Our guest speaker Associate Professor John Stenhouse provided us with an insight into why the majority of New Zealanders embraced Covid lockdown rules well, especially when compared to some other countries.
New Zealanders had seen that the Japanese and people in the US were generally far from compliant with their government’s recommendations.
John suggested that while NZ did well because of strong leadership and the consistent reference to the “team” of New Zealanders had helped encourage us to pull together, he felt there was more to it, that had made New Zealanders listen and comply.
John introduced the term “marshal virtues”, which describes a sort of patriotism, where there is a “willingness to sacrifice personal interests for the common good.”
“The case for marshal virtues within New Zealand culture has changed very significantly in the last half century or so….. post the 1960’s but hasn’t changed completely. There are a set of values that were powerfully expressed during the first World War in this country, values about sacrificing one’s own interests, pulling together for everybody’s sake, that remain alive and well in 21st century NZ and really helped us with the covid crisis.”
John invited an open forum, and several interesting views were shared:
* the use of the word “team” by the government was a powerful because New Zealanders love to be part of a team. Team sports inculcate those marshal values, sacrificing for the sake of the team. Team sports transmit those sort of values or habits of the heart, and keep them alive over time.

* there are signs that personal sacrifice is under strain… especially under modern day challenges of affordability of home ownership and personal education debt. One of the indicators is the steady decline in membership of voluntary organisations. These indicators are not unique to New Zealand, they are western worldwide.

* It was suggested that a key factor that has brought about this change, is the rise and spread of in-home entertainment, and social media, where people are staying at home immersed in their private worlds of “anti” social media.
John’s presentation provided us with an interesting and thought provoking look at New Zealanders behavior, both at a leadership level and at a population wide level, as we responded to the initial Covid 19 crisis and level 4 lock-down.