Uncovering the Fundamentals of Human Nature - The Gross National Happiness Index (GNH)

It seems that the political world is finally taking to the idea of GNH or' Gross National Happiness' - a quantitative index of psychological well-being put at the heart of policy-making. Since the concept was first created by the 4th King of Bhutan HM Jigme Singye Wangchuck to guide development in his nation, Canada, France and the UK have recently announced initiatives for an official Happiness Index to guide policy-making in their countries.

Many people know about the GNH, through the romanticized viewing-glass of scenic Bhutan, the Kingdom amidst the mountains and clouds, where its people sing and dance the songs of generations past, living a life of tranquility and harmony with nature. I make no qualms that I am very much such a 'rustic idealist' as well, whose lifelong dream is still to find myself by the little stream in the rural wilderness, eating my peanuts as time and breeze go by. However, if one's understanding of GNH were to stop at this idealized, and rather contentious picture, it would be a great injustice to the many social and psychological researchers who have put effort into the GNH, to turn a conceptual aspiration, into a quantitative index which can be used as a policy-making tool all around the world, for different communities, across the rural-urban spectrum.

It is through the immaculate understanding of human nature, woven into the very fundamentals of what it measures, how it is measured, and why it is measured, which differentiates the GNH from any other quantitative measure of 'development'. I can only share on a few key ones which resonated strongly when I first read them.

Sustainable Happiness. During the consumption of goods and services, the measure of what gives the people happiness will be relative, either to what others are consuming or to what one had the year before. This fact implies that there are negative externalities to happiness associated with consumption that needs to be curbed. As contrasted against such happiness achieved through external stimuli, there is a contrary tradition that point to a different source of happiness, showing that pleasurable feelings will be generated by shutting down sensory inputs and the related mental chatter. This involves secular meditation whereby the individual experiences the subject itself, as opposed to the subject perceiving external stimuli.Long enough meditation may lead the brain structure (neural pathways) to be changed such that calmness and contentment will be a personality trait. In other words, the mental faculties can be trained towards happiness. From a contemplative perspective, extreme reliance on externally derived pleasure distracts the individual from inner sources of happiness, elevating the latter.

Interdependent Happiness. In order to achieve collective happiness, the principle of interdependence needs to be taken on by everyone. Members of a GNH society would cultivate a third eye, which can elevate our vision beyond individual self-interest to address the happiness of all, as a collective goal. Happiness blossoms through enhanced relationships, arising unbidden when relationships improve. In this sense, the whole of development is a progress in relationships, not of individuals.

Sufficient Happiness. The Gross National Happiness Index takes the position that beyond a certain point, we dont need to keep adding in higher achievements to the quality of life mechanically; we confine our attention somewhat to a middle band of achievements that contribute significantly to human well-being for most people. Hence, having a much longer than sufficient education-span, does not compensate for a much lower than sufficient community vitality. Sufficiency across the key dimensions is the aggregate of GNH, rather than an absolute weighted average of the different dimensions.

These fundamentals guide the selection of indicators used to measure GNH across the nine dimensions of: Psychological Well-Being, Time Use, Community Vitality, Culture, Health, Education, Environmental Diversity, Living Standard, Governance.

I must admit that I have quoted in large sections directly from the GNH website in the identification of the fundamentals above, in my attempt to give a quick snapshot on the GNH. However, I recognize the potential incoherence of simply extracting bits out of the complete whole, and I would strongly urge anyone with any interest at all in the concept of GNH, or the understanding of happiness, to go directly to the website: www.grossnationalhappiness.com to discover more. It is very wordy and can be quite difficult to grasp at times, but it is well worth the effort to think through, even if you may have differing views.

Work-Live-Play

I read today about how Singapore's exhibit at the Venice Biennale 'showcases the Republic's ability to perfect social, economic and environmental balance, and how the replication of Singapore's ' high-density, mixed-used development' model by 1000 times will house the entire world living sustainably.This model, is very much in line with 'New Urbanism', the latest fashion in Urban Planning to create 'Work-Live-Play' environments for people to work and live in. I have always had an almost instinctive distaste for such a concept, but have never been able to explain why. Recently, I think I have found the underlying explanations.

The 'work-live-play' concept portrays itself as the 'great unifier' of different uses. From an era in which people live far away from where they work, and work far away from where they play, 'work-live-play' combines all these uses within a highly intensified and dynamic space. This concept has attracted many planners, architects, politicians. The problem for me though, is that this concept is stuck within an economic paradigm of specialisation, and worse, may even serve to camouflage it.

Just think about it. Why would we need to create 'work-live-play' physical environments, if we actually live through our work and play?Conversely, how is it ever possible to achieve a 'work-live-play' psychological environment, if we dont live through our work and play? A physical 'live-work-play' environment is little more than a psychological manipulation, which as all manipulations, can never be sustainable in the long-term.

When I was younger but still as naive as I am today, I broke down the natural human nature into three components: Greed, Self-Esteem, and Compassion. Each individual is then made up by different levels of each component, which then manifest into different characters and personalities. Human utility was therefore achieved by progress in each of the three spheres. Attaining more material (or even spiritual) wealth made people happier. Gaining more self-esteem, or a sense of self-worth made people happier. Contributing to the welfare of others made people happier. However, the pursuit of these components is hardly always complementary. Therefore, if an action allows someone to gain more material wealth, but affects his self-esteem negatively, then the net change to utility will be much less than the gain acrued from the gain to material wealth.

It is the incomplete understanding of and attention to human nature, which has led to today's seperation of 'work-live-play'. From the hunter gatherers, to the farmers, to the Industrial societies, to the 'globalised, urbanised, IT & Financial centric society of today, the human developmental model has been the unilateral pursuit to reduce risk, increase output, improve convenience. This is a natural extension of the fundamental 'greed' component of the human make-up. However, along the way, the complete ignoring of the components of 'self-esteem' (hardly the best word for what I am trying to convey, but includes self-worth, self-expression etc) and 'compassion', are perhaps why utility has not improved at all.

To the hunter gatherer, hunting for prey was a source of personal vindication, social vindication and risk rolled into one. He 'lived' through his hunting, in that each prey successfully caught was testimony to his ability and self-worth, his contribution to his family and the wider community, but each hunt came with it the chance of failure and even the risk of getting hurt or killed. Throughout the centuries, human beings have spent all their time and effort on decreasing the risks of failure. Specialization, efficiency, productivity, even risk-management itself, these terms can never be disassociated with the intention of reducing risk. But what has happened to 'self-worth' and 'compassion'? These have not only not been developed, but in many ways, have actually gone back.

For the average factory worker, even the office worker of today, does he validate his human existence through his work? Does he find self-expression in his work? The hunter-gatherer probably felt more. For the busy and pre-occupied and self-centred products of today's society, do they have any time for family and community apart of self? Probably less than the hunter-gatherer too. The seperation of work from self-expression, play and community has brought utility to the greed componet at the expense of 'self-esteem' and 'compassion'.

Therefore,even if we achieve the 'perfect balance' of social, economic and environmental balance, there will hardly be any sustainable improvement to the human condition, unless we adress the issue of 'psychological balance'. What we need to create, are not mere spaces where the functional uses of the economic paradigm meet, but spaces where the fundamental components of the psychological paradigm find expression. In this utopia, there will be no 'work-live-play', all of us, will simply live, again.