This is a privilege, but it is also a huge, sometimes almost impossible, burden. Third, and perhaps most decisive of all, you have grown up in an intellectual climate that is profoundly anti-utopian. Many a revolution has come and gone, leaving a wrecked economy or a dictatorship in its place. Liberation struggles, like that of the Kosovars or the Afghans, turn almost overnight into ethnic or religious tyrannies. Sometimes you will hear your elders whine that you are disillusioned or cynical.
Every generation leaves parents perplexed and distraught.
Our parents thought we were lost in the rhetoric of rebellion. What is true, I think, is that you have grown up in a time that is after many dreams, many utopias gone bad. If you are disillusioned, it is probably because some prominent illusions have fallen away. You are cautious about utopian dreams, even in your own lives, because so many of them have led others to tragedy or comedy or both at once. The challenge for you will be to make your way amid these conditions, shaped by them but not bound by them.