challenges.

We might presume that well-being and good health can be, to a large extent, purchased through higher income and better medical care and treatment. Breakthroughs in public health engineering and bio-science discoveries have given us access to treatment for an increasing range of ailments. But most treatments are for non-communicable diseases, the result of unhealthy lifestyle and the cost of not devoting time to cultivate healthy relationships. The nature of our lifestyle, shaped by broader systems, if you will, have imposed a huge hidden cost on us.

Roughly 64% of global mortalities are from non-communicable diseases. Some 450 million people – 12% of world population – suffer from mental health problems of one kind or another.

Given that such loss of life and happiness are preventable and avoidable, it is a sad commentary on the society we live in. Unfortunately, people will continue to slide into unhealthy lifestyles and relational failures at a rate that will require increasingly more resources for the treatment of the preventable and the avoidable.

GNH emphasises a fundamentally healthy lifestyle over treatment and cure. This is no small aspiration because it will demand a huge shift in our work-life-leisure balance, which in turn will demand major changes in the structure of the economy and organisation. Most certainly, such an approach will require in many cases, fundamental shifts in the development strategies of societies.

Our work-life is inevitably influenced by organisational norms and culture. There is, therefore, merit to be accrued in bringing changes to the work place not only to improve the happiness levels of employees per se but because there is direct productivity benefits that translates into organizational growth and sustainability. A happy worker is a productive worker.

It would thus make sense to orient human resource development and management systems as well as organisational structures along GNH considerations. To begin with, at the micro level, there is considerable room for the rules of personnel management, training and service conditions, reward and incentives to be restructured and reoriented to give cause for maximization of happiness in organizations. Over the long term, a GNH oriented society must receive impetus from both the education system and the media, as they are the two most powerful factors influencing people’s understanding, perception, behaviour and decision-making. They must become spheres of influence that are promotive and supportive of collective happiness.

The media must take upon itself the role of providing an ongoing commentary on contemporary issues from a GNH point of view, so that people will as often as possible, have a GNH perspective on their own life and that of society and events which affect them. For the young, GNH values and practices have to be infused into their textbooks.

Here, it may be of some interest for you to note that the media in Bhutan is officially recognized as the fourth and independent branch of governance. As for education, a conference is being held in early December, next month to infuse and embed GNH values into the system through each subject including maths and extra-curricular activities.

Economics of GNH As economics and public finance are the key means to influence and shape any society, any discussion on GNH will not be complete without spending a few moments on this topic. Here, the role of government is supreme in any society as manifest in the way it makes vast expenditures and the laws it makes, follows or ignores.

If collective happiness is a vision to be pursued primarily through official expenditure, our fiscal system has to be consistent with that goal. But if budget allocations, rules, taxes and other fiscal measures are based on conventional criteria devoid of GNH considerations, it would be a futile pursuit as the results will be inconsistent with GNH.

This makes strong the case for a national budget formula and process that is radically different and gives taxpayers incentives to pursue GNH. Such activities as those which promote social capital formation, green technology, family integrity etc. are deserving of special consideration.

Behaviour and preferences of ordinary people, as expressed through their spending patterns, are conditioned by two factors. The first is the relative price of goods and services. The second is media content. Price and media change consumer notion of value and behaviour.

As powerful instruments, their critical role in the cultivation of GNH values and behaviour needs to be fully appreciated. Unfortunately, prices and media content at the moment do not reflect the real environmental and social costs, or the psychological, communal, cultural and other costs. As a result, the choices people make have little to do with creating real value or promoting behaviours that engender happiness within a sustainable environment.

It is imperative that full-cost national accounting which takes into account, among other things, an ecological footprint analysis, becomes mainstream practice. Such a new form of accounting should fully reflect cultural, social, and ecological costs as I have often urged and as outlined in the recent Sarkozy Commission’s Report. This will allow us to arrive at realistic costs of goods and services leading to determination of a more accurate pricing system which in turn, can become the basis for a more meaningful and truly responsible fiscal system.

Of all the strokes that went into the painting of the last century, two brushes provided the most defining lines. First, it was democracy and second, it was the abrasive stroke of GDP. Quite appropriately, 20th Century may be referred to as the century of democratisation and the period (last half) of GDP fetish. While the former has done much to promote individual right and freedom, the latter brought worshippers of all faiths to kneel before the altar of consumerism in the cathedral of the ‘omniscient’ market.

GDP was adopted unquestioningly as the indicator to measure the growth of economies whereby human individuals have been reduced to consumer entities and progress of societies understood to mean just economic growth. It has been assumed that as economies grow, people become happier even if it means growing inequity, more pollution, crime or disease. What matters under the ethos of GDP is production and consumption of goods transacted on the canvas of markets.

Nothing is to come in the way of the free market, and Democracy served to bring down resistance to the dominance of the market.

Speaking of democracy and freedom, government policies have to respond to deliberative preferences and choices of the people. These are influenced by the public criteria we adopt and popularise as indicating success. It is in this context that we need to question whether the public criteria of success associated with GDP are serving us well, and whether they are orienting us towards good governance and development.

Economic growth, measured in GDP, and the emphasis on economic efficiency has given rise to the highest ever level of aggregate wealth in the world. Yet the absolute number of the victims of poverty and their vulnerability to all kinds of threats are at a peak. Not only natural calamities are striking with greater fury and frequency because of collapsing biodiversity and climate change, many other man-made disasters resulting from systemic failures of our macroeconomic structure have begun to affect all of us who are integrated in a world globalized by trade and finance.

Even the rich are not immune as clearly demonstrated by the global financial crisis which exposed the illusory nature of wealth as GDP would have us define.

For far too long, GDP and the market have deluded us into thinking that they are the measure and source of our wellbeing. We have all been under their influence and pressure to evaluate our national performance and social preferences within the framework of growth-mania. Any upward movement in GDP figures meant success for society and higher approval rating for government and leaders.

Let me repeat. We have cared little to understand that what is measured is largely the sum of goods and services produced and exchanged in the market place which in turn are communicated in quantitative and relative terms.

Such information convey nothing about crime, drug abuse, suicide, traffic accidents, stability of family, integrity of our ecology, justice and equity and, above all, the level of happiness among our people. Because we have become economic animals and abandoned our reasoning to GDP herd mentality, we have lost sight of the other more important changes and events that actually mean more to human beings.

It is time to change this set of public success criteria. To this end, we must find the will and utilize the genius within us to develop and adopt a more truthful and humanistic definition of wealth and growth that would encompass the values for which we ought to strive. These should be measured in terms of the value domains within which society can, for all times, abound and prosper amid happiness. I would humbly like to submit that Bhutan has been propelling its national development through four strategies commonly known as the four pillars of GNH. These in turn are founded on 9 value domains (eg. mental well-being, community vitality, cultural resilience, balanced time-use, and environmental awareness) that comprise 72 measurable variables which when aggregated form the national happiness indicator.

Returning to the metaphor, what the 21st Century painting needs is a third brush that can bring out the best from the brushes of democracy and GDP and add a variety of hues and lines that will embellish it with glowing ripples of happiness. Quite plainly, we need, in this new century, a composite yardstick that incorporates good governance and material growth as parts of a comprehensive set of indices to induce and measure holistic societal progress and what matters most: human well-being and happiness.

No human institution can serve us for all eventualities without undergoing change even as they themselves are the agents of change. It is imperative that we do not delay further our efforts to transform and build new systems and arrangements. These should be so designed as to achieve the goals of true human progress while averting all the threats and dangers that will render unsustainable our achievements. In this respect, the general dissatisfaction with the global economic system which is at a cusp, should give us cause to feel encouraged.

Having become aware of our self destructive way of life, the growing search for a new, macroeconomic architecture that is neither completely free market as understood in the neo-liberal sense, nor completely socialist, gives us reasons to be optimistic.

It fills us with the hope that this quiet, ceaseless energy as evident in this gathering, will carry our society into an era of reason and enlightened living.

Let me conclude. A society as a whole, as opposed to individuals, cannot advance coherently without a unity of purpose. Would anyone really wish to argue against the vision of a collective happiness? I am aware that there are sceptics who would contest that the subjective nature of happiness does not allow the concept of happiness to guide the governance of any society. Here, we must distinguish between subjective data and subjective interpretation of data, as these are two entirely different things.

Subjectively biased interpretation of data is unscientific in general, just as in GNH. On the other hand, subjective data is the only information that can reflect a first-person account.

Subjective states are, by definition, not captured by objective data. I would further argue that the category of subjective data, when appropriately elucidated, can be the primary information that represents the reality of our feelings and consciousness. There is no other way of knowing how we feel about happiness.

Such distrust of subjective data has been the main deterrent against the inclusion of happiness in governance and development planning. It has obscured happiness in the realm of governance. Where real unhappiness exists, surely something is wrong.

I see no point in waiting for a series of objective data about people who are unhappy, when we know that the reality of the subject is ultimately subjective. Neither do I see any conflict between giving happiness a larger focus in policy making with rights and freedoms. Rather, in the context of GNH, a larger focus on happiness places what all beings value at the centre for policy making.

I believe our generation not only has the moral responsibility but the opportunity to correct what is wrong with our way of life. The next generation may not have time on its side with all the wrongs having reached an irreversible point.

How can we be happy when we know that succeeding generations will face progressively higher challenges to survive, much less be happy? We must start to live again as a human race, as a civilized being, as beings whose needs are not those of the body alone but of the mind as well.

Thank you for your kind indulgence.”

Source: www.cabinet.bt

Keynote Address by

H.E. Jigmi Y. Thinley, Prime Minister of Bhutan,

at the 5th GNH International Conference,

Itaipu, Brazil,

20-23 November, 2009

Excellencies,

Distinguished Delegates,

Ladies and Gentlemen.

I and my delegation are most delighted to be here in Itaipu,

on the banks of the mighty Rio Parana and Iguacu with its

awe inspiring Iguacu Falls. It is an honour and a matter of

deep satisfaction for the Royal Government, the people of

Bhutan and myself, that the 5th Gross National Happiness

(GNH) International Conference is taking place, for the first

time in South America, in this vast and great country of

Brazil.

Our gathering here bears testimony to the growth of the idea

of GNH as an international movement far beyond the confines

of a single nation. Your presence here is indicative of your

devotion to the search for a better way to live toward making

this planet a safer, more sustainable and happy abode for

mankind and the many living species which have no voice but

whose fate is shaped by our actions.

At the outset, I would like to thank the Itaipu Binacional for

hosting this conference, and the Brazilian government for

facilitating it. I also wish to express my gratitude in particular

to three individuals for the enthusiasm and the hard work

with which they brought this important international

conference to fruition.

First, I would like to thank Dr. Susan Andrews, Founder and

Director of Future Ecological Park. She took on the enormous

responsibility of organizing the conference a year ago during

the 4th GNH International Conference held in Bhutan. Its

realisation today is attributable to her resourcefulness,

commitment and, no doubt, her conviction that GNH is good

for all of humanity. The amazing work she is doing in this

country to promote GNH living, as opposed to talking about

it, deserves our heartfelt admiration.

Secondly, I am very grateful to Dr. Nelton Freidrich, Brazilian

Director for Environment and Sustainability at Itaipu

Binacional for his unstinting support and for promoting

inspiration to the conference. Dr Jorge Miguel Samek,

Brazilian Director General for the Binacional deserves our

sincere thanks for his generous support in hosting the

conference. I would also like to express my gratitude to the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil, Foz do Iguacu

Municipality and Iguacu Binacional. All of us from Bhutan

are overwhelmed by the gracious hospitality.

Evolution of the concept and practice of GNH

As some of you may not be familiar with the evolution of

GNH, let me begin with a short background. Bhutan’s journey

on the path of GNH was flagged off in the early 1970s with a

simple pronouncement by His Majesty the Fourth King of

Bhutan. He stated that “Gross National Happiness is more

important than Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In so doing,

he questioned the validity of the prevailing belief that Gross

Domestic Product alone is a measure of societal progress. He

reasoned that the general well being of his people was more

important than economic growth which is the singular

activity measured by GDP. Well being, he was convinced, is to

be seen in the extent to which the people are happy. He held

the conviction that his responsibility as the king and that of

his government was to create the conditions that would

enable the people to pursue and increase happiness. This, he

asserted could be achieved through a holistic approach to

development whereby the needs of the body and the mind are

balanced, where one complements the other as opposed to

the GDP led growth which has come at the cost of spiritual

and mental impoverishment.

It was a refreshingly bold and profound questioning, more so

because it came out of the mind of a teenager. The pertinence

of his question is to be seen in the world-wide development

experience of the last four decades. Much of the rising

prosperity has failed to provide satisfaction and subjective

well-being, especially in the industrialised, wealthy north

where, in fact, happiness level has stagnated.

The actual alignment of the road map for holistic and

sustainable development in my country was undertaken

methodically in the clear light of GNH throughout the reign of

the Fourth King. This was done principally through enabling

laws and public policies. Believing in the primacy of public

deliberation, public dialogue and public opinion in defining

any national goal, His Majesty ensured that GNH gained

public consensual ownership and subscription not so much

through persuasion as by causing introspection. Such belief

and practice logically guided the King and people to set the

country on a deliberate path to democracy with an aspiration

for the higher goal of an enlightened citizenship. What

followed was the abdication of the throne by HM the King, at

the age of 51, to make way for complete democratization

Working in partnership with His successor, they gave to the

country a Democratic Constitutional Monarchy which came

into being in 2008. As such, Bhutanese democracy sprang

from the womb of GNH.

His Majesty the 5th King, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck,

who ascended the Throne in 2006, provided further stimulus

to GNH. In addition, our Constitution describes the state and

government as having to be guided by the philosophy of GNH.

Developing the concept of GNH has therefore, gone hand in

hand with practising GNH through policies and programmes.

It is thus, only natural that the first democratically elected

government that I lead, came to power on a political

manifesto committing the party to continuing on the path of

GNH.

More recently, we have augmented our attempts to transform

and develop institutions that are structurally aligned to apply

GNH concepts in policy formulation, programme design and

implementation. This, as we all know, is not the normal way

in which governments are structured or function. They

normally echo the GDP conditioned development paradigm

whereby, it is the practice to have ministries corresponding to

sectors such as agriculture, trade, industry, banking and

finance that maintain their own separate accounts.

A society’s pursuit of GNH ought to be reflected in the

organisational structure of its government. This would mean

the creation of ministries or departments that would

correspond to those functions or domains which promote or

create enabling conditions for GNH. These would typically

include such agencies as ministry for psychological wellbeing,

community vitality, cultural resilience and ecological

integrity etc. If such were to become true even in one country,

then it is conceivable that other leaders and their citizenry

will shift to follow suit, just as organisations dealing with

environmental issues arose rapidly within the last 20 years.

Essentially, my proposition is that form and substance must

go together. Without substance, form, in the case of

organizations will ultimately die from lack of purpose and

irrelevance just as an idea that has no form to its furtherance

will simply dissipate. When likewise, there is no relationship

between an organization and the GNH concept, it is likely that

at some stage the two will function divergently and become

counter-productive.

I am happy to inform that new institutional structures and

decision-making processes that reflect GNH objectives

continue to evolve in Bhutan. The country’s socio-economic

planning office, known earlier as the Planning Commission,

has been renamed the GNH Commission and its role

substantively altered in order that strategic plans are aligned

to support and achieve GNH values. Every policy, programme

or project must now have some GNH value. At the very least,

it must be GNH neutral. To this end, project screening tools

are being tested to ensure that optimal GNH values can be

incorporated and realised by way of project designs while

removing elements that are opposed to GNH.

How GNH is internalised by the polity and how it is

implemented depends significantly on governments that must

skilfully direct their resources towards higher goals, primarily

by causing an upward shift in collective consciousness. These

then will, in my mind, enable people to shape the nature of

our political economy, our legal foundation, our health and

education systems in ways that will render them distinctively

different from the way they are over time.

Concept of Happiness

At the core of GNH is collective happiness, which has several

characteristics. Over the centuries, happiness has been

relegated to the private realm, while provision of many other

goods and services of public nature was brought to the fore of

public realm. But like the concept of justice, happiness is a

public good, even though it is experienced subjectively. While

happiness is influenced by a frame of reference and, in that

sense, it is partly relative to a person’s experiences with

respect to others or to the past, it is more importantly,

relational in character. Happiness is, indeed, more relational

than relative because the quality and depth of relationships

with others influence our happiness far more than a

comparative possession of a commodity. One can be richer

than one’s neighbour but apart from a fleeting pleasure, one

is back to ‘unhappiness’ in comparing oneself with some one

who is even richer and so on. Relative success does not lead

to genuine happiness. True happiness which arises from a

deeper sense of satisfaction reaches beyond the pleasurethreshold

of commodity possession.

Since happiness has so much more to do with relationships

than relative advantages over others in terms of money,

status, rank or possessions, creation or improvement of

conditions that promote relationships deserve far greater time

and resources than we have been prepared to give. People are

happier when they are surrounded by others who share their

joy. Likewise, the pains of misfortune are far more difficult to

bear when one must suffer and weep alone. Loneliness and

separation magnify one’s misery and are often the causes that

drive people to despair and suicide. Happiness rises when

relationships are secure and blossoming. It dissipates with

relationships that suffer erosion of trust, affection and care.

Relationships can be conditioned by the physical environment

even though they are largely creations and products of an

individual’s character, personality, behaviour and social

skills. Having resilient and enduring relationships and

creating organisations and settings that breed such positive

relationships, is a crucial challenge and responsibility for the

state that aspires to raise the well being of its people. In this

regard, I am convinced that relationships thrive best in the

rural setting where interdependence is a way of life and where

living in harmony with nature is a compulsion.

It is disconcerting to find that rural urban migration is

universally, an irreversible trend. Within the last century, the

world has become more urban than ever before, with almost

50% of the global population living in urban settings. As our

social networks transform from small, rural settlements into a

more urban lifestyle, there is an obvious dislocation and

breakdown of community and social life – and the values that

underpin community vitality.

Urban growth is not inevitable. Urbanisation or rural urban

migration, in particular, is an escape that is compelled by the

failure of states to plan and achieve holistic, balanced and

equitable development. It becomes appealing when rural

populations feel deprived and frustrated by lack of

opportunities, see obvious disparities and fall prey to the

illusions of a better and more exciting life in the cities. The

way out of this is through the localisation of production and

the scaling down of planned urban expansion particularly

where it is avoidable.

But that is easier said than done. It is in the cities and its

peripheries where all forms of economic activities take place,

it is where people like to do their hustling and bustling,

because it makes economic sense. But gleaming sky scrapers

of steel and glass – icons of engineering feat and symbols of

prosperity conceal in their shadows a story that is not as

radiant. Disillusionment, despair, crime and slums of misery

are often a reality among a disproportionately high number of

inhabitants.

The deep carbon foot prints and ecological horror that are

discernible to the caring eye are the outcomes of population

concentration and consumerism that thrives best in cities.

Food that feed the urban millions travels perhaps, the longest

distance, leading to the longest “food-miles’’ which, very often,

stretch not just from one urban area to another part of the

country, but from one city to the most distant parts of the

globe. It is a nightmarish challenge for city managers to

dispose of the stupendous quantities of urban waste, much of

it hazardous, and cannot be metabolised by the concrete and

metal ecology of the urban settlements. Above all, the

consequences in terms of breakdown of the social links and

communal affiliations that urban life entails are no less

severe. It is here that the paradox of loneliness amid crowds

occurs in stark reality. And it is city life that spawns the

nuclear family.

There is much that is being done and much more that needs

to done to enhance the quality of urban structures, urban

services and urban ecology. Much more resources need to be

spent on efforts to improve rural life.

For most of us, the pleasant sensations of the five faculties

(touch, smell, taste, hearing and sight) are the sources of

happiness and satisfaction. However, happiness of the nature

that depends on external stimulants is not only ephemeral

but even dangerous for the most part, unless it is balanced

with inner contemplation or meditation to generate internal

sources of contentment and happiness through the

understanding of the true nature of our mind. The very

nature of the market within a consumerist society is to keep

the flow of fleeting pleasures from external stimuli continuous

and rising. This happens through more and more extraction

of earth’s finite resources to produce more and more of what

we actually need less of so that more and more can be

consumed or wasted through alluring commercials.

Ultimately, even as insatiable consumerists, we as an

otherwise intelligent beings, will have to reconcile with reality

and come to terms with the idea of a ‘sufficiency condition’ for

the survival and happiness of our own selves and, if we have

any moral conscience, for the sake of future generations and

humanity itself. We will come to understand that, beyond a

certain level of affluence, acquiring more cannot enhance

happiness. We will realise that our greed is destroying the

ecology that sustains our life. There is no boundlessness in

the source of our material wealth that must come from nature

whose capacity to give is fast depleting. Our level of material

demand and consumption must be determined by the

capacity of the specific ecology of our setting at an objective

level, and by what is intelligently and responsibly deemed

sufficient at an individual level. The balance between

economy and ecology is a key consideration in GNH.

A Happiness Oriented Society

I shall now try to explain how the pursuit of happiness is a

good thing to do not only for one self but for society and why

the ‘collective’ is an inseparable part of the concept of GNH.

The experience of happiness is not static over the life cycle of

an individual. Its meaning changes with sensitivities and with

our understanding and appreciation of interdependence. We

cannot be truly happy as an individual while there is

suffering around us even though we may have nothing to do

with it. The broader the horizon a person has, the more

sensitive and holistic he is. The more he realises his

happiness is connected to others, the more encompassing his

ethical motivation for enabling happiness of others becomes.

A happy person is one who not only values happiness for

himself but for others, even if it sometimes costs him

individually. The good thing is the pursuit of happiness is

also consistent with moral and ethical notions. As social

creatures, our reasons to be happy often involve undertaking

morally right and worthwhile endeavours. This feeling of

happiness is a direct response to such action. In the

conceptual structure of GNH, happiness is truly multidimensional;

it is constituted by many elements and domains

in life. If every individual is assumed to want happiness only

for himself, GNH would be no different from the concept of

the well-known utility for maximising figures in economics,

motivated only by their need for personal satisfaction.

The pursuit of GNH means the endeavour to create a society

or nation in which the facilitation of progressive collective

happiness is the goal of governance. To serve this purpose,

society which adopts and adapts to changing goals and

thereby defines itself, must want it against barriers and

competing ideas that may have the force to push society in

different or opposing directions. The meaningful enjoyment of

life as a whole is hindered not only by individual

circumstances, cognitive fallacies and our lack of positive will,

but also by the legacy of past generations in the form of

structural conditions which can either prevent – or help us -

in achieving the harmony of existence or certain pursuits.

Thus, building consensus, motivating, creating and

maintaining a truly conscious wish to pursue collective

happiness among the people becomes a major function of

government.

This is what has been the case in Bhutan, where a King

raised the consciousness of the people of their own single

most important desire and articulated it as the national goal.

GNH is not a goal willed by the King on the people but a

shared vision the King helped to articulate.

The endeavours of a society that is guided by GNH must be to

promote a successful life-cycle of birth, living, ageing and

dying, quite unlike ‘the biological trap’ of which Hemingway

writes. Successful birth must mean achieving a minimal

infant and maternal mortality rate, followed by a happy

childhood, education and upbringing with equal doses of

firmness an affection. This can come mainly from good

parenting afforded by a secure and stable marriage.

Successful living means a healthy, productive and fulfilling

working life in which one earns a living from doing what gives

satisfaction without the cost of moral or ethical compromises.

Building and enjoying strong and genuine relationships is

what makes life good. Successful ageing means remaining

vital in our advancing years, without succumbing to early

infirmities; without having to suffer the indignities of being

marginalised by society; and without suffering the lack of

respect, love and supportive care from those one considers

family. Finally, successful dying is about a natural, calm and

soft passage from a life without regrets amid dignified

mourning by those who must bear the loss. I am of the mind

that true greatness in people is to be seen in the moment of

death – in the wisdom with which they embrace the ultimate

truth-not with resignation.

At the most fundamental level, collective happiness and wellbeing

depends on two absolute imperatives that we must

nurture, value and protect: relationships and the

environment. I have already elaborated on the first

fundamental variable. The second imperative is the natural

environment, without the integrity of which life itself cannot

be sustained. Yet, the very sustainability of nature itself has

become questionable. Its brilliant colours are being polluted

to turbid hues. The soothing silence interspersed with

nature’s own rhythm and melody no longer exist or have

become less visible and audible, for we have been numbed

and deafened by shocks of every-day life and the noise of

rising ‘decibels’. I remember how in my youth, we would hear

the resonance of the approaching earth quakes in our valleys

before they actually struck. The air we breathe is

progressively being laced with a range of emissions carrying

noxious fumes and particles. Our rivers are either running

dry, or unable to withstand the poisoning from toxic effluents,

dying along with much marine life forms. Yet with benign

neglect, we make adjustments, among other ways, by coining

strange new terms and practices such as ‘detoxing’ our

bodies.

There are many other worrisome trends. As I mentioned

earlier, consumerist aspirations will keep rising to exhaust

our resources and the chances for survival of future

generations. Population will continue to rise. Climate is

changing to bring erratic weather behaviour that is confusing

man, animal and crops to yield catastrophic results. More

frequent and havoc wreaking floods, land-slides, drought, fire,

pestilence are the order of the day. Rising sea levels are a

growing threat. And relocations and migrations away from

coastal settlements are separating families, undermining

traditions and eroding culture and social systems. Then there

is the steady collapse of biodiversity, emergence of vectors

and viruses in hitherto unfamiliar territory, acidification and

so on. All these threaten to undermine everything we have

achieved so far, socially and economically.

Nature is dying. Ours is an ailing planet. The restoration of

the quality and purity of air, light, noise, water and soil are

urgent not only for our well being but our very survival and

that of all other species. We need to begin a restorative and

de-contamination process. We must work fast, and on every

level: individual, communal, national and global against the

root causes of these challenges.

We might presume that well-being and good health can be, to

a large extent, purchased through higher income and better

medical care and treatment. Breakthroughs in public health

engineering and bio-science discoveries have given us access

to treatment for an increasing range of ailments. But most

treatments are for non-communicable diseases, the result of

unhealthy lifestyle and the cost of not devoting time to

cultivate healthy relationships. The nature of our lifestyle,

shaped by broader systems, if you will, have imposed a huge

hidden cost on us. Roughly 64% of global mortalities are from

non-communicable diseases. Some 450 million people – 12%

of world population – suffer from mental health problems of

one kind or another. Given that such loss of life and

happiness are preventable and avoidable, it is a sad

commentary on the society we live in. Unfortunately, people

will continue to slide into unhealthy lifestyles and relational

failures at a rate that will require increasingly more resources

for the treatment of the preventable and the avoidable.

GNH emphasises a fundamentally healthy lifestyle over

treatment and cure. This is no small aspiration because it will

demand a huge shift in our work-life-leisure balance, which

in turn will demand major changes in the structure of the

economy and organisation. Most certainly, such an approach

will require in many cases, fundamental shifts in the

development strategies of societies.

Our work-life is inevitably influenced by organisational norms

and culture. There is, therefore, merit to be accrued in

bringing changes to the work place not only to improve the

happiness levels of employees per se but because there is

direct productivity benefits that translates into organizational

growth and sustainability. A happy worker is a productive

worker. It would thus make sense to orient human resource

development and management systems as well as

organisational structures along GNH considerations. To

begin with, at the micro level, there is considerable room for

the rules of personnel management, training and service

conditions, reward and incentives to be restructured and

reoriented to give cause for maximization of happiness in

organizations.

Over the long term, a GNH oriented society must receive

impetus from both the education system and the media, as

they are the two most powerful factors influencing people’s

understanding, perception, behaviour and decision-making.

They must become spheres of influence that are promotive

and supportive of collective happiness. The media must take

upon itself the role of providing an ongoing commentary on

contemporary issues from a GNH point of view, so that people

will as often as possible, have a GNH perspective on their own

life and that of society and events which affect them. For the

young, GNH values and practices have to be infused into their

textbooks. Here, it may be of some interest for you to note

that the media in Bhutan is officially recognized as the fourth

and independent branch of governance. As for education, a

conference is being held in early December, next month to

infuse and embed GNH values into the system through each

subject including maths and extra-curricular activities.

Economics of GNH

As economics and public finance are the key means to

influence and shape any society, any discussion on GNH will

not be complete without spending a few moments on this

topic. Here, the role of government is supreme in any society

as manifest in the way it makes vast expenditures and the

laws it makes, follows or ignores. If collective happiness is a

vision to be pursued primarily through official expenditure,

our fiscal system has to be consistent with that goal. But if

budget allocations, rules, taxes and other fiscal measures are

based on conventional criteria devoid of GNH considerations,

it would be a futile pursuit as the results will be inconsistent

with GNH. This makes strong the case for a national budget

formula and process that is radically different and gives

taxpayers incentives to pursue GNH. Such activities as those

which promote social capital formation, green technology,

family integrity etc. are deserving of special consideration.

Behaviour and preferences of ordinary people, as expressed

through their spending patterns, are conditioned by two

factors. The first is the relative price of goods and services.

The second is media content. Price and media change

consumer notion of value and behaviour. As powerful

instruments, their critical role in the cultivation of GNH

values and behaviour needs to be fully appreciated.

Unfortunately, prices and media content at the moment do

not reflect the real environmental and social costs, or the

psychological, communal, cultural and other costs. As a

result, the choices people make have little to do with creating

real value or promoting behaviours that engender happiness

within a sustainable environment.

It is imperative that full-cost national accounting which takes

into account, among other things, an ecological footprint

analysis, becomes mainstream practice. Such a new form of

accounting should fully reflect cultural, social, and ecological

costs as I have often urged and as outlined in the recent

Sarkozy Commission’s Report. This will allow us to arrive at

realistic costs of goods and services leading to determination

of a more accurate pricing system which in turn, can become

the basis for a more meaningful and truly responsible fiscal

system.

Of all the strokes that went into the painting of the last

century, two brushes provided the most defining lines. First,

it was democracy and second, it was the abrasive stroke of

GDP. Quite appropriately, 20th Century may be referred to as

the century of democratisation and the period (last half) of

GDP fetish. While the former has done much to promote

individual right and freedom, the latter brought worshippers

of all faiths to kneel before the altar of consumerism in the

cathedral of the ‘omniscient’ market. GDP was adopted

unquestioningly as the indicator to measure the growth of

economies whereby human individuals have been reduced to

consumer entities and progress of societies understood to

mean just economic growth. It has been assumed that as

economies grow, people become happier even if it means

growing inequity, more pollution, crime or disease. What

matters under the ethos of GDP is production and

consumption of goods transacted on the canvas of markets.

Nothing is to come in the way of the free market, and

Democracy served to bring down resistance to the dominance

of the market.

Speaking of democracy and freedom, government policies

have to respond to deliberative preferences and choices of the

people. These are influenced by the public criteria we adopt

and popularise as indicating success. It is in this context that

we need to question whether the public criteria of success

associated with GDP are serving us well, and whether they

are orienting us towards good governance and development.

Economic growth, measured in GDP, and the emphasis on

economic efficiency has given rise to the highest ever level of

aggregate wealth in the world. Yet the absolute number of the

victims of poverty and their vulnerability to all kinds of

threats are at a peak. Not only natural calamities are striking

with greater fury and frequency because of collapsing

biodiversity and climate change, many other man-made

disasters resulting from systemic failures of our macroeconomic

structure have begun to affect all of us who are

integrated in a world globalized by trade and finance. Even

the rich are not immune as clearly demonstrated by the

global financial crisis which exposed the illusory nature of

wealth as GDP would have us define.

For far too long, GDP and the market have deluded us into

thinking that they are the measure and source of our wellbeing.

We have all been under their influence and pressure to

evaluate our national performance and social preferences

within the framework of growth-mania. Any upward

movement in GDP figures meant success for society and

higher approval rating for government and leaders. Let me

repeat. We have cared little to understand that what is

measured is largely the sum of goods and services produced

and exchanged in the market place which in turn are

communicated in quantitative and relative terms. Such

information convey nothing about crime, drug abuse, suicide,

traffic accidents, stability of family, integrity of our ecology,

justice and equity and, above all, the level of happiness

among our people. Because we have become economic

animals and abandoned our reasoning to GDP herd

mentality, we have lost sight of the other more important

changes and events that actually mean more to human

beings.

It is time to change this set of public success criteria. To this

end, we must find the will and utilize the genius within us to

develop and adopt a more truthful and humanistic definition

of wealth and growth that would encompass the values for

which we ought to strive. These should be measured in terms

of the value domains within which society can, for all times,

abound and prosper amid happiness. I would humbly like to

submit that Bhutan has been propelling its national

development through four strategies commonly known as the

four pillars of GNH. These in turn are founded on 9 value

domains (eg. mental well-being, community vitality, cultural

resilience, balanced time-use, and environmental awareness)

that comprise 72 measurable variables which when

aggregated form the national happiness indicator.

Returning to the metaphor, what the 21st Century painting

needs is a third brush that can bring out the best from the

brushes of democracy and GDP and add a variety of hues

and lines that will embellish it with glowing ripples of

happiness. Quite plainly, we need, in this new century, a

composite yardstick that incorporates good governance and

material growth as parts of a comprehensive set of indices to

induce and measure holistic societal progress and what

matters most: human well-being and happiness.

No human institution can serve us for all eventualities

without undergoing change even as they themselves are the

agents of change. It is imperative that we do not delay further

our efforts to transform and build new systems and

arrangements. These should be so designed as to achieve the

goals of true human progress while averting all the threats

and dangers that will render unsustainable our

achievements. In this respect, the general dissatisfaction with

the global economic system which is at a cusp, should give us

cause to feel encouraged. Having become aware of our self

destructive way of life, the growing search for a new, macroeconomic

architecture that is neither completely free market

as understood in the neo-liberal sense, nor completely

socialist, gives us reasons to be optimistic. It fills us with the

hope that this quiet, ceaseless energy as evident in this

gathering, will carry our society into an era of reason and

enlightened living.

Let me conclude. A society as a whole, as opposed to

individuals, cannot advance coherently without a unity of

purpose. Would anyone really wish to argue against the vision

of a collective happiness? I am aware that there are sceptics

who would contest that the subjective nature of happiness

does not allow the concept of happiness to guide the

governance of any society. Here, we must distinguish between

subjective data and subjective interpretation of data, as these

are two entirely different things.

Subjectively biased interpretation of data is unscientific in

general, just as in GNH. On the other hand, subjective data is

the only information that can reflect a first-person account.

Subjective states are, by definition, not captured by objective

data. I would further argue that the category of subjective

data, when appropriately elucidated, can be the primary

information that represents the reality of our feelings and

consciousness. There is no other way of knowing how we feel

about happiness.

Such distrust of subjective data has been the main deterrent

against the inclusion of happiness in governance and

development planning. It has obscured happiness in the

realm of governance. Where real unhappiness exists, surely

something is wrong. I see no point in waiting for a series of

objective data about people who are unhappy, when we know

that the reality of the subject is ultimately subjective. Neither

do I see any conflict between giving happiness a larger focus

in policy making with rights and freedoms. Rather, in the

context of GNH, a larger focus on happiness places what all

beings value at the centre for policy making.

I believe our generation not only has the moral responsibility

but the opportunity to correct what is wrong with our way of

life. The next generation may not have time on its side with all

the wrongs having reached an irreversible point. How can we

be happy when we know that succeeding generations will face

progressively higher challenges to survive, much less be

happy? We must start to live again as a human race, as a

civilized being, as beings whose needs are not those of the

body alone but of the mind as well.

Thank you for your kind indulgence.

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Zakar for Tuesday February 09 2010

26th Day of the 1st Month - Iron Male Tiger Year Year

Auspicious for: Construction of new-ten sung, conducting consecration and blessing ceremonies, propitiating gods and deities, conducting chagu-yanglen, entering new houses, sowing seeds, planting flowers, making and taking medicines, calling upon superiors, starting construction of houses, holding discussions and shifting houses. But people who are born in the year of Horse and Snake should be careful as it is their she-zha (unfavorable day).

Inauspicious for: Taking out corpse and undertaking a long journey.

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
« Oct				Dec »
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9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28	29
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Lyonchhen addresses GNH Conference in Brazil

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Zakar for Tuesday February 09 2010

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