Is it just me or is everything becoming transactional these days.

Not just relations with random individuals but close relatives, friends and neighbors. If you don’t provide any value then you are excluded immediately.

plus the bias towards religion is at an all time high. Looks are everything these days. No matter how learned you are, even wearing a veil in an Islamic country has become a symbol of regression. If you open your hair and wear western clothes, you will be called stylish and praised. If you wear cover your head, you will be seen as inferior. I don’t know why we feel that we need to be extricate our values in order to be taken seriously by the outside world.