The Nonwestern Origin of “Nomos” or an Emerging Voice Behind the Concept of Dignity

Abstract

Once in the Western and non-Western worlds, the word ‘Nomos’ was the basis for the creation of a legal governance system in which dignity was the main value. The question is why “nomos” in this sense lost its initial meaning and function in the non-western world, while it has been reformed since the modern era as a political system that was characteristic of the western world. This concept can inform us about the different political governance systems and structures formed in the different linguistic and cultural spaces from prehistoric to modern time. This, in turn, opens the way to reconsider the view that the liberal democratic system became possible only in the Western European world along with the emergence of capitalism and to reexamine the prevailing view that the West is the creator and spreader of liberal values, whereas the non- Western world would be only a learner and receiver of it. I will deconstruct the Deleuzean conceptualization of “Nomos” by examining his concept ‘Rhizome’. I think postmodernist conceptualization of the ‘Nomos’ is also responsible for the current misinterpretations.