To deal with the true causes of war one must begin by recognizing as of prime relevancy to the solution of the problem the familiar fact that civilization is a partial, incomplete, and, to a great extent, superficial modification of barbarism.
Interpretation
Civilization is merely an advanced form of human behavior that still contains underlying primitive instincts.
Elihu Root’s quote suggests that in order to truly address the root causes of war, one must understand that civilization is not fundamentally different from barbarism; rather, it is an alteration of it. He emphasizes that the complexities of human society can often mask deeper, inherent tendencies towards conflict and primal behavior, which must be acknowledged to find viable solutions to war.
In practice
During a lecture on international relations, one might use this quote to highlight the historical roots of conflict.
The methods of peace propaganda which aim at establishing peace doctrine by argument and by creating a feeling favorable to peace in general seem to fall short of reaching the springs of human action and of dealing with the causes of the conduct which they seek to modify.
It is not uncommon in modern times to see governments straining every nerve to keep the peace, and the people whom they represent, with patriotic enthusiasm and resentment over real or fancied wrongs, urging them forward to war.
The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun.
Sometimes a journey arises out of hope and instinct, the heady conviction, as your finger travels along the map: Yes, here and here ... and here. These are the nerve-ends of the world.
I mean, knowing people, people are terrified of the unknown and they want to just kill the unknown.
We must stress that the basis for our faith is neither experience nor emotion but the truth as God has given it in verbalized, prepositional form in the Scripture and which we first of all apprehend with our minds.
The idea of governing at all times by the simple force of law (which we have been told is the only admissible principle of republican government) has no place but in the reveries of those political doctors whose sagacity disdains the admonitions of experimental instruction.
But, in fact, materialism is among the most problematic of philosophical standpoints, the most impoverished in its explanatory range, and among the most willful and (for want of a better word) magical in its logic, even if it has been in fashion for a couple of centuries or more.
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