ABSTRACT
87 Despite my preference for trains, I fly a lot. On planes I meet lots of college parents and spend considerable time arguing that when the fate of the universe passes into the hands of their children, things will improve, not collapse. I have admired my students for 40 years; I think they comprise the most decent generation of people this country has yet produced. I don’t fret that they watch bad TV; their grandparents spent their childhoods reading comic books and wasted many a Saturday afternoon gazing rapturously at movie screens filled with puerile nonsense; their parents read many a trashy book and watched many a television program that make today’s shows look like Royal Shakespeare Company festivals.
