"Meanderings on Ethics" is a deep, critical exploration of the disconnect between the ethical ideals we are taught and the systems we live under. It unpacks how our morals, ethics, and laws are not timeless truths but manmade constructs, shaped by power, convenience, and cultural shifts. The book examines the function of law, the illusion of moral universality, the role of the individual within unjust systems, and the necessity of treating ethics not as conformity but as confrontation. It is a call to wake up, to question, and to recognize that justice is not inherent in our institutions—it must be demanded, defended, and reimagined.
"Meanderings on Ethics" is a deep, critical exploration of the disconnect between the ethical ideals we are taught and the systems we live under. It unpacks how our morals, ethics, and laws are not timeless truths but manmade constructs, shaped by power, convenience, and cultural shifts. The book examines the function of law, the illusion of moral universality, the role of the individual within unjust systems, and the necessity of treating ethics not as conformity but as confrontation. It is a call to wake up, to question, and to recognize that justice is not inherent in our institutions—it must be demanded, defended, and reimagined.
We live in a world that loudly insists on its own righteousness. From the first moments of education, we are steeped in moral stories—fairy tales that punish the wicked and reward the good, national myths that glorify law and liberty, and civics lessons that present governance as the measured application of justice. Institutions reinforce this narrative at every turn: courts claim to arbitrate fairness, police claim to protect the vulnerable, and governments claim to act in the name of the people. The message is clear and constant—the world is governed by reason, order, and moral clarity.
But as we age and step beyond the curated confines of textbooks and official scripts, we begin to see the fractures. We see double standards in the enforcement of law, injustice wrapped in the language of bureaucracy, and suffering rationalized as necessary for progress or security. We encounter stories that don’t end in fairness—stories where power crushes dissent, where truth is inconvenient, and where systems protect themselves before they protect anyone else. The promises of justice ring hollow when measured against the lived experience of inequality, coercion, and systemic neglect.
What we begin to realize—often slowly, often painfully—is that the ideals we are taught do not govern the world; they decorate it. Our moral codes, our ethics, and our legal structures are not timeless or universal. They are manmade—created by flawed human beings, shaped by historical pressures, and continuously revised to suit the interests of those with power. They are not absolute truths, but contingent tools—tools that can heal or harm, uplift or oppress, depending on whose hands wield them.
There is a profound canyon between the values we claim to live by and the reality we inhabit. It stretches between the soaring language of constitutions and the quiet brutality of policy. Between declarations of equality and the mechanics of exclusion. Between the theory of justice and the machinery of enforcement. And this canyon is not a minor defect in an otherwise well-functioning system. It is the structural condition of our modern world, embedded into its institutions, its ideologies, and its everyday logic.
To name this canyon is to confront a difficult truth: that much of what we consider moral or just is not rooted in ethical consistency, but in historical convenience and institutional survival. Our systems are designed first and foremost to endure—to maintain order, not to deliver justice. When the two align, it is by accident or pressure—not design.
Recognizing this divide is not an act of despair—it is an act of awakening. Because once we understand that our values are constructed, that our systems are malleable, and that our laws are not moral absolutes but codified power arrangements, we reclaim something vital: the power to question, to resist, and to rebuild.
Justice, then, is not something that currently exists in full form. It is something we must struggle toward, using manmade ethics not as a means of acceptance, but as a method of confrontation. It is not a given—it is a possibility. And it is our responsibility to close the gap between what we pretend to be and what we actually are.
Meanderings on Ethics begins by setting up this “great ethical divide,” and continues to remind us of the human-made rules that people follow, which are ever-changing, depending on how those in power bend those rules and ethics to their will. The reader is encouraged to reflect and consider what ethics mean to them, while also examining how that aligns or fails to align with law and order. With urgency, it directs the reader to recognize the morals that those in power preach while being exceptions to them. Humans need to continually evaluate the ethics that are both right for the individual and their fellow humans, see through the lies of those in power, and never lose sight of the origins of preached ethics.
Fatimi’s message is of vital importance for the sustainability of the human species and this planet. It emphasizes the folly in how people unquestioningly accept social structures, failing to realize that those structures that protect them also limit them and render them powerless. The author emphasizes the need to remember that “our values are constructed, that our systems are malleable, and our laws are not moral absolutes but codified power arrangements," and that people must question and resist them if they are not just, so they can create new systems that are. In an effectively urgent tone, Fatimi provokes the reader to move beyond complacency and never forget that “the world we live in is not the world we are required to accept.” The author never implies that these actions are easy, but appropriately asserts their necessity. The book effectively conveys a crucial message for humans to break free from conformity, harness the power of imagination, and employ creative potential in making society more equitable and peaceful.
Fatimi succeeds in expressing this message with concise, engaging, and assertive language. It reaffirms and validates those in society who are already resisting the status quo, encouraging non-conformists to continue to claim resistance labels as positive badges of honor. It also motivates those on the verge of non-conformity to build on their micro-resistances. The book also succinctly provides a good starting point to open the eyes of those who do not realize the extent of their conformity and how their power is undermined by a system of laws, morals, and ethics being applied arbitrarily by those in power.