The blurry side of "righteousness"

Why is it that everything is funny, unacceptable, weird, unnecessary...UNTIL it's something that directly affects you? Until it's something you believe in and something you care about deeply...somehow, at that point you compromise and make "exceptions." You even beg to be "understood"..but only if it's about you.

I believe that one of the top qualities of being a human is the ability to see things from others' point of view but I can't seem to understand why we happily have an on and off switch for this. We can decide that something is uncouth based on a couple of media stories and then embrace another thing that is equal if not worse than the former because it is something we also do. 

I don't believe there are standard qualities to follow when it comes to culture, lifestyle, personality but I believe we should be willing to extend others the same patience, understanding and audience that we so demand when we feel our beliefs and systems have been challenged otherwise we shall just run in circles of classic human selfishness and no amount of church, royalty or "morals" can heal the disease of selfishness; it's engineered in us until we uproot it-PERSONALLY!