collapse of the old society

Part of the point of the book was, every country is like that. You can't just write some stuff in a book and expect it to do anything. People will follow them, or not, or they will as the current Court is doing find absurd reasons to argue why they are following the rules when they are not. At the end of the day it's just a book.

Habits are strong, shared values are strong, codes and norms and laws and traditions are strong. But they're not invulnerable. Fire up people's loyalty and sense of justice and tell them that the leader is the law and that's now the most important thing, and watch all the laws in the world crumble and tear like wet tissues. It doesn't matter if it's just in people's heads or it's written in stone on every street corner. It doesn't make a difference.