Fundamentally, American society is composed of individuals who don't go out of their way to do each other favours.
“There is something very intriguing about, for example, the sense of accomplishment that a small child has, which you might be able to reduce to aggression and libido, but which might also have some independent existence.”
“So I rang up British Telecom, I said 'I want to report a nuisance caller', he said 'Not you again'.”