The American Ying-Yang

I've just returned from Ashville - a south-park-esque city in the blue ridge mountains. Without doubt a very cool place - hippy, laid back and set in a pretty perfect surrounding. However I've come to realise something over the past few weeks - America doesn't do neutrality - there appears to be no fence for one to sit on. I say this because I've been received in either one of two ways - firstly with open arms - causing interest because I'm foreign - perhaps more so because I'm English - and hopefully partly because I might actually be interesting. Whatever the reasons for getting on so well - really embracing the person your talking to and vica verca - is not really of interest here. Hyper-friendliness and hyper-interest (in things and people foreign)is one side of the American 'ying-yang'. The other, a truly stubborn and aggressive opposition. Over the past week I've been chucked out of a frat party (I will explain) and floored in a bar. In Asheville I got chatting to a guy in a bar where we'd headed to listen to southern bluegrass. When we moved leisurely into a debate/conversation about the forefathers and confederacy etc it was like I had just tortured and killed his cat in front of him. He hit me - I bled - I ran - I hid in the bathroom - He was calmed and asked to leave. Now I'm all for having beliefs - but the inability to entertain contrary or divergent ideas whatsoever is really scaring. One side of the american, the nostalgic patriot out there in every single state - seems to me to contradict the virtues of freedom and liberty that they preach. The forefathers did not call out to all across the land and generations, 'understand only what you believe'. And for me thats the point. When being thrown out of the fraternity by a highly unpleasant young guy I think this ying yang theory was even more apparent. I was on the top floor of this massive place, enjoying the hairstyles and fashion in the photos of the frat classes of the mid 70's. Not laughing because they were in a frat (though that is quite funny), but because it was the 70's - and being part of the sanitized class of the naughties (t shirts/short hair etc) - i was enjoying the permed/flared/sideburned looks. My friend and I were then accosted by one of the 'brothers' and banned from the party and no doubt the frat for life. All of the frat guys we chatted to were great - the interesting/interested side of that dividing line - but this one guy was probably the most power-hungry, stubborn and blinkered person I've come across. Not only were we thrown out - he hurled abuse at us for a good ten minutes for laughing in his house (at these pictures). No smiling, no laughing, great party host indeed. Anyway the meaning of this little reflection is that being British and therefore semi-professional at neutral, fence-sitting - I just cant get my head around the american love it or hate it dynamic.