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What is the proper English word for a scenario where a valid/lawful/best thing can not be established because other things are not at their best.
For example, you are unable to enforce food hygiene because people are poor, where obtaining food is hard whereas food hygiene is a far cry.
My friend usually calls this exercise in futility.
The only idiom that comes to mind is
Sisyphean task
(Greek legend) a king in ancient Greece who offended Zeus and whose punishment was to roll a huge boulder to the top of a steep hill; each time the boulder neared the top it rolled back down and Sisyphus was forced to start again
Which is quite similar as it implies futility but also necessity to start the task over.
I would say
Fight a losing battle
- to try hard to do something when there is no chance that you will succeed
source: http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/fight+a+losing+battle
"You have won the battle but lost the war" is the expression that comes to mind for your scenerio. There is a small victory (by enforcing attendance) but then the war is ultimately lost by having students drop out entirely rather than complying with the new rule, despite its benefits.
Not to put the preservation of Boston’s “sacred sky line” on the same level as the enforcement of food hygiene (or vice versa), but the single-word adjective “quixotic” might describe these types of pursuits, especially when combined with the notion of a “lost cause”: “a quixotic lost cause” (Line 7).
In a sentence perhaps you could say that it’s “a quixotic pursuit of a[nother] lost cause.”
If "quixotic" makes the goal/pursuit seem too romantic or far-fetched, perhaps "noble" would work better: "The noble pursuit of a lost cause."
Two phrases comes to mind:
Academic - in this context, meaning so scholarly as to be unaware of the outside world. "Once the people were truly starving, the concept of food hygiene became purely academic."
Fool's errand - a fruitless undertaking. "Enforcing food hygiene was a fool's errand, the people were starving and ready to eat almost anything."
I dislike including multiple answers in one, but your question is a bit ambiguous, so:
Jumping through hoops means meeting requirements that are meaningless.
Pyrrhic victory means a small success that leads to a larger failure.
Catch 22 is an either/or situation with no winning scenario (either way you lose).
Fool's errand means a task with no hope of success.
Disservice - doing more harm than good.
Example: 'The teacher did a great disservice to students by loosening his rules.'
But this sounds too boring. In the Russian language there is an idiom,
'Bear's service'. According to Urban Dictionary it is used in English too.
Other synonyms for disservice are:
In the U.S. military circles "F.U.B.A.R" = Fucked up beyond all reconnection. Up the creek with out a paddle: you got to a place you just need to ride out what happens. My/your ass is grass an here comes the lawn mower: being powerless over the edicts of others.
Your teacher's rule could be described as "counter-productive", or "ultimately unavailing".
This is similar to "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic", a reference to the famous shipwreck. This refers to focusing effort on fixing a detail while not addressing a much larger problem.
Herding cats -Wiki
An idiom that refers to a frustrating attempt to control or organize a class of entities which are uncontrollable or chaotic.
Extended explanation: What does it mean?
Also:
This idiom describes a situation where there are options for dealing with a perceived problem, but all options seem impossible (or, in some cases, dangerous).
The idiom "catch 22" also describes a situation where attempts to solve the problem actually make the problem worse. This is somewhat similar to another idiom which speaks also to inaction, as, "Damned if I do and damned if I don't."
