I agree with most of what you wrote as hypotheticals, I just disagree it describes things as they are.
I don't know why you are so eager to think people don't have agency or can't influence society. So many things change all the time. Just one example - twenty years ago most gay people lived in secret, because being out was a huge problem for society; the idea of gay marriage was ridiculously distant. Today, in most places, it's seen as a non-issue.
That didn't happen by chance. It happened because of the hard dedicated work of a lot of people, who convinced society to see things differently, and won.
While I feel similarly to you I would argue that society have two well working indicators of disconnect between enacted laws and average morals/perception of reality:
- violence
- sentiment towards violence justification
And if anything this murder shows the extent of issue of the disconnect above.
I don't know why you are so eager to think people don't have agency or can't influence society. So many things change all the time. Just one example - twenty years ago most gay people lived in secret, because being out was a huge problem for society; the idea of gay marriage was ridiculously distant. Today, in most places, it's seen as a non-issue.
That didn't happen by chance. It happened because of the hard dedicated work of a lot of people, who convinced society to see things differently, and won.