Op-Ed Contributors

Happiness will create harmony

By Wang Xinjian and Lu Xiaokang (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-10-09 07:23

Cao Jinqing, sociologist of the East China University of Science and Technology, points out that Chinese people not only need affluence, but also a sense of security and more equality.

The main difference between antiquity and modernity is that stimulated by consumerism, the sense of "relative deprivation" hits harder and faster.

Sociologists classify this phenomenon as a negative influence on people's lives. Easier access to information worldwide subverts people's reference system by which they define their happiness. Their expectation of happiness no longer originates from their lives, but from the virtual world constructed by the media.

The US way of life has thus become the frame of reference for Chinese, who now believe everyone deserves a Hollywood lifestyle.

The media's intentional publicity of the lifestyles of the rich and famous resets common people's standards of success and their expectation for the future.

But an affluent state doesn't necessarily benefit the public. It is estimated that the China's financial revenue will reach 8 trillion yuan ($1.19 trillion) in 2010, the second largest after the US. But 8 trillion remains only a figure if it does not result in ways to solve the problems in education, medical care and housing.

The increase in the government's financial revenue should be translated into real world solutions, otherwise people will naturally feel lost or disappointed at the increasing national wealth.

What the government urgently needs to do is improve the communication channels from the bottom up and turn the astounding national wealth into concrete benefits for common people.

Only when people's lives are improved together with national development, can people feel a real sense of happiness and harmony.

The authors are scholars of psychology at Nankai University.

China Forum

(China Daily 10/09/2010 page5)