Quote: Change Is Futile

Albert O. Hirschman in The Rhetoric of Reaction on 1991-03-01:

The claims of the futility thesis seem more moderate than those of the perverse effect, but they are in reality more insulting to the “change agents.” As long as the social world moves at all in response to human action for change, even if in the wrong direction, hope remains that it can somehow be steered correctly. But the demonstration or discovery that such action is incapable of “making a dent” at all leaves the promoters of change humiliated, demoralized, in doubt about the meaning and true motive of their endeavors.

The second of the reactionary arguments is also structural, dubbed the Futility Thesis:

The second principal argument in the “reactionary” arsenal is very different. Instead of hot it is cool, and its sophistication is refined rather than elementary. The characteristic it shares with the perverse effect is that it to: is disarmingly simple. As I defined it earlier, the perversity thesis asserts that “the attempt to push society in a certain direction will result in its moving all right, but in the opposite direction.” The argument to be explored now says, quite dissimilarly, that the attempt at change is abortive, that in one way or another any alleged change is, was, or will be largely surface, facade, cosmetic, hence illusory, as the “deep” structures of society remain wholly untouched. I shall call it the futility thesis.

Hirschman remains polite in his analysis, I will not. "Change is futile" is simplistic because it is a purely structural argument. Instead of the "nuh uh" of the perversity thesis, it reacts with a "whatever". The Reactionaries who employ it enjoy doing so because it is insulting to those arguing for change, that the world is a fallen place and any hope of change is futile. They are pathetic.