On the drive to the mouth of the cave, clad in a damp wetsuit, it became clear that “glow-worm cave tubing” in New Zealand was not what I had expected; less a sparkly lazy river float, more a challenging hike through a rocky, flooded cave with a huge rubber inner tube. As we got off the bus at the mouth of the cave, our guide stopped me before I stepped into the frigid water.
“Your rings,” she said, pointing to my left hand. “You shouldn’t wear them into the cave.”
We were a 20-minute drive from where we had left all of our belongings in lockers. Wetsuits lack pockets. I asked what she recommended since I couldn’t think of a good alternative place for my wedding and engagement rings to go. “Give them to the bus driver, she’ll take them back to your locker.”
Hand my wedding ring over to a person I’ve barely met? And if you’re the bus driver, would you want that kind of responsibility? The suggestion seemed wild to me (perhaps even more so because I had watched The Lord of the Rings trilogy films on the flight over) but fazed neither the guide nor the sweet young woman who graciously took my rings. “I’m locker four, the purple jacket, I guess just put it in the pocket?”
After our trek ended, sure enough, there inside my jacket was a baggie with both rings and a note: “Tell your hubby he has great taste!”
I am certain there are tons of kindhearted Americans who would have done the same had this happened in Wisconsin rather than Waitomo. What surprised me more was the casual normalcy of it, the way things like this happened throughout the trip, the sense that in New Zealand, of course you’d trust someone to help you out. “Sure, you can hand a stranger your valuables, why wouldn’t you!”
This memory has kept coming back to me over the last few weeks as New Zealand has been in the news for beating COVID-19. While some countries rapidly shot from a handful of cases to thousands, New Zealand’s initial cases stopped quickly in their tracks. It didn’t just flatten the curve, it crushed it.
There are plenty of things New Zealand has going for it when it comes to tackling a pandemic: large swathes of countryside where people are spread out, remote island geography with an easy-to-seal border. American progressives point to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern as a model leader.
But a key factor that makes New Zealand uniquely suited to tackle the pandemic is something it has built for decades: its deep reservoirs of social trust.
The data confirms what I felt anecdotally during my brief visit, that Kiwis are significantly more likely than Americans, and those in most other free nations around the world, to believe that “most people can be trusted.” The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development rankings of social capital consistently ranks New Zealand near the top of the list on social capital.
This is, in part, due to the approach New Zealand has taken regarding its legacy of Maori and Pakeha (those of European descent) relations. New Zealand’s version of a constitution is the Treaty of Waitangi, the compact between the Crown and the Maori, underscoring the importance of that cooperation to New Zealand’s national identity. While racism and disparities do exist, Kiwis have created an inclusive society by confronting the past head-on, proving a diverse nation can have high levels of social trust if there are good faith efforts to redress grievances, and if there is leadership eager to foster social harmony.
It isn’t hard to imagine how high levels of social trust can lead to greater adherence to guidelines and norms in pursuit of social good. “If I believe that others are doing the right thing, I will be more inclined to also sacrifice so that we can succeed together.” New Zealand clamped down early and clamped down hard on the coronavirus, and widespread compliance with guidelines meant it was easy to stop the virus in its tracks early on.
Unfortunately, here in the United States, our levels of social trust are lower. Decades have eroded many of the institutions that would bind us together or generate social capital. Our initial national coming-together moment at the start of the coronavirus crisis was soon replaced by our usual divisions, divisions that will make it harder to beat the virus until a vaccine arrives. For instance, mask-wearing — an act that requires little sacrifice and is done to protect others in order to facilitate safer reopening and avoidance of further lockdowns — has turned into a proxy for political views, with polls generally showing Republicans less likely to wear masks than Democrats.
The hard work of building a more closely knit society is not something that can be done overnight. It takes decades of work, of constructing resilient institutions, of deep listening and learning, of addressing injustices, and healing divides. But when people inherently trust one another, it makes it much easier to confront big challenges together. New Zealand is an example of what happens when you weave together a social fabric that fosters mutual trust.
