(Written in 1995)

The newly elected President George Herbert Walker Bush promised on his first day of office that he was going to make the United States of America a "kinder and gentler nation."

Did he succeed? No way of telling, for sure.

Why not? Because there was no direct method for calculating the net amount of suffering that were actually being borne by all of the Americans put together, as well as by peoples elsewhere upon whom the country might have been inflicting suffering and bestowing benefits, and whether the trend figures were going up or down as a consequence of the government's decisions and actions.

The dukkha, after the Pali word for suffering, is an adaptation of an intuitive method used for thousands of years very satisfactorily by physicians and laymen alike. One dukkha is roughly equivalent to the amount of suffering borne by a single person with a moderate toothache for eight hours. Mathematically, it is the product of (number of persons) x (average intensity of suffering on a scale of 9) x (duration in days). Phasing out high-noise commercial aircraft in fifteen years, as had been decided by the Bush administration in lieu of the ten years originally promulgated, for example, would mean an additional infliction of nearly two million dukkhas of suffering/discomfort on Americans living near airports.

If that is so, will the new President use the dukkha and the Gross National Dukkhas (GND), for example, as governing guides and convincingly demonstrate his own success toward the minimization of suffering at the end of his term of office? Hard to say.

Is it because the procedure is too complicated for practical purposes? No, it is actually very simple. Any sophisticated polling body, like the Gallup organization and the New York Times-CBS News, can come up with a reasonably fair estimate of the running GND within a relatively short time. But the underlying principles and techniques of the new discipline of panetics (the integrated studyof the infliction of suffering and the reduction of infliction) have only just begun to permeate academic circles, not to mention the upper reaches of The New York Times and the White House. It may take years.before that happens. Perhaps ten, or even fifty.

But what if a strong chief of state is genuinely dedicated to humane governance? Then he can have the necessary econo-panetic operations, which would meld the generation and expenditures of dollars with the infliction and alleviation of dukkhas into the overall equation of human well-being, in place within a matter of months. The people can begin to see encouraging signs within a year.

For example? He can start with the setting of overall national goals of human well-being. It might consist of an economic progress of, say, three percent growth in GNP per year and a panetic improvement of, say, four percent reduction in GND per year. Furthermore, he might add the constraint that gains in material wealth are not to be attained through augmentations in human suffering. The ratio between the GNP and GND therefore is also important as a complementary criterion of excellence in stewardship. The basic chart for monitorship, containing all three of these parameters, is illustrated in the following figure.

Dukkhas would accordingly share the managerial spotlight with dollars. Detailed planning can be conducted for the respective components contributing to the GND. This would include inflictions and preventions/ameliorations according to classes of people, regions, categories of suffering, agents of infliction, governmental initiatives and their effects, and so on together with options and avenues for the prevention and reduction of dukkhas in each case. For example, how can a c given funding for health care be allocated for the maximum reduction of dukkhas for the population as a whole or optimally for predetermined differential patterns among the various types of patients, geographical locations, incomes, and the like.

The dukkha (infliction) potentials and antidukkha (relies investments of national programs under consideration can be quantified with approximate times and rates of "pay-offs." For long-term projections, the chief can explicitly address the issue of "dukkha-deficit" in tandem with "dollar-deficit." An example of the former is the generating of radioactive wastes with long half-lives. Plutonium-239,which is poisonous in itself, with a half life of 24,360 years poses a health hazard for hundreds of generations into the future. There is a potential dukkha-debt to be paid by someone down the way. Even denuding forests may mean an I. 0. U. in suffering to be exacted from some future descendants. Knowledgeable vigilance can be paid against possibilities of a present population increasing its own economic gains at the cost of unreasonable suffering for the yet unborn offspring.

Antidukkha investments toward reducing the national baseline of suffering with time can link dollars and dukkhas more directly and clearly, as well as dissect the nature of these relationships for specific cases. Judicious employment policies, sound monetary practices, enriching educational programs, and prudent health care agendas, for example, can be optimized in terms of antidukkhas returns at specified milestones in the future. Dukkha intensifying enterprises can be audited carefully as they approach the unjust/unreasonable threshold of infliction. We might even envision that some econo-panetic mathematician might come up before too long with 'an unified mathematical theoryof humane capitalism.

For the short haul, explicit and quantitative accountability of inflicted and precluded/ relieved suffering can become standard procedure. A "panetic impact statements can be added to applications for goverrunent approval of toy safety, food and drug clearance, environmental impact statement, and the like. Eventually, a "people's well-being report card" can be developed. This would summarize the govemment's responsiveness to the people's wishes for the minimization of suffering. This can be fleshed out with associated details such as the number of dukkhas added to and subtracted from various groups by the range of national programs, as well as the net gain in well-being and chief beneficiaries in each instance.

The dukkha consciousness can be extended to international relations.7 The concrete part to be played by one's own country and the associated trade-offs can be directly faced in terms of the calculated flow of dukkhas and antidukkhas across national boundaries. This can be shown not only in matters of war and peace, but also in the vast array of other social interactions, such as global environmental pollution, spread of diseases, trade, illicit drug traffic, cultural exchanges, entertainment, financial aid, and so on.

Wholesome international encounters may be viewed as those which result in a net reduction of dukkhas in all countries involved. Worse relations occur when one or both parties end up with a significantly higher level of dukkha baseline for some time to come. When the resulting increase of dukkhas approaches inordinate numbers, then the world would naturally react to bring about a retreat from the inhumane precipice. All this will be facilitated with a universally standardized quantitative unit of suffering.

Given assiduous attention to the dukkha, the Gross National Dukkhas, the Gross Global Dukkhas, and their subdivisions on the part of the President of the United States of America, can there be any doubt but that she can indeed become a "kinder and gentler nation" within a span of six years?

Copyright 1996-97 The International Society for Panetics