\Weird Al\" Yankovic" Negative
What is Negative?
What is Negative about Weird Al Yankovic?
Yankovic changed his diet to become a vegan in 1992 after a former girlfriend gave him the book Diet for a New America and he felt "it made ... a very compelling argument for a strict vegetarian diet". When asked how he can "rationalize" performing at events such as the Great American Rib Cook-Off when he is a vegan, he replied, "The same way I can rationalize playing at a college even though I'm not a student anymore." In a 2011 interview with news website OnMilwaukee, Yankovic clarified his stance on his diet, saying, "I am still a vegetarian, and I try to be a vegan, but I occasionally cheat. If there's a cheese pizza on the band bus, I might sneak a piece." Yankovic married Suzanne Krajewski in 2001 after being introduced by their mutual friend Bill Mumy. Their daughter, Nina, was born in 2003. Yankovic identifies as Christian and has stated that a couple from his church appeared on the cover of Poodle Hat. Yankovic's religious background is reflected in his abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, drugs, and profanity. He and his family currently live in Los Angeles in a house previously owned at separate times by Jack S. Margolis and Heavy D. On April 9, 2004, Yankovic's parents were found dead in their Fallbrook, California home, the victims of accidental carbon monoxide poisoning from their fireplace. Several hours after his wife notified him of his parents' death, Yankovic went on with his concert in Appleton, Wisconsin, saying that "since my music had helped many of my fans through tough times, maybe it would work for me as well" and that it would "at least ... give me a break from sobbing all the time." Their deaths occurred following the release of Poodle Hat, which was Yankovic's lowest-selling album in 20 years, but he considered continuing the show and tour therapeutic, saying "if I didn't have anything to distract me, I probably would have spiraled into an even deeper depression. For a couple of hours each night, I could go onstage and put on a big fake smile and pretend like everything was just OK." In a 2014 interview, Yankovic called his parents' death "the worst thing that ever happened to me." He added, "I knew intellectually, that at some point, probably, I'd have to, you know, live through the death of my parents, but I never thought it would be at the same time, and so abruptly." Yankovic is well known for creating parodies of contemporary radio hits, typically which make up about half of his studio releases. Unlike other parody artists such as Allan Sherman, Yankovic and his band strive to keep the backing music in his parodies the same as the original, transcribing the original song by ear and re-recording the song for the parody. In some cases, in requesting the original band to allow for his parody, the band will offer to help out with the recreation: Dire Straits members Mark Knopfler and Guy Fletcher perform on "Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies*", Yankovic's parody of Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing", while Imagine Dragons provided Yankovic with advice on how to recreate some of the electronic sounds they used for "Radioactive" in Yankovic's parody "Inactive". Yankovic's career in novelty and comedy music has outlasted many of his "mainstream" parody targets, such as Toni Basil, MC Hammer, and Men Without Hats. Yankovic's continued success (including the top 10 single "White & Nerdy" and album Straight Outta Lynwood in 2006) has enabled him to escape the one-hit wonder stigma often associated with novelty music. Although many of Yankovic's songs are parodies of contemporary radio hits, it is rare that the song's primary topic lampoons the original artist as a person, or the song itself. Most Yankovic songs consist of the original song's music, with a separate, unrelated set of amusing lyrics. Yankovic's humor normally lies more in creating unexpected incongruity between an artist's image and the topic of the song, contrasting the style of the song with its content (such as the songs "Amish Paradise", "White & Nerdy", and "You're Pitiful"), or in pointing out trends or works which have become pop culture cliches (such as "eBay" and "Don't Download This Song"). Yankovic's parodies are often satirical of popular culture, including television (see The TV Album), movies ("The Saga Begins"), and food (see The Food Album). Yankovic claims he has no intention of writing "serious" music. In his reasoning, "There's enough people that do unfunny music. I'll leave the serious stuff to Paris Hilton and Kevin Federline." Yankovic considered that his first true satirical song was "Smells Like Nirvana", which references unintelligible lyrics in Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit". Other satirical songs include "Achy Breaky Song", which refers to the song "Achy Breaky Heart", "(This Song's Just) Six Words Long", which refers to the repetitious lyrics in "Got My Mind Set on You", and "Perform This Way", set to Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" that drew inspiration from Lady Gaga's outlandish but confident attitude. Yankovic is the sole writer for all his songs and, for "legal and personal reasons", does not accept parody submissions or ideas from fans. There exists, however, one exception to this rule: Madonna was reportedly talking with a friend and happened to wonder aloud when Yankovic was going to turn her "Like a Virgin" into "Like a Surgeon". Madonna's friend was a mutual friend of Yankovic's manager, Jay Levey, and eventually Yankovic himself heard the story from Levey. One of Yankovic's most controversial parodies was 1996's "Amish Paradise", based on "Gangsta's Paradise" by hip-hop artist Coolio, which, in turn, was based on "Pastime Paradise" by Stevie Wonder. Reportedly, Coolio's label gave Yankovic the impression that Coolio had granted permission to record the parody, but Coolio maintains that he never did. While Coolio claimed he was upset, legal action never materialized, and Coolio accepted royalty payments for the song. After this controversy, Yankovic has always made sure to speak directly with the artist of every song he parodied. At the XM Satellite Radio booth at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show Yankovic and Coolio made peace. On his website, Yankovic wrote of this event, "I don't remember what we said to each other exactly, but it was all very friendly. I doubt I'll be invited to Coolio's next birthday party, but at least I can stop wearing that bulletproof vest to the mall." In an interview in 2014, Coolio extended his apology for refusing his permission, stating that at the time "I was being cocky and shit and being stupid and I was wrong and I should've embraced that shit and went with it", and that he considered Yankovic's parody "actually funny as shit". In 2000, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea told Behind the Music that he was unimpressed and disappointed by Yankovic's 1993 song "Bedrock Anthem", which parodied two of the band's songs. He was quoted as stating "I didn't think it was very good. I enjoy Weird Al's things, but I found it unimaginative." For the Poodle Hat Al TV special, Yankovic raised the question of artistic expression in a fake interview with Eminem. As Yankovic has always done for his Al TV specials, he edited the footage of a previous Eminem interview and inserted himself asking questions for comic effect. CANNOTANSWER
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Negative consequentialism is a version of consequentialism, which is "one of the major theories of normative ethics." Like other versions of consequentialism, negative consequentialism holds that moral right and wrong depend only on the value of outcomes. That is, for negative and other versions of consequentialism, questions such as "what should I do?" and "what kind of person should I be?" are answered only based on consequences. Negative consequentialism differs from other versions of consequentialism by giving greater weight in moral deliberations to what is bad (e.g. suffering or injustice) than what is good (e.g. happiness or justice). Due to this, it can be considered an instance of what has been called "suffering-focused ethics", the view that the reduction of suffering has moral priority over any other possible duties we may think of.

Negative Utilitarianism 
A specific type of consequentialism is utilitarianism, which says that the consequences that matter are those that affect aggregate well-being. Consequentialism is broader than utilitarianism in that consequentialism can say that the value of outcomes depend on other things than well-being; for example, justice, fairness, and equality, or in that it can say that the value of outcomes depend on well-being but not necessarily aggregate well-being (as it happens, for instance, with prioritarianism, which promotes achieving the higher level of happiness minus suffering but giving priority to the well-being of the worse off).  Negative utilitarianism is thus a form of negative consequentialism. Much more has been written explicitly about negative utilitarianism than directly about negative consequentialism, although since negative utilitarianism is a form of negative consequentialism, everything that has been written about negative utilitarianism is by definition about a specific (utilitarian) version of negative consequentialism. Similarly to how there are many variations of consequentialism and negative utilitarianism, there are many versions of negative consequentialism, for example negative prioritarianism and negative consequentialist egalitarianism.

People 
G. E. Moore's ethics can be said to be a negative consequentialism (more precisely, a consequentialism with a negative utilitarian component), because he has been labeled a consequentialist, and he said that "consciousness of intense pain is, by itself, a great evil" whereas "the mere consciousness of pleasure, however intense, does not, by itself, appear to be a great good, even if it has some slight intrinsic value. In short, pain (if we understand by this expression, the consciousness of pain) appears to be a far worse evil than pleasure is a good." Moore wrote in the first half of the 20th century before any of the terms 'consequentialism,' 'negative utilitarianism' or 'negative consequentialism' were coined, and he did not use the term 'negative consequentialism' himself. Similarly to Moore, Ingemar Hedenius defended a consequentialism that could be called negative (or could be said to have a negative utilitarian component) because he assigned more importance to suffering than to happiness. Hedenius saw the worst in life, such as infernalistic suffering, as so evil that calculations of happiness versus suffering become unnecessary; he did not see that such evil could be counterbalanced by any good, such as happiness.

Apologists 
Philosophy professor Clark Wolf defends "negative consequentialism as a component of a larger theory of justice." Walter Sinnott-Armstrong interprets Bernard Gert's moral system as a "sophisticated form of negative objective universal public rule consequentialism." Jamie Mayerfeld argues for a strong duty to relieve suffering, which can be consequentialist in form. He says that "suffering is more bad than happiness is good," and that "the lifelong bliss of many people, no matter how many, cannot justify our allowing the lifelong torture of one." Accordingly to this, the ultimate goal of negative consequentialism would then be the eradication of suffering

Negative consequentialism has also been defended by claiming that it is the best solution to the asymmetry in population ethics, which consists in the fact that most of us have the intuition that it is wrong to create an unhappy life but not necessarily wrong not to create a happy life.

See also 
 Ahimsa
 Antifrustrationism
 Asymmetry (population ethics)
 Consequentialism
 Eradication of suffering
 Negative Utilitarianism
 Prioritarianism
 Suffering-focused ethics

Citations

References

Further reading

External links 

 Algosphere Alliance: Vision
 Center for Reducing Suffering (2020) Suffering-Focused Ethics, Research
 Center on Long-Term Risk: "How can humanity best reduce suffering?"
  Organisation for the Prevention of Intense Suffering
 Qualia Research Institute (2020) Suffering
  Suffering-Focused Ethics Resources

Consequentialism
Ethical theories Negative space, in art, is the empty space around and between the subject(s) of an image. Negative space may be most evident when the space around a subject, not the subject itself, forms an interesting or artistically relevant shape, and such space occasionally is used to artistic effect as the "real" subject of an image.

Overview
The use of negative space is a key element of artistic composition. The Japanese word "ma" is sometimes used for this concept, for example in garden design. In a composition, the positive space has the more visual weight while the surrounding space - that is less visually important is seen as the negative space.

In a two-tone, black-and-white image, a subject is normally depicted in black and the space around it is left blank (white), thereby forming a silhouette of the subject. Reversing the tones so that the space around the subject is printed black and the subject itself is left blank, however, causes the negative space to be apparent as it forms shapes around the subject. This is called figure-ground reversal.

In graphic design of printed or displayed materials, where effective communication is the objective, the use of negative space may be crucial. Not only within the typography, but in its placement in relation to the whole. It is the basis of why upper and lower case typography always is more legible than the use of all capital letters. Negative space varies around lower case letters, allowing the human eye to distinguish each word rapidly as one distinctive item, rather than having to parse out what the words are in a string of letters that all present the same overall profile as in all caps. The same judicious use of negative space drives the effectiveness of the entire design. Because of the long history of the use of black ink on white paper, "white space" is the term often used in graphics to identify the same separation.

Elements of an image that distract from the intended subject, or in the case of photography, objects in the same focal plane, are not considered negative space. Negative space may be used to depict a subject in a chosen medium by showing everything around the subject, but not the subject itself. Use of negative space will produce a silhouette of the subject. Most often, negative space is used as a neutral or contrasting background to draw attention to the main subject, which then is referred to as the positive space. In photography, negative space may also connote a type of shadows called ephemeral shadows. Here, lighting is used to express the existence of an unseen space.

Use

Considering and improving the balance between negative space and positive space in a composition is considered by many to enhance the design. This basic, but often overlooked, principle of design gives the eye a "place to rest," increasing the appeal of a composition through subtle means.

The use of negative space in art may be analogous to silence in music, but only when it is juxtaposed with adjacent musical ideas. As such, there is a difference between inert and active silences in music, where the latter is more closely analogous to negative space in art.

Negative space in art, also referred to as "air space", is the space around and between objects. Instead of focusing on drawing the actual object, for a negative space drawing, the focus is on what's between the objects. For example, if one is drawing a plant, they would draw the space in-between the leaves, not the actual leaves. This technique requires one to forget about a conceptual meaning of an object and forces them to observe through shapes, rather than drawing what they may think an object looks like.

Negative space is used with figure-ground ambigrams and tessellations to display words or pictures in different directions after symmetry.

See also
Composition (visual arts)
Figure–ground (perception)
Ma (negative space) 
Reversing type
Space (punctuation)
White space (visual arts)

References

External links

Negative Space. The Art of Negative Space: An Attempt to Tell a Story Through Illustration.
The Art of Negative Space: 15 Amazing Examples

Artistic techniques
Composition in visual art

ja:間 Antifrustrationism is an axiological position proposed by German philosopher Christoph Fehige, which states that "we don't do any good by creating satisfied extra preferences. What matters about preferences is not that they have a satisfied existence, but that they don't have a frustrated existence." According to Fehige, "maximizers of preference satisfaction should instead call themselves minimizers of preference frustration."

What makes the world better is "not its amount of preference satisfaction, but the avoided preference frustration." In the words of Fehige, "we have obligations to make preferrers satisfied, but no obligations to make satisfied preferrers." The position stands in contrast to classical utilitarianism, among other ethical theories, which holds that creating "satisfied preferrers" is, or can be, a good in itself. Antifrustrationism has similarities with, although it is different from, negative utilitarianism, the teachings of Buddha, Stoicism, philosophical pessimism, and Schopenhauer's philosophy. In particular, negative preference utilitarianism states that we should act in such a way that the number of frustrated preferences is minimized and is therefore directly based on antifrustrationism. The difference is that antifrustrationism is an axiology, whereas negative preference utilitarianism is an ethical theory.

The moral philosopher Peter Singer has in the past endorsed a position similar to antifrustrationism (negative preference utilitarianism), writing:

See also 

 Antinatalism
 The Asymmetry (population ethics)
 Buddhist ethics
 Deprivation
 Frustration
 Negative utilitarianism
 Painism
 Pessimism
 Stoicism
 Suffering-focused ethics

Citations

References

Ethical theories
Utilitarianism