Category: Culture

Categories
Behavior Being Culture Experience Nostalgia

Alive and Thriving

I’m nostalgic about my days that straddled the turn of the New Millennium as a wannabe Goth. The core of this persona manifested at an event called The Asylum every Sunday night in a, perhaps odd, not-so-little Sacramento nightclub called The Rage. Physically, the club occupied a retail shop space in an outdoor strip-mall. It was located a few doors down from another former-shop-space-turned-nightclub called InCahoots–a popular haunt frequented by many a rowdy redneck. I recall shaking my head at the yawning chasm that separated the two crowds in terms of philosophy and attitude.

At The Asylum, nearly always by myself, I mimicked the moon-dances I performed by many a pale, sometimes-slim-but-more-often-shapely, conspicuously-costumed female. It was essential that their costumes produce contrast, especially between their pale faces and dark, or artificially-bright, hair. Out on the dance floor, for all club-goers to see, they danced stone-faced giving off an air of practiced indifference to everything except the music that guided their sways. I greatly admired their confidence and, perhaps a bit, their nonchalance, though I did not try to imitate it. At first I attempted to dance as they did. That is, by emitting movements intended to be smooth and graceful. But my dancing quickly devolved into a rather rapid and terse stomp-and-kick. I suspect testosterone had had its way.

For me, the magic of The Asylum manifested from the tendency of dancers to move to the music how they wanted to; in accordance with what came to them naturally. There was something almost spiritual about it. Importantly, I do not recall anyone ever being explicitly called out for dancing how they did, or with whom they did, or for happily dancing by themselves, as I did.

The Asylum was, what is now called, a safe space, at a time when violence motivated by homo- and trans-phobia was still rampant and somewhat tolerated. Of course, some Asylum-goers went to try and hook up. Others, perhaps to show off how “Goth” they were. But I went primarily to dance, as I suspect most did. I differed in that, unlike most solo Asylum-goers who would eventually be accepted into the fold, I never gained this acceptance back then. For whatever, probably patho-psychological, reason about which I am still unaware, my matriculation did not occur though I attended the event pretty religiously for more than two years. One time some dude even asked me if I was a cop.

My sexuality is (boringly) cis. I believe myself to be unusual in that, as a straight man, I get the urge to immerse myself in music–to meld with the rhythm through movement. The great thing about The Asylum, then, was that I could do so without being judged, mocked or reprimanded. Perhaps most normal heterosexual males would view the event with hookup potential. I admit, there was one particular female Goth regular to whom I was so physically drawn, that I still remember her face and figure 25 years later. I never approached her though; my self-consciousness always won out over my courage, much to my regret. Perhaps a part of me did not want to risk tainting my sacred space with potential embarrassment I would undoubtedly feel if my interest in her was not reciprocated.

Alas, sometime in the the late aughts The Rage had closed. And over the course of the next decade or so, I believe The Asylum coalesced into, and dissolved back out of, existence in various venues throughout Sacramento a number of times. From what I can tell, the city’s Goth scene never really died out completely, but it did seem to be on life-support for a number of years (c. 2010-2020). Every so often I’d voyeuristically inspect the state of the Sacramento Goth scene via vicarious internet search, hoping for signs of recovery to its turn-of-the-Millennium glory that I remember so fondly.

Well, as of at least a few days ago, it has, I’m most pleased to report. On Saturday (1/3/2026) I attended Club Necromancy at the Press Club in Midtown. It was like going back in time for me. Costumed, stone-faced dancers–both my age and half my age–moon-danced and stompy-stomped to hauntingly similar Goth/Industrial grooves that I remember from nearly a quarter century ago. Of course, there was some new music that I did not recognize that night, but most I did. And all of it I enjoyed dancing to in my own overtly aggressive way.

My flailing elicited the seemingly favorable attention of a pair of young beauties, who themselves enticed the attention of another, very hopeful and persistent, potential male suitor who they graciously tolerated. Both ladies had traffic-stopping figures that their meticulously-assembled Goth attire well accentuated. One put on display her robust mammalian assets framed by a black bodice from below and delicate shoulders of alabaster skin from above. Several times I had to remind myself to keep my eyes on her face. The other showcased her slim legs that went on for days. They were laced up in (once-ironic but now, sadly vanilla) heftiest of knee-high combat boots. Her dark hair of tight curls made me wonder if Scarface-era Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio had rematerialized as a Goth chick. Surprisingly, the two actually seemed reasonably nice as well. I gathered this when each of them broke stone-face to smile back at me a few times over the course of the night.

Despite all the above nonsense, my biggest take-away from the event was that I felt the same way I recall feeling at The Asylum many years ago. That is, the same freedom to be who I am through movement and dance. Also, that I can continue to remain anonymous, without it being anybody’s issue.

And I intend to make the most of it while it lasts.

Categories
Being Culture Experience

Weird Memory

It has been rainy and cold outside for weeks and I’ve been feeling rather shut in lately. My hope was to find for a quiet place to work this afternoon somewhere other than my house. Right now I’m buzzing hard from the half pot of coffee I unwittingly consumed this morning, so I would prefer not to fork over $6+ to rent a seat at an espresso shop. While I meandered aimlessly down Court street in my car, trying to hash out an alternative, I came upon Woodland Public Library to my left. I thought to myself: “it’s quiet, it has Wi-Fi and I don’t need to pay to occupy a seat there…” Why not?

Well, I recal the last time I frequented the old WPL, and most of available seating then was in close proximity to folks of Woodland’s burgeoning homeless community. And hey, I can’t say I really blame them for keeping warm and enjoying the space that 99% of Woodland’s “respectable” population does not utilize at all. But today I do not want to be reminded of the dire situation that our good old American values, and “free market” economy has put us in. Please don’t judge me as too callous, I very much want to help solve homelessness; but today I’m just looking for a quiet place where I can work without distraction. Fast-forward: on entering I was surprised–and more than a bit concerned–to discover few homeless persons, if any, occupying space inside on this rainiest of days. Probably the result of some city mandate sponsored, and approved by, Woodland conservatives.

I pulled into the parking lot and maneuvered my vehicle into a space that faced the library’s side entrance; the access point through the newer appendage of the building that, in my elementary school days, was grafted onto the original Carnegie-funded structure. Right then, Kate K., a girl on whom I crushed hard in junior high school, forcefully manifested in my thoughts. I have not thought about her in years.

Kate sat in the seat in front of mine in 8th grade English class. She was part of the tribe of girls in our classes for “gifted” students whose socially-stunted male counterparts, like me, were just starting to notice. I remember Kate’s childlike facial features seemed too delicate to support her 90’s-style, big-lensed glasses framed with thin rims of bold red or green. We laughed together at random things: classmates, assignments, teachers, the ridiculousness that was PE class. This we did, as adolescents do, often in lieu of doing whatever the task be at hand: paying attention, reading, doing in-class writing assignments. Kate was so easy for me to talk to. Our conversations, for me, were often a temporary escape from my acute self-consciousness. As time passed and I got to know her, I wondered how she could be so honest and unpretentious, when most other pretty girls her age I could not seem to relate to very well at all. That is, on rare occasions when they actually were interested in talking to me.

Kate volunteered at the Woodland Public Library after school a couple days a week. Probably as a protracted commitment that grew from the compulsory volunteer work we had to do for school a couple months prior. On one unusual afternoon, while working on a school assignment at the library with my friend Nico S., Kate sat down at a table with us and engaged us in conversation for, what must have been, the rest of her shift. She seemed excited to see us and I recall us having a blast evidenced by the several times we were shushed by grown ups who came to the library with the same expectation of quiet that I do today as a crotchety middle-aged man. I got the inside scoop on several of our classmates whom she had known all through elementary school. One particularly scandalous piece of gossip she revealed that day: the only reason that one particular male classmate got attention from girls was because of well-circulated rumors that he was well-endowed. Looking back, I’m kind of mortified that she knew this about him at that age and that she so freely shared it with us sitting there at in the library within earshot of so many.

I could never figure out if Kate was ever interested in me as a potential boyfriend. It didn’t matter, I later learned that she was the target of many a male adolescent crush at the time. She was pursued by Deni C. who won her affections by drawing her portrait of her from behind, as she sat on a stool staring forward in her shop class. She showed me the picture one day in English; it was good drawing that captured Kate’s likeness well. I remember admiring Deni for his initiative. Of course, I was also disappointed. By the time I realized my feelings for Kate were starting to slant more toward the romantic, I also realized she had ascended out of my league. Such is life I suppose. She and Deni became the item in 8th and 9th grade. Kate and I still talked, but she had understandably become a bit less open, and perhaps less flirty, if that had actually been going on in the past.

Later, the summer before my junior year while getting the jump on the US history requirement in summer school, Kate told me that her friend from art class, Jen S., was interested in me. Now, the art tribe were the cool kids as far as I saw it, so I was definitely interested, if not also intimidated. Surprisingly I hadn’t recalled ever seeing Jen before; she was in the class ahead of ours, and senior girls I never considered to be even a remote possibility for me to date. I was further intimidated to find out that Jen too was quite pretty: she had long red hair and green eyes, dressed in trendy grunge sweaters, liked Weezer, and gave me Johnny Got His Gun to read. All this I learned after finally working up the courage to call Jen weeks after Kate gave me her number.

Now, truth be told, my courting of Jen was an absolute train wreck. When we talked on the phone I thought it would be cool if I played music in the background; it was not, and she was much annoyed. We discussed the M.C. Escher drawing of two hands–each hand drawing the other–and argued passionately about the symmetry. The term “dumbass” was used much to my regret. The only time Jen and I spent together in person occurred during an outing to The Beat record store in downtown Sacramento. On the drive there I missed the freeway entrance and had to do a U-turn; Jen was not impressed. Before we set out that day, Jen’s mother made a point to tell me that Jen had gone out with another fella with purple hair a few days before. Lastly, and arguably the real issue that doomed our relationship: Jen was Pentecostal with definite views about right and wrong. She did not like that, while I had been instructed in many of the Christian morals that she lived by, I was still very unsure if I actually accepted them. I was certainly not living them to her standards. Jen stated as much in a breakup letter that Kate handed me some time later into my junior year of high school. Honestly, I was not even sure if Jen and I had ever been sufficiently “official” in the first place to merit such a scathing communication.

After even more time had passed, I remember wondering if Jen’s “interest” was the product of Kate’s match-making. Looking back, Kate was there at the start, and Kate was there at the end of whatever had gone on between Jen and me. Perhaps Kate felt obliged to try and bring me, and probably Jen, some happiness by steering us together. It would not surprise me in the least, looking back. If so, it was very kind of Kate. By all outward appearances, Jen and I probably would have seemed to be a good match despite the outcome. Kate was always a very kind person when we were in school.

I hope Kate is well these days. Jen too.

Categories
Culture History Mythology Tech

Techno-worship, American-style

Likely more prescient in 2022 than it was when first published in 2011, Morris Berman cites the argument of British philosopher John Gray to support his (taboo) thesis that our unwavering, unquestioning commitment to technological progress has been a crucial factor in the downfall of American society. Whether by slow-burn or sudden death-knell, our end is certain because, as Americans, we are unwilling to abandon a myth.

Theories of progress, says Gray1, are not scientific hypotheses but rather myths, which—like the Christian myths of redemption and the Second Coming—answer to the human need for meaning. This is why we refuse to let them go, regardless of what the evidence might suggest. It is also why, in the United States, the commitment to technology goes much deeper than fueling consumerism, lubricating the socioeconomic system, and keeping a lid on class conflict. Without this belief system, Americans would have literally nothing, for it lies at the heart of the American Dream and endlessly vaunted American way of life. Strip away the illusion of unlimited growth and the country would suffer a collective nervous breakdown. (This is key to why Jimmy Carter had to go: he was pushing the limits of American psychological tolerance, asking a nation of addicts to confront their dependency and change course.) Globalization, along with neoliberalism, according to Gray, is merely the latest incarnation of this illusion, and its deep religious roots account for the ferocity of its adherents, even after the crash of 2008 gave the lie to the notion of unlimited development through the free market economy. We want to believe that the future will be better than the past, but there isn’t a shred of evidence to back this up. In particular, as I shall discuss below, scientific progress doesn’t translate into moral progress; one could reasonably argue that just the opposite is the case. Truth be told, concludes Gray, we are even more superstitious than our medieval forebears; we just don’t recognize it. Nor is it likely that we shall abandon these beliefs. It’s utopia or bust, even if the odds are heavily weighted toward bust.

Berman M., Why America Failed: the roots of imperial decline, 2011/2014, pp. 82-83 quoting Gray, J., Black Mass, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007

Categories
Being Culture Literature

What is Dignity?

Early in the story, the butler in The Remains of the Day, shares his initial conceptualization of dignity as one that stems from loyalty and pride. In his youth he believed dignity to be staunch adherence to the persona that one is expected to assume.

If one considers the difference between my father at such moments and a figure such as Mr Jack Neighbors even with the best of his technical flourishes, I believe one may distinguish what it is that separates a ‘great’ butler from a merely competent one. We may now understand better, too, why my father was so fond of the story of the butler who failed to panic after discovering a tiger under the dining table; it was because he knew instinctively that somewhere in this story lay the kernel of what true ‘dignity’ is. And let me now posit this: ‘dignity’ has to do crucially with a butler’s ability not to abandon the professional being he inhabits. Lesser butlers will abandon their professional being for the private one at the least provocation. For such persons, being a butler is like playing some pantomime role; a small push, a slight stumble, and the façade will drop off to reveal the actor underneath. The great butlers are great by virtue of their ability to inhabit their professional role and inhabit it to the utmost; they will not be shaken out by external events, however surprising, alarming or vexing. They wear their professionalism as a decent gentleman will wear his suit: he will not let ruffians or circumstance tear it off him in the public gaze; he will discard it when, and only when, he wills to do so, and this will invariably be when he is entirely alone. It is, as I say, a matter of ‘dignity’.

Ishiguro, Kazuo The remains of the day, Vintage International ed. 1993, pp 42-43.

Later on, another conception of dignity is put forth by another character whose life-experience is markedly different than the butler’s. Mr. Smith believes that dignity is produced through sacrifice to a worthy cause.

‘Mind you,’ put in Mr Harry Smith, ‘with all respect for what you say, sir, it ought to be said. Dignity isn’t just something gentlemen have. Dignity’s something every man and woman in this country can strive for and get. You’ll excuse me, sir, but like I said before, we don’t stand on ceremony here when it comes to expressing opinions. And that’s my opinion for what it’s worth. Dignity’s not just something for gentlemen.’ … ‘That’s what we fought Hitler for, after all. If Hitler had had things his way, we’d just be slaves now. The whole world would be a few masters and millions upon millions of slaves. And I don’t need to remind anyone here, there’s no dignity to be had in being a slave. That’s what we fought for and that’s what we won. We won the right to be free citizens. …’

Ishiguro, Kazuo The remains of the day, Vintage International ed. 1993, pp 185-186

Painfully, the butler faces some hard truths and he is not pleased reflecting on his past choices. His lifetime of dedicated service and professionalism did not produce within himself a sense of dignity. His prior belief proved false. On reading the passage below, the butler seems to be one of the saddest characters in modern literature in my opinion. Perhaps true dignity stems from being true to oneself.

‘Lord Darlington wasn’t a bad man. He wasn’t a bad man at all. And at least he had the privilege of being able to say at the end of his life that he had made his own mistakes. His lordship was a courageous man. He chose a certain path in life, it proved to be a misguided one, but there, he chose it, he can say that at least. As for myself, I cannot even claim that. You see, I trusted. I trusted in his lordship’s wisdom. All those years I served him, I trusted I was doing something worthwhile. I can’t even say I made my own mistakes. Really — one has to ask oneself — what dignity is there in that?’

Ishiguro, Kazuo The remains of the day, Vintage International ed. 1993, p 244

After some reflection, the butler realizes that, for most of us, most circumstances in our lives are simply beyond our control. Dignity can also come from the pursuit of one’s aspirations, regardless of outcome.

The hard reality is, surely, that for the likes of you and I, there is little choice other than to leave our fate, ultimately, in the hands of those great gentlemen at the hub of this world who employ our services. What is the point in worrying oneself too much about what could or could not have done to control the course one’s life took? Surely it is enough that the likes of you and I at least try to make our small contribution count for something true and worthy. And if some of us are prepared to sacrifice much in life in order to pursue such aspirations, surely that is in itself, whatever the outcome, cause for pride and contentment.

Ishiguro, Kazuo The remains of the day, Vintage International ed. 1993, p. 244

Categories
Culture Libertad! Literature

Life and Debt

I dare not comment on David Graeber’s monumental anthropological investigation into the role of debt in human relations in Debt: The First 5,000 Years. Any attempt by this hard sciences guy would almost certainly prove embarrassing. My motivation for reading the 400 page text (plus 62 pages of end notes) stems from a desire to understand the axioms that underlie modern concepts of indebtedness and money. Perhaps my recent interest in this subject is a natural consequence of middle age. Or maybe my heightened curiosity manifested from living in a social system whose very existence seems more precarious with each passing day.

What exactly is money anyway? What is a debt? How did these ideas come about and why do we adhere to them? Can communities function without monetary exchange? Graeber provides compelling answers to these questions by connecting a myriad of observations from cultures around the world throughout history. Connections that can explain universal, recurring trends such as the cycle of slavery to mine metals to produce coins to pay soldiers (who, in turn, captured more slaves). This “slavery-coinage-military complex” prevailed in the Axial Age (800 BC – 600 AD) in Europe, India and China that coincided with great unrest in each. If you are a human being living on planet Earth, you should read this book. The extended quote below from the last chapter provides an apt summary:

If this book has shown anything, it’s exactly how much violence it has taken, over the course of human history, to bring us to a situation where it’s even possible to imagine that that’s what life is really about. Especially when one considers how much of our own daily experience flies directly in the face of it.  As I’ve emphasized, communism may be the foundation of all human relations—that communism that, in our own daily life, manifests itself above all in what we call “love”—but there’s always some sort of system of exchange, and usually, a system of hierarchy built on top of it.  These systems of exchange can take an endless variety of forms, many perfectly innocuous.  Still, what we are speaking of here is a very particular type of exchange, founded on precise calculation.  As I pointed out in the very beginning: the difference between owing someone a favor and owing someone a debt is that the amount of a debt can be precisely calculated.  Calculation demands equivalence.  And such equivalence—especially when it involves equivalence between human beings (and it always seems to start that way, because at first, human beings are always the ultimate values)—only seems to occur when people have been forcibly severed from their contexts, so much so that they can be treated as identical to something else, as in: “seven martin skins and twelve large silver rings for the return of your captured brother,” “one of your three daughters as surety for this loan of one hundred and fifty bushels of grain.”…

This in turn leads to that great embarrassing fact that haunts all attempts to represent the market as the highest form of human freedom: that historically, impersonal, commercial markets originate in theft. More than anything else, the endless recitation of the myth of barter, employed much like an incantation, is the economists’ way of exorcising this uncomfortable truth. But even a moment’s reflection makes it obvious. Who was the first man to look at a house full of objects and immediately assess them only in terms of what he could get for them in the market? Surely, he can only have been a thief. Burglars, marauding soldiers, then perhaps debt collectors, were the first to see the world this way. It was only in the hands of soldiers, fresh from looting towns and cities, that chunks of gold or silver—melted down, in most cases, from some heirloom treasure, that like the Kashmiri gods, or Aztec breastplates, or Babylonian women’s ankle bracelets, was both a work of art and a little compendium of history—could become simple, uniform bits of currency, with no history, valuable precisely for their lack of history, because they could be accepted anywhere, no questions asked. And it continues to be true. Any system that reduces the world to numbers can only be held in place by weapons, whether these are swords and clubs, or, nowadays, “smart bombs” from unmanned drones.

It can also only operate by continually converting love into debt. I know my use of the word “love” here is even more provocative, in its own way, than “communism.” Still, it’s important to hammer the point home. Just as markets, when allowed to drift entirely free from their violent origins, invariably begin to grow into something different, into networks of honor, trust and mutual connectedness, so does the maintenance of systems of coercion constantly do the opposite: turn the products of human cooperation, creativity, devotion, love, and trust back into numbers once again.

Graeber, David.  Debt: the first 5,000 years.  Melville House 2014. pp 386-387

A bit further down, Graeber explains a false, but ubiquitous, idea that by simply being alive we are in debt–a debt so great that we can never even hope to repay:

It’s hardly surprising that the end result, historically, is to see our life itself as something we hold on false premises, a loan long since overdue, and therefore, to see existence itself as criminal.  Insofar as there’s a real crime here, though, it’s fraud. The very premise is fraudulent.  What could possibly be more presumptuous, or more ridiculous, than to think it would be possible to negotiate with the grounds of one’s existence?  Of course it isn’t.  Insofar as it is indeed possible to come into any sort of relation with the Absolute, we are confronting a principle that exists outside of time, or human-scale time, entirely; therefore, as medieval theologians correctly recognized, when dealing with the Absolute, there can be no such thing as debt.”

Graeber, David. Debt: the first 5,000 years.  Melville House 2014. p 387.

Below, Graeber captures the potential paradox that I have felt–but have not been able to articulate–that has long fueled my contempt for the rampant materialism and iniquity that so plagues our modern age, especially in post-WWII United States. Bank-imposed FICA scores come to mind here:

For me, this is exactly what’s so pernicious about the morality of debt: the way that financial imperatives constantly try to reduce us all, despite ourselves, to the equivalent of pillagers, eyeing the world simply for what can be turned into money–and then tell us that it’s only those who are willing to see the world as pillagers who deserve access to the resources required to pursue anything in life other than money.

Graeber, David. Debt: the first 5,000 years.  Melville House 2014. pp 389-390

Though Graeber’s aim in Debt was not to offer “concrete proposals” for change, the last line of the text is the crucial take away for this 21st century malcontent:

What sorts of promises might genuinely free men and women make to one another? At this point, we can’t even say. It’s more a question of how we can get to a place that will allow us to find out. And the first step in that journey, in turn, is to accept that in the largest scheme of things, just as no one has the right to tell us our true value, no one has the right to tell us what we truly owe.

Graeber, David. Debt: the first 5,000 years. Melville House 2014, p 391.

Categories
Culture Nation

The Disneyfication of America

In his book America: the farewell tour, Chris Hedges argues that America finds itself on a course of “irrevocable decline”. Those who dare raise issue regarding our dying culture find their observations ignored and their conclusions dismissed. Such is our sociocultural stage in the first few weeks of 2020.

Magical thinking is not limited to the beliefs and practices of pre-modern cultures. It defines the ideology of capitalism. Quotas and projected sales can always be met. Profits can always be raised. Growth is inevitable. The impossible is always possible. Human societies, if they bow before the dictates of the marketplace, will be ushered into capitalist paradise. It is only a question of having the right attitude and the right technique. When capitalism thrives, we are assured, we thrive. The merging of the self with the capitalist collective has robbed us of our agency, creativity, capacity for self-reflection, and moral autonomy. We define our worth not by our independence or our character but by the material standards set by capitalism–personal wealth, brands, status, and career advancement. We are molded into a compliant and repressed collective. The mass conformity is characteristic of totalitarian and authoritarian states. It is the Disneyfication of America, the land of eternally happy thoughts and positive attitudes. And when magical thinking does not work, we are told, and often accept, that we are the problem. We must adjust. We must have faith. We must be positive. We must envision what we want. We must try harder. The system is never to blame. We failed it. It did not fail us.

Hedges, Chris. America: the farewell tour. Simon & Schuster, 2018. p. 44
Categories
Culture

Call to Keyboards

In her recent book Life in code: a personal history of technology, Ellen Ullman appeals to people of all races, genders, occupations and levels of socioeconomic status to learn how to program.  She argues that more diverse involvement in software creation will make digital technology more useful, less intimidating, and less biased as it continues to evolve and influence our everyday lives.  The following excerpt especially resonated with my views:

Later, when you are more skilled, I see you confronting the newly anointed oracles called data scientists, “experts” in scanning billions of data points.  You say, “The answers you arrived at are mired in the bias of the past.  Your information is based upon what has already happened.  Those of us who have not succeeded in the past are not in your databases–or, worse, we are, as bad risks.”

To my hoped-for new programming army: You are society’s best hope for loosening the stranglehold of the code that surrounds us.  Enlist compatriots.  Upset assumptions.  It will take time and perseverance, but you can do it.  Stick a needle into the shiny bubble of the the technical world’s received wisdom. Burst it.

Ullman, Ellen Life in code: a personal history of technology, Picador (2017),  pg. 247

Categories
Culture Interwebs

Man, online gamers really seem like friendly folks of high integrity…

The following excerpt is part of the legal agreement that users must accept to sign up for Sony Entertainment Network, a forum and hosting service for online gaming through PlayStation consoles.  It seems to me that many of these rules prohibit behaviors and practices that SEN has encountered, and had to deal with, over the course of their history hosting online games.  From this perspective, the code does not reflect well on the past conduct of online gamers.

3. COMMUNITY CODE OF CONDUCT

You must adhere to the following rules of conduct, and also follow a reasonable, common-sense code of conduct. Users are required to take into consideration community standards and refrain from abusive or deceptive conduct, cheating, hacking, or other misuse of SEN. Rights of other users should be respected.

The actions that are prohibited include the following:

You may not manipulate or inflate usage of SEN.

You may not engage in deceptive or misleading practices.

You may not abuse or harass others, including stalking behavior.

You may not take any action, or upload, post, stream, or otherwise transmit any content, language, images or sounds in any forum, communication, public profile, or other publicly viewable areas or in the creation of any Online ID that SNEI or its affiliates, in their sole discretion, find offensive, hateful, or vulgar. This includes any content or communication that SNEI or its affiliates deem racially, ethnically, religiously or sexually offensive, libelous, defaming, threatening, bullying or stalking.

You may not organize hate groups.

You may not upload, post, stream, or otherwise transmit any content that contains any viruses, worms, spyware, time bombs, or other computer programs that may damage, interfere with, or disrupt SEN.

You may not use, make, or distribute unauthorized software or hardware, including Non-Licensed Peripherals and cheat code software or devices that circumvent any security features or limitations included on any software or devices, in conjunction with SEN, or take or use any data from SEN to design, develop or update such unauthorized software or hardware.

You may not modify or attempt to modify the online client, disc, save file, server, client-server communication, or other parts of any game title, or content.

You may not cause disruption to or modify or damage any account, system, hardware, software, or network connected to or provided by SEN for any reason, including for the purpose of gaining an unfair advantage in a game.

You may not attempt to hack or reverse engineer any code or equipment in connection with SEN.

You may not take any action that SNEI or its affiliates consider to be disruptive to the normal flow of chat or gameplay, including uploading, posting, streaming, or otherwise transmitting any unsolicited or unauthorized material, including junk mail, spam, excessive mail or chain letters.

You may not introduce content that is commercial in nature such as advertisements, solicitations, promotions and links to web sites.

You may not introduce content that could be harmful to SNEI or its affiliates or their licensors, or players, such as any code or virus that may damage, alter or change any property or interfere with the use of property or SEN.

You may not upload, post, stream, access, or otherwise transmit any content that you know or should have known to be infringing, or that violates, any third party rights, any law or regulation, or contractual or fiduciary obligations.

You may not impersonate any person, including an SNEI or third party employee.

You may not provide SNEI or any third party company with false or inaccurate information, including reporting false complaints to our or our affiliates’ consumer services or providing false or inaccurate information during account registration.

You may not sell, buy, trade, or otherwise transfer your Online ID, SEN Account or any personal access to SEN through any means or method, including by use of web sites.

You may not conduct any activities that violate any local, state or federal laws, including copyright or trademark infringement, defamation, invasion of privacy, identity theft, hacking, stalking, fraud, stealing or using without purchasing, where payment is required, any content or service and distributing counterfeit software or SEN Accounts.

And always remember: have fun!*

*I added this.