(There are few more obvious examples than the All Blacks. Those who continue to portray rugby as the arrowhead of a thuggish, misogynistic, pakeha culture are oblivious to the game's thriving multi-culturalism and willingness to engage with all sectors of society.)
It's sometimes useful to see ourselves as others see us and be reminded that what we take for granted or sometimes disparage is actually enviable.
The combination of adversarial politics and the unavoidable reality that most of what we call "the news" is bad news fuels a tendency to accentuate the negative and creates the perception that things are getting worse rather than better.
As Barack Obama has pointed out, listening to the contenders for the Republican nomination compete to paint America's present and future in the darkest hues (this week Donald Trump launched a book titled Crippled America) you'd swear America is an impoverished, failed state rather than the world's only superpower and largest economy.
The US ranked 11th in the Prosperity Index, handicapped by its poor rating in the safety and security category. (It was the only developed nation not in the top 30.) Two obvious ways of improving here - stricter gun control and a more constructive engagement with the Muslim world - are, of course, anathemas to the Republican grassroots.
New Zealand mightn't have Norway's oil or Australia's minerals but it is nevertheless a lucky country. Even our geographic isolation, historically a major drawback, is increasingly irrelevant thanks to technology while remaining beneficial from a security standpoint.
How many countries are so blessed that its leaders can look beyond band-aid solutions to intractable problems and see the big picture - in our case the burning question of Richie McCaw's knighthood.
Personally, I think knighthoods are a silly anachronism. It's perplexing that John Key is pushing contradictory causes: changing the flag and retaining the colonial honours system.
But if knighthoods are going to be the apex of the honours system, then surely McCaw is a more than worthy recipient. (I suspect he'll accept: Key has made such a song and dance McCaw probably feels it would be rude of him and rather embarrassing for Key not to.)
It will generate the same old whinges: that he's just a rugby player; that he gets handsomely rewarded for doing what he loves as opposed to making sacrifices to help others; that our highest honours should be reserved for altruists and serious people engaged in serious endeavours rather than someone who, when all is said and done, is an entertainer.
The obvious retort is that throughout his career McCaw has made a difference for the better to the national mood and the way we feel about ourselves.
Besides, who wants to live in a society where only the worthy and the earnest devoted to public service in the narrowest sense are seen as deserving recipients of our highest honours?
That sort of mentality harks back to the rather dull and narrow-minded country New Zealand used to be rather than the enviable one it is now.
