Word of the Day: Nomomachy
(noun) — A war over laws; conflict surrounding rules, constitutions, and legal frameworks.
Why it matters now:
We are living through an age of nomomachy. Our institutions are locked in combat over the very rules that govern us, from the Supreme Court to state legislatures to international treaties.
• The nomomachy over presidential immunity has reshaped how far executive power can stretch.
• The nomomachy surrounding Section 3 of the 14th Amendment is testing whether insurrectionists can hold office again.
• States and Washington are engaged in a nomomachy over voting rights, each side claiming constitutional ground.
• Congress is in a nomomachy about currency and crypto, deciding who controls the future of money.
• After Dobbs, the nomomachy over abortion law pits state against state in a patchwork of competing rights.
Everywhere we look, the battle isn’t just about policies — it’s about the frameworks themselves.
Nomomachy reminds us that the deepest struggles in democracy are fought not only on the streets, but in the very wording of law.
All too real. Glad there’s a name for it.
Lawyers, actuaries, risk management professionals, physicists & philosophers
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Mathematicians & logicians
A critical subset of the first set of experts deals ethically with contingent truths.
The second set of experts deals with universal, foundational & provable Truths, independent of ethics.
There aren’t enough of either of these groups.
And both expertise & ethics have been purposefully demeaned by powerful bad actors to the point of mistrust among laypeople.
It’s nomomachy by design, and by the heckler’s veto.
And it’s mortally dangerous for stable societies.