What is net happiness? A new concept from Singapore former Prime Minister and now Senior Minister (SM), Goh Chok Tong as reported by Channel News Asia recently:
SM Goh acknowledged the situation has resulted in many unhappy Singaporeans, and he sought to put things in perspective.
"Those who missed out, those who can't buy this, who can't upgrade and so on, so we are really feeling the unhappiness, question is was the policy good?
"Unhappiness, those who are happier, in total there's net happiness, there's no such thing called total happiness, don't believe in it. It's whether we create net happiness in all this," said SM Goh. - CNA/fa
He seems to refer to Singapore as a whole. Some are happier and some are not happy. We can’t reach total happiness, i.e. every Singaporean is happy. As far as there are net gain in happiness – positive is greater than negative happiness. We are OK.
How come he is so sure that the net is positive and not negative happiness? Is our dear leader giving a new definition of net happiness? Does he mean in fast developing economy likes Singapore, while achieving high GDP growth, we will sure to achieve net happiness even we have some Singaporeans feeling unhappy.
Perhaps, we can look at the issue from the perspective of internal happiness? To Chinese philosophy, they don’t really talk about happiness either net or total. They want to have internal satisfaction or achieving happiness in one’s heart. To obtain this so called satisfaction or happiness internally, they enjoy the process, regardless of the end result. This is why many Chinese heroes are indeed failures, however, because of their persistence in doing the way they want they gain respect or even worship from the people.
It is important to have self satisfaction internally regardless of materials gain. In order to achieve economic growth, we use materials as a motivator to push Singaporeans to work harder. However, not all can get good job, high salary, better income, better flat, best school etc. Perhaps, we have neglected the quality of life – and SM Goh no more talking about Swiss standard of living anymore!
Of the four major leading philosophical thoughts of the “Hundred schools of thoughts”, perhaps only the legalist is closer to what SM Goh is talking about.
To Confucianism, satisfaction is to doing things morally right. And in the process, one will enjoy satisfaction by improving and enriching ethics and values. Confucianism’s highest achievement is to gentleman. One should obtain highest moral standard by improving and enriching the lives of the people and show love and kindness to people.
To Daoism, they stress even more for the internal force. They believe in harmony with the nature. Things will go and move naturally and reach the end stage without intervention from the state. They don’t have the “net” concept. They seek internal fulfillment. One’s internal richness and closer to Dao is the moment of satisfaction.
To Mohism, they can scarify themselves to achieve their goals. They will do things that they believe are right (i.e. love to all) and help the poor or weak even though they may not be able to resist the strong attaching force. They are happy to carry out their duties even though they face great difficulties or hardship in doing so.
To Legalism, their goal is to assist the Emperor to achieve his goal i.e. a strong nation with military and economic strength. In doing so, some one will have to scarified including the legalists themselves.
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