It seems that the national survey found educated people more happy than uneducated. It makes one to wonder the methodology used for several reasons:
1. If the result of the survey is authentic than citizens of industrialised world who are both more educated and wealthy to a large extent should be happy. Is it so?.
2. If the result is correct then the Gross National Product is the valid indicator of social happiness. GNH is not the trusted indicator because the survey confirms that literacy and money which drive productivity are the two pillars of happiness. Therefore, GDP and GNP which are products of literacy and wealth have been proven to be the true indicators of national social contentment status.
3. Compared to developed Countries, Bhutanese literacy and wealth figures are rather low. But the survey has shown that almost all Bhutanese are happy. Does it mean that almost all people in the world are happy since Bhutan a Least Developed Country is almost 100% happy ?
4. According to the happiness survey of Bhutan, literacy and wealth rule the roost of happiness. In such a scenario democracy, culture, stability and peace which have no direct relations to money and education, have no impact on happiness and unhappiness of an individual or family or community. Can this really be so?
No wonder there is so much corruption in the country because everyone wants to be happy in the GNH nation and money is the secret of Happiness according to the Bhutanese national happiness survey.
5. If 99% of Bhutanese are happy already then it is confirmed that social problems of drug issues, unemployment, increased figures of communicable and non communicable diseases , death and sickness have no impact to an individual's status of happiness or unhappiness. Could Bhutanese have been turned to robots?
Conclusion : Looks like the national survey on happiness was structured to achieve an artificial goal : The utopian status of Bhutanese in the year of the 60th Birth Anniversary of the Fourth Druk Gyalpo. Is that an insult or adulation or what ?
Now Bhutan must work out the secret recipe of Longevity since we have found the recipe of Happiness. Bhutan's highly educated and wealthy top of the national social and political pyramid have so much reasons to smile. There is a chance of living forever in happiness.
I am sure I am not happy and I know at least thousands who are are educated but unhappy...so this GNH survery is designed to achieve a preconceived goal..I wonder how much of our tax money is wasted on producing such crap..
ReplyDeleteI am sure there is correlation between amount of wealth and education up to certain level; however, these correlation might disappear after certain level of income or wealth. For example, I am a university graduate and I earn Nu.18000 as my net salary. The salary I get is not at all enough to give me a comfortable living in Thimphu when I have to pay 50% of my salary as house rent. Now, if I income earned Nu. 50,000 a month, I would definitely be much happier than when I earned only Nu.18,000, because I would be able to have better life- better food, better clothing, and better help my parents and siblings in the village.
ReplyDeleteWould I be be happier if I earned more income than it is required for normal comfortable living? That, I would say, is questionable. Today, most Bhutanese do not enjoy comfortable level of income; therefore, people yearn to have better income to improve their standard of living. Our people are not yet disillusioned with income and wealth, because majority of people in Bhutan still don't have enough to meet the basic needs.
Therefore, I feel that happiness and income could have direct relationship to to certain level of income, an income level that is necessary to have comfortable living- income to live without having to worry about meeting basic expenses, such as house rent, clothing, education expenses, transport, and good food.