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I have a friend for whom I have a great deal of respect. She is very much an activist, and has been planning a way through law school specialising in health law, largely because she has thought it to be a path where she could effect some positive change in the world.
The world stage over the last several months, in particular Gaza, has left her at a bit of a loss, with the flagrant disregard for international law by the powers that be. If law that is preferred as one of the basic planks of our society can be so easily and brazenly put aside, then what is fighting to improve society using that law?
It's a feeling I share. I'm at the moment contemplating heading off to a protest against some stupid arsed fast track legislation that would grant the current idiots in charge unprecedented powers to push through infrastructure projects without planning or consultation. It's the right thing to do, but for a long time now, I've not been convinced that protests do much.
Or least, not on the scale that people turn out for them. And not given how the media cover them.
There's multiple interrealted facets preventing change - embedded power, media, apathy, the legal system. To effect change you often need to overcome multiple of these, where overcoming any single one of them is a herculean feat.
Waiting for things to collapse, to the point where something new can emerge (not the same thing as burning everything to the ground to start over, I regard that as an incredibly naive course of action) sometimes feels like the only option and dear god that's depressing.