The Children of the Students of the 1960s

In the parents of the students of the 60s, the left-wing parents, especially, were disasters veterans. Those people had been combatants in the Spanish Civil War and struggled through the Depression and Second World War. Their own childish lives, on the other hand, were singularly free of heroism or suffering, at least after their earliest years. They grew up during the greatest prolonged boom in the history of capitalism. Everything that the parents had lacked, the children came to possess. Comfort, peace, security, democracy, education, opportunity. The contrast between Marxist memories of the war and the comforts of the present was bound to cast a disagreeable light on their young lives.