One of my complaints about the younger generation ... is that for me at least sound was the hero, and it still is. I feel that I'm subservient. I feel that I listen to my sounds, and I do what they tell me, not what I tell them. Because I owe my life to these sounds. Right? They gave me a life. And my feeling is in a sense is the young people ... instead of thinking of sound as a hero, of experience as the hero, you get to think that they're the heroes. And I find a little bit too much drawing attention to themselves ... in their work, drawing attention to their ideas, whether they're anti-society, or whether it's political.

[...]

To take a militant attitude towards society means that you're involved with that aspect of society. You're not involved with life. To take a militant action in relation to life, that's more mysterious. That needs thought. To me, I took a militant attitude towards sounds. I wanted sounds to be a metaphor, that they could be as free as a human being might be free. That was my idea about sound. It still is, that they should breathe ... not to be used for the vested interest of an idea. I feel that music should have no vested interests, that you shouldn't know how it's made, that you shouldn't know if there's a system, that you shouldn't know anything about it ... except that it's some kind of life force that to some degree really changes your life ... if you're into it.

- Morton Feldman, Conversation between Morton Feldman and Walter Zimmermann