In our part of the world, how often, rules are shaped less by wellbeing and more by power, feaar or the need to control. We wrap these rules in the covering of 'culture' or 'honour', but at the end of the day, they rarely serve human happiness. They serve the insecurities of those who make them.

If there really was one super rule, to maximise human wellbeing, so many of our cultural expectations would collapse instantly. In my part of the world, culture decides the women's dress-code and then, the patriarchal, even the women themselves, resides behind religious doctrine. Talk of equality? It is a shame here, even the Prime Minister of the country has the aducity to say, "Girls are not following the right code-of-conduct that is why they are getting rapd", or the dictator once said, " They (women) get rapd to get a visa for Canada (developed country)". What can one expect from a layman?

I have great love for my culture, but I believe, if there is something wrong then one should have the courage to accept the wrongness and try to change it. Recently, there was a surge of love for 'Hitler', why? Just because, he was anti-semitic. Whenever, we had the debate about the genocide or world politics, I always tried to convince them to hate the ideology of the person and not the whole. But, in the end, cultural nuances and emotionally retarded people wins because of popular support. I can guarantee that 90% of the folks here (my country) do not even know what devilish (why blame the devil thought) work he has done, but just because there is a narrative going on in his support, let's just follow the 'flock' blindly.

And yes, culture/society shapes us, and it is really hard to deconstruct the already constructed ideas. These ideas are just like the air we breathe, so familiar we rarely notice how deeply it shapes us.

In the end, I believe, a society becomes humane only when its rules are designed for humans, not for pride, control or tradition for tradition’s sake. If someone has utter love for ones culture, let there be no compulsion.

In every culture, there is light and there is shadow, it is humans who decide to which one to dominate.