About ten years ago, somebody asked John Cage, "Well Mr. Cage, aren't you troubled by all the suffering in the world?" And he said, "No I am not. There is exactly the right amount of suffering in the world." When I first heard it, I was quite revolted and disgusted by that statement, but in the ten years since I've come to agree with it totally: that to protest against the suffering in this world is an incredible insult to the victims of this world. Their suffering is exactly what they have received because of the conditions which are imposed upon them. To protest against suffering is to degrade suffering, without an understanding of why that suffering was made necessary. This is why I think that the Hans Haacke piece, which is a description of the trustees of the Guggenheim Museum, is to show nothing but the badges of their triumph. We know we are ruled. The question is not whether we are ruled or not. It's how we are ruled. And believe me, we are ruled not by the crimes of the people who rule us, but by their legal practices. [...] What we have to do is stop protesting and start understanding, because we can never overthrow the rulers who rule us unless we understand how they rule us.

- Carl Andre, statement from "Perimeters of Protest" Panel (1975)