Archive for year 2010

Here’s John’s blog:

• Wednesday, Jun 16th, 2010 originally in CSRwire

Vermont Hosts First U.S. Gross National Happiness Conference

What happens when 120 people get together to talk about Gross National Happiness?

By John de Graaf

Recently, I read two well-written books. Both Barbara Ehrenreich’s BRIGHT-SIDED and Chris Hedges’ EMPIRE OF ILLUSION, challenge the inherent optimism of Americans, showing how it keeps them from a critical analysis of our failings and unable to defend themselves against corporate predation. Each book devotes a chapter to a scathing attack on the new science of “happiness,” seeing it only as a self-help deception meant to persuade American workers to cheerfully and docilely accept their oppression.

I wish Ehrenreich and Hedges could have joined the 120 people who attended the first Gross National Happiness (GNH) Conference held in the United States, from June first to third in Burlington, Vermont.

Speaker after speaker suggested that happiness was to be found not in our devotion to an ever-expanding consumer society, but in understanding that the best things in life aren’t things. All agreed that building community, sharing wealth and caring for each other are far more likely to lead to satisfied lives than the individualist ethic of American hyper-capitalism.

Here are a few of the highlights of the conference, as I saw them:

The keynote speaker was Karma Tshiteem, the Commissioner of Happiness for Bhutan, where the goal of “Gross National Happiness” is enshrined in the Constitution. He offered a fascinating look at how GNH indicators influence government policy there.  Major policies are subjected to “screening tools” that assess 23 indicators of happiness (eg. Work-life balance, Income distribution, Stress). When the issue of Bhutan’s joining the World Trade Organization was judged in this way it failed, though initially government leaders had been strongly in favor.

Ron Colman, who developed Canada’s Genuine Progress Indicator and is now advising the government of Bhutan, described the new system of national accounts in Bhutan — the world’s first — that subtracts costs of resource loss and other externalities from the its national income. In the U.S., most of the enormous costs of the Gulf of Mexico oil catastrophe will actually be added to GDP!

Colman explained how the concept of GNH is also being used in the education of Bhutanese children, “so they will not be trapped by the lure of materialism.  Young people are bombarded with western images of success.”  Colman says GNH education includes critical thinking about products — where do they come from, where do they go?  Children are shown a can of Coke and ask to consider where everything in it comes from, what the impact of drinking it is on their health, where the water is obtained, for example.

The show stealer was Susan Andrews, an American now living in Brazil, who runs a demonstration eco-village and education center. Andrews showed a video depicting how Brazil is using GNH surveys in cities, schools, universities and businesses. She teaches happiness skills to young students in the slums or favelas and finds the process effective in reducing violence. Her enthusiasm and dedication were inspiring and she received a standing ovation.

I talked with Susan at the airport in Burlington before flying home to Seattle.  Her hopefulness about GNH was tempered by a deep sadness about the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico and by a feeling that much of the happiness movement doesn’t understand how important it is to challenge corporate power and inequality if we are to create happy societies.

I agree, and see some threats to the happiness movement on the horizon.  Consider two new books by Arthur Brooks, the President of the American Enterprise Institute. One is called GROSS NATIONAL HAPPINESS. The other is called THE BATTLE.

In these books, ideology trumps science. Brooks contends that the happiest countries are those with the least government and lowest taxes. Happiness researchers have found pretty much the opposite. Northern European countries with high tax rates actually rank at the top in happiness surveys.  Denmark is number One.

Line Kikkenborg Christensen, a young Danish graduate student who attended the conference, explained why. The Danes’ strong social safety net, including excellent free health care and higher education and unemployment insurance mean they feel less need to get the highest paying jobs, regardless of whether or not the work is satisfying.  “I feel secure for me and for my children, so I can follow my passion,” she declared.

Arthur Brooks wants to nip such ideas in the bud, hijacking the science of happiness for conservative goals.  He uses a handful of questionable studies in the way climate change skeptics do, to undermine the preponderance of research.  He claims that inequality does not matter, for example, and that social safety nets actually reduce happiness by reducing personal initiative.

The evidence, marshaled clearly, in Burlington, shows that Brooks is wrong and that happy societies are those that share wealth, reduce work-time, consume carefully and take good care of the environment.  The movement for Gross National Happiness is part of a movement for a more just America.  The first GNH conference in Burlington was a great start in that direction.

About John de Graaf

JOHN DE GRAAF is a documentary filmmaker and the Executive Director of Take Back Your Time. He is the co-author of AFFLUENZA: THE ALL-CONSUMING EPIDEMIC.  His most recent film is WHAT’S THE ECONOMY FOR, ANYWAY? He teaches occasionally at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA and lives in Seattle.

Readers: What’s your “talkback” on the science of happiness? Does happiness depend on the individual or on the social environment? Share your thoughts!

SPROUT: Pursuing Happiness in Hard Times

Carl Etnier
Relocalizing Vermont Productions
Distributed by Pacifica

A report from the GNHUSA 2010 Conference in Burlington, Vermont with clips from former Harvard President Derek Bok and Fed Chair Ben Bernanke added.

Listen or Download

The opening keynote speaker on the first morning of the GNH conference in Vermont was Karma Tshiteem, Secretary of Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness Commission.  Karma was asked by Susan Andrews(Founder of the Future Vision Institute in Brazil and keynote speaker on day 2 of the conference) what was needed for change away from GDP and toward GNH.  His response: “The leverage for change is getting the people organized.”

The people.  That’s you.  And me.  And our friends and their friends, on and on, rippling out to create a desperately needed movement for the well-being of this planet and all who live here.

Speaker after speaker made the same point, from Ron Coleman (Executive Director of GPI Atlantic in Canada), who stressed that the people are “very important,” to Con Hogan (former Secretary of Vermont’s Agency of Human Services), who said it will take “all of us” to push for these changes.

Yet, up till now, the voice of the people has been missing.  Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke gives a graduation speech urging Americans to look beyond material wealth for their happiness (see the May 9th blog on this website); former Harvard President Derek releases a new book, The Politics of Happiness: What Government Can Learn from the New Research on Well-Being; and The New York Times publishes a ground-breaking article on “The Rise and Fall of GDP” (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/magazine/16GDP-t.html) — all informative, all important, and all inspiring.

But these are the experts, the elite.  They can’t do this alone.  It is time to add our voices.  The Ambassador Training Day on June 4th was a beginning — just a drop in the bucket, of course, but all movements have to start somewhere!

What can you do?  For starters, tell your friends, family and associates about this website.  Share your comments — let’s get a conversation started!  Join our Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#!/group.php?gid=145375412018) and chime in with your own posts and comments.  Follow us on Twitter.  There are no doubt an infinite number of actions each of us can take — what can you do?

We the people really must dive in their and define our 21st Century pursuit of happiness.  Are you game?

Harvard Business Review – The Conversation

8:49 AM Monday June 14, 2010
by Lisa Napoli  | 

Quality of life researcher Talita Greyline, an economist at the University of Johannesberg, was simultaneously hopeful and skeptical when she traveled from South Africa to Burlington, Vermont, for the Gross National Happiness USA conference. Being from a place with unemployment of 45% and, as she said, “not that much happiness,” she was eager to learn how she might help change the lives of people in her country. But, she said, “From an economist’s point of view, it’s very funny, because happiness is not objectively measurable.”

There’s a new movement around the world among social scientists, economists and community leaders to measure quality of life — and to factor it into the metrics used to gauge the health of the economy. Disenchantment with the Gross Domestic Product, a widely used figure that calculates all the goods and services an economy produces, is fueling the shift. Its detractors say GDP paints an incomplete picture. Read whole article.

Published on Thursday, June 10, 2010 by CommonDreams.org

by John de Graaf

The following is adapted from a speech John de Graaf delivered to the annual gala of the Northwest Progressive Institute on Mercer Island, Washington, June 9, 2010.

You may have noticed that the subject of happiness is hot right now. In the past year and a half, more than 27,000 books and articles have been written on the subject. But the interest in happiness is not entirely new.

Once upon a time, in a far-off land of green valleys and soaring mountains, a boy of 16 was crowned King—and began in a quiet way to change the world. The year was 1972—not so long ago. The faraway land was a tiny Himalayan Kingdom called Bhutan, thought of by many as the model for Shangri-La. And the 16-year-old king was Jigme Wangchuck, who, when asked what he would do to increase Bhutan’s Gross National Product, replied that, as far as he was concerned, “Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross National Product.” And Gross National Happiness would be the goal of his reign.

Now if any leader, young or old, had made those remarks here in the United States, he or she would have received a few polite chuckles perhaps, then a collective yawn, and an exhortation to get real and get back to making money. But the people of Bhutan take their kings very seriously, and slowly over the next 38 years, they began to put a little meat on the concept of Gross National Happiness. They wanted to figure out how to measure it, how to enhance it through government and social policies, and how to educate themselves about the behaviors that lead to greater joy. So they invited leading “happiness scientists” to their once isolated land—psychologists and economists and ecologists and philosophers and sociologists and experts in health and in the creation of scientific surveys.

Read the whole post and extensive comments at CommonDreams.org.

Sonam Ongmo, a Bhutanese writer living in New York City, drove to Vermont for our GNH conference last week.  Here’s her insightful, amusing, and spot-on report from her blog, “Dragon Tales” (http://www.sonamongmo.com/2010/06/gross-national-happiness-not-so-fuzzy.html):

Gross National Happiness, a BS conference for Hippies and retarded Libs?

Driving up to Vermont for the Gross National Happiness (GNH/USA) conference, my friend Karen and I joked about what to expect from it. “I packed my birkenstocks but I forgot to bring white socks,” I said. She laughed and told me she really didn’t know what to expect, whether it was going to be talk only about learning from Bhutan or something more, ” but I think I’m going to love it!”

As we pulled into down-town Burlington a car with New Jersey plates that said “Zen” popped up in front of us, “Oh he’s definitely going to this conference,” she said and we both laughed again.

We probably sounded nothing different from those who were posting comments on Burlington FreePress.com  in response to the article :”Burlington conference to discuss Gross National Happiness”

One said: “Another BS conference about nothing. Figure the useless whackjobs on the left have a hand in it.”

Another said: ‘Bhutan’s current king has called for “an enlightened society in which happiness and well-being of all people and sentient beings is the ultimate purpose of governance.”
Happiness and well-being are two things the .gov can’t provide to anyone.’

And yet another wrote : “This was part of the vision that inspired six Vermonters to travel to Bhutan in November 2008 to attend the fourth International Gross National Happiness Conference.”
I have a better idea. They should move there instead, and take some of the leisure class with them. I’ll donate a ticket or two as well… I guess this is the official “Kum-by-ah” conference for burned out hippies and retarded libs and progs.

Findings based on years of research, facts and figures

But sorry to say, there was a difference between their comments and ours. Not only do I really wear birkenstocks (sometimes with white socks), I am not unfamiliar to GNH either. After all I come from the country that gave birth to its concept. And Karen? She may be American but she has been to Bhutan twice and is working on a film on GNH. Yet, it seemed like we too had certain misconceptions about it; that this was going to be something fuzzy.

To those, including myself, who thought this was going to be nothing but a gathering of idealists or “burned out hippies” or “retarded libs”let me tell you this – the conference provided nothing but concrete evidence and facts based on years and years of scientific research, about how the “developed” countries, largely the west, is embarking the wrong path to development and how it is about time to reconsider that path.

After listening to speaker after speaker who asked for nothing but for governments and civil society to engage in a socially conscientious discussion about our environment and our communities; a call for reflection into what we considered “progress” and “development”, I saw nothing “retarded” about it. Instead what did seem “retarded” to me was the idea that people made no effort whatsoever to take an ounce of interest in an enlightened movement that was happening right under their noses. Karen and I had driven over 9/10 hours to Vermont and others had come from as far as California, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Singapore and South Africa. Hippies, tree-huggers, vegans, left-wing, right-wing, whatever – we GNH promoters really couldn’t care less as to what kind of person/people embrace this development philosophy. What matters is that we get people thinking. Why does everything have to be about political partisanship in this country?

Like it or not Gross National Happiness is here to stay in the U.S of A. Vermont officially launches GNH/USA

On the drive back Karen and I talked about how substantive the talks had been. I was particularly impressed that the concept of GNH had come a long way since the 70’s. At that time a 20 something year old king of a materially poor and unknown country, so tired of explaining to westerners who came to his country demanding to know what its GDP was, said that he was concerned more about GNH (Gross National Happiness) of his people rather than its GDP.  Since then GNH began its journey slowly crossing borders – simply a concept and guiding philosophy at first, but increasingly becoming grounded in scientific and economic research.

At Burlington Vermont, Writers, professors, activists, academics were now proving – beyond a reasonable doubt – the flaws of GDP as an indicator in the development index. The Financial Crises, the Environmental degradation, Oil spills – it is about time to reflect upon our actions and time to realize that GDP actually considers this kind of growth is good for us.

There is a great NEED for an alternative measure (GPI – genuine progress indicator – and GNH are some). Even if GNH is not used solely as an indicator, it can be used as a guiding philosophy to a development process that can/has become bankrupt of ethical values. It is time that societies and governments stopped giving emphasis to how much is produced and consumed, and judging progress by those standards.

Karen and I said that perhaps it was in using the term “Happiness” that frightened people or made them think GNH was all loosey goosey or fuzzy wuzzy. On June 1, the Wall Street Journal even ran an article titled “Europe’s GDP envy”, mocking European countries like France and others for thinking of GNH as an alternative to the current economic measures and philosophies because their GDP’s were tanking.

Government officials and outdated Economists don’t like being associated to something so airy fairy as “happiness” (although it is what we all aspire for as individuals). What was wrong or so impossible in doing it at the collective level? Research of GNH indicators is increasingly showing that conducive environments can be created to generate individual happiness.

Maybe something like Gross National “Balance”? Karen mused. But someone at the conference hadn’t liked the term “Gross” and had requested twice in his talk that Gross be taken out of GNH for it sounded like, he said, the Grosser the economy got, the better it was supposed to become! which in essence had a ring of truth to it given the facts laid out before us. For instance GDP was not good if mothers stayed at home with kids, it went up if mothers went to work or they hired a nanny. GDP did not count volunteer services, it really didn’t take into account anything that had social benefits to a society. It only measured progress by more consumption, more production, and more waste.

But if we could live with “Gross” Domestic Product, we  should be able to go with “Gross” National Happiness, one participant said. What was so gross about happiness? But whether we like the word “gross” or not, or whether you like GNH altogether or not, it is now here to stay. GNH/USA has officially been launched and taken roots in the U.S of A!!

For the person who said, “Happiness and well being may be two things that a govt. can’t provide”that may be true because Americans are so cynical about their governments, but in many other parts of the world people believe differently. As Bhutan’s Prime Minister Jigmi Thinley said: “It [a government] must try to create the right conditions, but the individual himself and herself must pursue happiness.”

Karma Tshiteem, Secretary of Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness Commission, last week told conference attendees that people frequently first understand GNH on an intuitive level — a firmer grounding in theory and practice comes later.

That definitely spoke to me.  Initially, it was so clear.  Then, it became confusing, trying to articulate how the GNH perspective can bring together economic, environmental and personal happiness concerns.

Susan Andrews, founder of the Future Vision Institute in Brazil and one of the keynote speakers at the conference, said she’s been thinking of GNH as three “E’s” — environment, economy and expanding heart. I finally got all that, and internalized it on a deeper level, at the conference.

Somebody else who “got it” was NPR reporter Lisa Napoli.  Lisa was with us through the entire conference, and somehow managed to distill countless hours of conference notes and interviews to a short, thorough report that aired on NPR today (June 9, 2010). Through interviews with GNHUSA activist Chris Wood, Karma Tshitseem, professor and author Eric Zencey, and Dahlia Coleman of GPIAtlantic Youth Programs, Lisa did a great job of pulling the concepts together.

You can also hear the enthusiasm of the conference in the background.  Take a listen: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127586501

The first ever Gross National Happiness (GNH) conference in the United States was an excellent kick-off to our emerging movement.  I’m sure all of us who were there have lots to write about in future blogs.  I want to start at perhaps the least logical but most inspiring point: the very end of the week.

The inspiration came as Ambassador Training day on Friday June 4th drew to a close, and four brave souls volunteered to present to the whole group brief explanations of why GNH matters.  All day long the ambassador training group – which ranged from 7th graders through senior citizens – had been engaged in a crash course on the inadequacies of GDP and the complexities of GNH theory and practice.  The group included individuals with a great deal of knowledge about the day’s topic, and, individuals essentially brand new to the topic.  Everyone received information from experts and interactive opportunities, including the chance for small group practice describing the essence of GNH and its potential to improve our lives.

Finally, everyone was invited to present to the whole group – a daunting invitation at the end of such an intense (but fun!) day.  The four people who accepted the invitation were amazing!  Each person clearly grasped and ably articulated the basic concepts.  But what made them amazing was the way each person spoke the truth from her own heart.

The first speaker was relaxed and confident, relating GNH and GDP concepts to regular people’s lives in a remarkably jargon-free yet informative manner.  She was smiling and utterly real.  She wowed the crowd.

The second speaker, a Fulbright Scholar from an East European country, set the stage for her presentation: an evening around the fireplace with friends.  In this setting, after a few glasses of imaginary wine, she began the conversation on a very personal level, exploring how a consumption-driven culture had made each of her friends less happy because they were too busy earning money to spend time with loved ones (including beloved pets).

Third was a presenter who spoke eloquently of the role of Buddhism, and living an examined life, in the growth of interest in Gross National Happiness not only in Bhutan, a Buddhist country, but also here in the States where – thanks in part to the popularity of yoga – Buddhism is gaining many more followers.

And fourth was a teenager who framed her presentation in terms of looking back on her life when she’s old.  It was clear to her that she wants to be grateful for the good times she had with family and friends – rather than rue a pair of jeans she never got around to buying at the mall.

What an outstanding quartet of presentators!  Bravo!  And thanks to all the ambassadors for their hard work.  The world needs everyone of us to raise our own heartfelt articulations.  Let’s do it — each in our own way!

The GNHUSA Conference, Changing What we Measure from Wealth to Well-Being was a success – introducing GNH ideas to leaders from many Vermont organizations. Guests from around Vermont, the US, Canada and from countries including Brazil, South Africa, Denmark, Bangladesh, Singapore and Bhutan. Speakers including Bill McKibben, Susan Andrews, Karma Tshiteem, Vicki Robin, John deGraaf, Ron Colman, Dot Maver, Con Hogan, Gwen Hallsmith, Bob Costanza,  and many others provided a well-rounded description of work on comprehensive well-being indicators and how they can help us plan a happy and sustainable future. Participants listened and interacted with speakers to help plan how we can integrate these ideas into Vermont. Sixty-five participants came to the GNH Ambassador training very enthusiastic to learn how to present and discuss GNH ideas with the public and leaders in Vermont.

The Conference and the GNH Ambassador Training mark the launch for GNHUSA to spead GNH ideas around the country. There were representatives of groups in Seattle, Santa Cruz, Jackson Hole and other cities around the US and Canada who are keen to explore GNH ideas in their local environments. GNH Events in Seattle took place on Sunday, June 6th and Monday, June 7th.

Next week, for the first time in the US, experts from all over the world will meet in Vermont to discuss “Gross National Happiness”

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