Since you used the analogy, have you ever been in a boat and the anchor doesn't quite catch and you find yourself floating further away from the point you hoped to stay at? I wonder what happens if a parent sets the anchor at a specific point hoping for perhaps a little less than that. Then the next generation does it and so on and so forth. Eventually everyone ends up in that "raised by wolves" state which I kind of think is what has happened to society as a whole over the past few decades.
I stay away from boats, but it does bring up an interesting anchor analogy and I reckon you are right. We "drift" from our desired position, because we are anchored to the wrong thing, or in the boat example, not anchored at all, which in itself is a kind of anchor point - one that keeps on moving with the currents of life.
I kind of just feel like we keep setting the bar lower and lower with each generation.