I see it as the difference between a one-off prisoner’s dilemma situation and an iterated version of the prisoner’s dilemma.
War is arguably a one-off situation, where competition is king and you want to win at all costs. Politics and policy-making is more of an ongoing endeavour and in the scheme of things, requires cooperation.
Where there are good intentions involved (and that is the case much of the time—it’s just not publicised nearly as much), both sides of a debate will often want to come to a solution that is something that the other side can live with—and there is at least the potential for changing perspectives and positions. So having high stakes doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s all-out competition and war between arguments.
I’m not sure I see the contradiction.
I see it as the difference between a one-off prisoner’s dilemma situation and an iterated version of the prisoner’s dilemma.
War is arguably a one-off situation, where competition is king and you want to win at all costs. Politics and policy-making is more of an ongoing endeavour and in the scheme of things, requires cooperation.
Where there are good intentions involved (and that is the case much of the time—it’s just not publicised nearly as much), both sides of a debate will often want to come to a solution that is something that the other side can live with—and there is at least the potential for changing perspectives and positions. So having high stakes doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s all-out competition and war between arguments.