If A Single Writer In

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.

We Live In The Postmodern World, Where Everything Is Possible And Almost Nothing Is Certain.

It Cannot Suffice To Invent New Machines, New Regulations, New Institutions. It Is Necessary To Change And Improve Our Understanding Of The True Purpose Of What We Are And What We Do In The World. Only Such A New Understanding Will Allow Us To Develop New Models Of Behavior, New Scales Of Values And Goals, And Thereby Invest The Global Regulations, Treaties And Institutions With A New Spirit And Meaning.

It Seems To Me That One Of The Most Basic Human Experiences, One That Is Genuinely Universal And Unites-or, More Precisely, Could Unite-all Of Humanity, Is The Experience Of Transcendence In The Broadest Sense Of The Word.

The Exercise Of Power Is Determined By Thousands Of Interactions Between The World Of The Powerful And That Of The Powerless, All The More So Because These Worlds Are Never Divided By A Sharp Line: Everyone Has A Small Part Of Himself In Both.