Shared Values - Right Values?

 One of the issues you run across is do the people you meet and the people you don't really know share your values.  For example, family is an innate value for most of the world.  However, in some parts of the world, female children are not considered as important as male ones.  I suppose at one time this could have been justified by the idea that the male children would have to support their elderly parents eventually while females would leave to join another family.

The idea is pretty alien to me but it's still out there to some extent.  We can assume to some extent that Christians share a common set of value, i.e., the ten Commandments, but those are frequently violated and don't really impact non-Christians unless they share our bible.  Throughout Western history we have many examples of philosophers discussing the concept of good and evil.  To some extent these ideas are ingrained in the culture unless of course you ignore them.  There are alternate philosophies like nihilism that encompass the might makes right theory since life is meaningless.

So where I expect values like truth, justice and the American way, I don't always get it.  In fact, the American way is disputed.  Working hard to suppress opposing viewpoints seems like an underhanded tactic, but it has had success when you see how districts have been created that shift power.

So is the goal of life to win or is it how you play the game?  I grew up thinking it was the latter but that is not the shared value I thought it was.