|
I’m often asked what I think of
the new computer,
and I don’t particularly like it. Yet it is said that the computer would
be perfectly natural for me to want to use. It may be a natural instrument
for me to use, and I may be old-fashioned in not understanding that. But
in one of McLuhan’s books, he quotes a modern physicist who
quotes an ancient
Chinese story, and I’m also always quoting ancient Oriental stories.
It’s
about a farmer who is irrigating the land with great difficulty, and someone
comes and explains to him that by changing his technique he would be able
to get a great deal of work done in a short time, and the Chinaman replies
that he would be ashamed to change his technique in order to save time.
It is precisely time which we have to use. It does not annoy me to spend nine months tossing coins. It interests me to do that. I doubt whether the computer will do what I did, even though I know that there is a button there for aleatoric arrangement of information.
John Cage
|