The Privileged Generation

   My brother Joe wrote this comment in response to my 1/20/2015 post, "Where Have All The folk Songs Gone?":
      "The folk songs have gone the way of all other things. It is much harder to be a kid these days. Back in the day, on average, everyone had it fairly good. There was time between classes to smoke a joint. Now the kids have to smoke a joint to get through the day. Although I am out of touch, it does not appear to me that there is a "privileged" generation out there as we were. I do not believe social awareness is present as it once was. It is just too hard for the younger group to get through the day."
  I think Joe has a point.
  The college students of our era  enjoyed a sense privilege that had less to do with material affluence than confidence in the wide open door of possibility before us.  
    Many of us were the first in our family's history to attend college and that, too, gave us a feeling of privilege in the knowledge that we would be more educated and likely more successful than our parents. 
    And we didn't arrive at college already fretting over what major would make us the most money and with our souls shackled to the knowledge that the price of our degree would be a lifetime of debt.  In fact those were the days when it was still within the realm of possibility to work one's way through college. 
    As Joe noted, we had it fairly good.  And we knew we had it good, that  we were privileged. 
     And so, unencumbered by a financial yoke and feeling secure in our present and our future, our material needs provided for, we had the werewithal to care about greater issues. We were primed for the great social awakening that took place during our time.  
    I agree with Joe that youngsters today are less socially aware because times are harder for them than they were for us.  They live in an age of anxiety over their own situations and futures and so can hardly be expected to care about issues and problems afflicting the rest of the world. 
    And yet some of them do anyway.