This.
Before the game of chess (or whatever,) some people might go along with the idea (although I think the vast majority still wouldn’t.) But after the game is over, no way the losers are going to acquiesce, “Sure, we, a nation of 80 million people (or however many), will let ourselves be dominated and vanquished because of a game that 8 people were playing.”
Although it’s worth noting that this exact same proposal came up in the Bible; Goliath of the Philistines proposed a wager in which he would fight an Israelite 1-on-1 and if he won, then the Philistines win but if he lost the the Israelites win. (David won that one.)
Makes me wonder if the same thing ever happens in arbitration. After the arbiter has ruled in favor of Party A, does Party B ever say, “F_ _ _ this, I’m not going along with the arbitration after all?”
Anything is possible if enough people assume while guns are great for shooting your food, they create more misery than they solve at the international level and hence are a logical brick wall. The tl;dr version of the op would have noted we try to do ceremonial combats more than we think, its just, not quite there. Anecdotally mountain villages of Papua New Guinea will compete on the football field to resolve actual political disputes, and eat and feast together after a tense match. The question is can that be replicated on a bigger scale, at perhaps the level of organisation the UN represents? Or is it already there, and I can’t see it?
No, that’s not really what I meant. Whether it’s flipping a coin, binding UN arbitration, best 3 out of 5 chess match or having leaders fight with American Gladiator foam pugil sticks, it all requires the nations involved to agree to participating in the process and adhering to any rulings or agreements.
War happens when at least one of the parties decides they don’t care about the process because they have enough tanks and jets and rifles to try and just take what they want.
I’m arguing against the ban on leaded gasoline being the primary factor for the drop in violent crime, as the drop in violent crime has happened across the developed world at much the same time, which in most cases is a little early compared to the date leaded petrol was banned. In this context, what are you saying?
Ultimately people agree to acquiesce to things not in their favor, e.g. paying a traffic ticket, only when the alternative is worse. And is clearly seen to be worse. For a society-level decision, the vast, vast majority of the populace would need to agree that accepting the adverse decision is better than going to war to “appeal” it.
The fact most Western countries have a local variant of the “sovereign citizen” movement shows how unlikely society-wide acquiescence would be. When a decent fraction of the US populace doesn’t see paying a traffic ticket as the better way out of it, and instead decides to go full-tilt Raging against the Machine, we see how hard it’d be to recruit the whole country into surrendering after losing a chess match or whatever.
Paradoxically, in that world you’d find the freer more democratic societies would be more warlike than the more closed oligarchic societies. The oligarchs might be willing to lose as long as they can keep benefitting enough. The rank and file citizens will be much less inclined.
For that matter, to the degree ceremonial combat ever worked it’d be at the level of feudal lords and serfs. As a serf I don’t much care which lord I’m stuck giving most of my crops and handicraft products to. All Bosses suck. If the bosses want to fight a duel and only one lives I’m happier with that than I am if they want to raise an army including me to go fight the other lord’s recently raised army of his serfs.
Making this work requires a very flat and small hierarchy between the serfs and the lords. A much smaller one than we have in today’s world.
Well they did that in Italy during the Condotierri period. Some skirmishing a lot of maneovering and eventually everyone would agree, yup if there was a battle this side would totally win. A few towns would change hands and that was that.
I’m reminded of a (probably apocryphal, don’t remember) story I read once.
Some Roman general was getting ready to wipe out a bunch of (I think Germanic) barbarians. The barbarian leader, knowing that he can’t win the battle, challenges the Roman general to single combat.
The general sends back a message that boils down to, “sorry, but I don’t have the authority to risk my life that way” and then proceeds to wipe out the barbarians.
