Loss of Authority

 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").

Under Recorded: Luck and Power

 I think there's a gap in both journalism and history; we don't do enough to recognize the role that luck and power (differentials) play in human affairs.

Determining who has the power, and why, is often a better way to analyze things than alternatives such as racism, etc.  And looking at the effects of power differentials on the holders of power and the the subjects of power is as important.  Lord Acton's " Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely" is a favorite.

It's possible to determine the powerful and those who have to cope with the powerful, but much harder to determine the lucky.   Just finished the bio on James Baker.  The authors note the ways he was lucky in his rise to prominence.  I don't know of any rules or analysis of the subject though.

How To Deal With the Powerful

Politico has a piece on a presentation by the CIA person who usually briefs the President.

One of the things which fascinate me is what Erving Goffman called "The Presentation of Self inEvery Day Life".  It's a classic. Part of it is how you deal with a person more powerful/higher ranking than yourself.

I like to apply this to the relationship between slave and master, or to use today's language, the enslaved person and the enslaver.

Power, Statues, and Signalling

An article on the Columbus statue in front of Union Station in DC this morning provokes these thoughts:

The ability to erect statues is a signal of the power of the people behind the movement.  In the case of Union Station, it was the power of the Knights of Columbus back in the day.

In the case of statues commemorating Confederate generals, it was the power of upper class white Southern women (UCWSW).

In the case of naming forts it was likely the power of the Congressional delegation in the state, responding perhaps to UCWSW.

Now, the ability to take down statues is a signal of the power of the Black Lives Matter movement (construed broadly), power to move the needle and gain white support.

[Updated: by signaling I mean the action is not very important by itself to most people, is quite important to some.  For leaders of the movement, it's a way to gain influence.  If the KofC can persuade the powerful to emplace this statue, they must be listened to when they want X, Y or Z. If BLM can persuade the powerful to change the MS flag, then they must be listened to on other issues.  When non-legal processes are used, there's an element of physical fear involved as well, as there was in dumping the tea in Boston Harbor.]

The Role of Power in Society

The older I get the more attention I give to the role of power in society. It seems to me to play a role throughout society, a role not usually analyzed as such.  What's important when one entity has power is that there is some countervailing force in society.  Lacking that, you have injustice.

That's why unions were so important as counter balances to the big industrial powers in the 1950's and 60's.  Today we have the big tech firms, the Microsofts, Amazons, Netflixes, Googles, etc., and we're still struggling to develop institutions of some sort to check their power.