Most of them had grown up with little knowledge of Mandela or the A.N.C., whose words, ideas, and even images were banned in South Africa.
As the previous generation retires from the work force, many more people will have grown up with intimate knowledge of computers.
Even before the remarkable moment of God's pronouncement at the baptism, Jesus had grown up with the knowledge of his future role as the Messiah.
But no one asked whether a man who had grown up without the knowledge that his mother was Jewish, and who had devoted his life to an anti-Semitic, far-right political party, could be called "Jewish" at all.
Half a generation have grown up with the knowledge that there are people outside the UK who want very much to kill Britons if they can, and a small number of people inside the country who share that aim.
Switched at birth with a dead white child, Hannah's mistress has grown up with no knowledge of her true racial identity until her secret is discovered by the novel's sinister villain, the aptly named Mr. Trappe, who threatens to expose her.
During this period, talking to visitors to the exhibition, I learned that many New Yorkers had also grown up with a sketchy knowledge of Mexico in the 1860s - although Juárez had sent his family to New York for safety when France, finally victorious, persuaded Maximilian, the idealistic but naive archduke of Austria, to become emperor.
As AIDS has become entrenched in the United States and elsewhere, a new generation has grown up with little if any knowledge of those dark early days.
Which is what rock gave these musicians when they were growing up: The knowledge that there was More out there".
Children on both sides who grow up without knowledge of "the other" will be more, rather than less, sensitive to the needs, hopes and desires of their neighbors.
Americans want to know that the boy from that prep school grew up in knowledge and wisdom and grew deep in compassion and empathy.
