A quiet notice V2Melody closes at midnight on , Spanish time.

Closes

A note from Richard

V2Melody will close at midnight on 20 January 2028

This site has been a retirement project in musical poetry: poems chosen with care and set to music, offered freely for as long as it felt right to keep the garden open.

The work no longer holds the place it once did in my life. I have gone as far with it as I wish to go. Like a sand mandala, it was made to be completed and then released. I am not attached to its permanence, and I do not believe any of it needs to last beyond the time it was given. The poems were already here before I arrived and began to experiment with them. They will still be here when these musical experiments, and indeed myself, have been swept away, like the sand of a mandala. Nothing has been lost.

I want a simpler end to my life, days of simple love and enjoyment with my wonderful wife of 20 years. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit that life.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the site.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this site.

Until midnight on 20 January 2028, Spanish time, everything remains available exactly as it is. That is when my VPS server contract comes to an end, and it will not be renewed. After that, the server will be switched off and the site will disappear.

The Mandala Is Finished explains this more fully.

Thank you to anyone who found a poem, a track, or a quiet moment here.

The pleasure was in the making.

Richard

Home › Glossary › Letter U

Utilitarianism

Philosophy
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that judges actions by their consequences, specifically their contribution to overall happiness or utility. It seeks the greatest good for the greatest number.

Detailed Definition
Bentham and Mill champion this consequentialist theory. In poetry, it can appear as a theme of social reform or moral calculation. A poem might explore the utilitarian calculus of a difficult decision. This concept gives poetry a pragmatic, ethical dimension, engaging with questions of justice, sacrifice, and the common good, often in a narrative context.
Example
Example in poetry:
A poem that advocates for a social policy that helps the most people, like the poetry of Bertolt Brecht, is utilitarian; A poem that weighs the consequences of an action, like a narrative poem, is engaging with utilitarianism; A poem that critiques a decision that caused unnecessary suffering is using a utilitarian perspective; A poem that praises a "greatest good" principle is a utilitarian text.
Additional Notes
Utilitarianism is an ethical theory, most famously associated with Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, that judges the morality of actions by their consequences. The principle of utility holds that an action is right if it tends to produce happiness or pleasure and wrong if it tends to produce unhappiness or pain, with the goal of achieving the "greatest good for the greatest number." In poetry, utilitarianism can appear as a theme of social reform, moral calculation, or the weighing of conflicting outcomes. A poem might explore the difficult choice of sacrificing one for the good of many. This concept gives poetry a pragmatic, ethical dimension, engaging with questions of justice and the common good.
Also Known As
Greatest happiness principle Consequentialism (broadly) Utility principle
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