Was thinking about the question of authority--who has it, what does it mean, etc.
Seems to me "authority" has drained away from the people and organizations which had it in my youth. It's perhaps particularly so in the family--as the patriarchy has decline, so has the authority of the father (maybe it's the same thing).
Surveys of the public on their respect for various institutions, police, schools, churches, etc. show a decline over the past decades. As further confirmation, here's an ngram of American sources (the graph is a smoother decline if you leave the setting at "English").
