Ownership Is Not A Vice, Not Something

Isn't It The Moment Of Most Profound Doubt That Gives Birth To New Certainties? Perhaps Hopelessness Is The Very Soil That Nourishes Human Hope; Perhaps One Could Never Find Sense In Life Without First Experiencing Its Absurdity.

The Previous Regime ... Reduced Man To A Means Of Production And Nature To A Tool Of Production. Thus It Attacked Both Their Very Essence And Their Mutual Relationship. It Reduced Gifted And Autonomous People To Nuts And Bolts In Some Monstrously Huge, Noisy, And Stinking Machine.

My Dear Fellow Citizens: For Forty Years You Have Heard From My Predecessors On This Day Different Variations Of The Same Theme: How Our Country Flourished, How Many Millions Of Tons Of Steel We Produced, How Happy We All Were, How We Trusted Our Government, And What Bright Perspectives Were Unfolding In Front Of Us. I Assume You Did Not Propose Me For This Office So That I, Too, Would Lie To You.

I Am Not An Optimist, Because I Am Not Sure That Everything Ends Well. Nor Am I A Pessimist, Because I Am Not Sure That Everything Ends Badly. I Just Carry Hope In My Heart. Hope Is The Feeling That Life And Work Have A Meaning. You Either Have It Or You Don't, Regardless Of The State Of The World That Surrounds You. Life Without Hope Is An Empty, Boring, And Useless Life. I Cannot Imagine That I Could Strive For Something If I Did Not Carry Hope In Me. I Am Thankful To God For This Gift. It Is As Big As Life Itself.

The Question Is Wholly Other, Deeper And Equally Relevant To All: Whether We Shall, By Whatever Means, Succeed In Reconstituting The Natural World As The True Terrain Of Politics, Rehabilitating The Personal Experience Of Human Beings As The Initial Measure Of Things, Placing Morality Above Politics And Responsibility Above Our Desires, In Making Human Community Meaningful, In Returning Content To Human Speech, In Reconstituting, As The Focus Of All Social Action, The Autonomous, Integral, And Dignified Human "i."