[couchand]

I was describing how we as a culture live, not necessarily how I live.

Nor how I live, so where is this mythical "culture" we're all so beholden to? Culture is just the actions and beliefs of a group of people. Historically humans have tended to be pleasant with people in their own group and remarkably unpleasant to "others". Usually this is because they don't understand anyone outside their own group, because they've never explicitly tried to understand them.

So yes, reaching out to others, learning from them, preventing the next world war, preventing the next oppression of a group because they are seen as somehow different from those in power, yes, that is a Good Thing.