Excerpts from Bertrand Russel's 'Portraits from Memory' on Peaceful Co-existence

Hi Blog,
 This book is going to be one of my favorites. There is so much to learn from this book. Best thing about the book is its compatibility even today, though it was published in 1958. One of the chapter in the book is on philosophy of our time or Russel's time to be precise. In this chapter, Russel talks about the lack of importance shown towards philosophy, how philosophy is much more relevant today than ever before, how world can be a better place with philosophy and how world can go on being as it is and get worse without philosophy. Here is an excerpt from that chapter:
 "World- wide co-operation with our present technique could

abolish poverty and war, and could bring to all mankind a

level of happiness and well-being such as has never hitherto ex-

isted. But although this is obvious men still prefer to confine

co-operation to their own groups and to indulge toward

other groups a fierce hostility which fills daily life with ter-

rifying visions of disaster. The reasons for this absurd and

tragic inability to behave as everybody's interests would dic-

tate lie not in anything external but in our own emotional

nature. If we could feel in our moments of vision as imperson-

ally as a man of science can think, we should see the folly of

our divisions and contests, and we should soon perceive that

our own interests are compatible with those of others but are

not compatible with the desire to bring others to ruin. Fa-

natical dogmatism, which is one of the great evils of our time,

is primarily an intellectual defect and, as I suggested before,

it is one to which philosophy supplies an intellectual antidote,

But a great deal of dogmatism has also an emotional source:

namely, fear. It is felt that only the closest social unity is

adequate to meet the enemy and that the slightest deviation

from orthodoxy will have a weakening effect in war. Fright-

ened populations are intolerant populations. I do not think

they are wise in this. Fear seldom inspires rational action and

very often inspires action which increases the very danger

that is feared."

Russel, in the above paragraph, tells us about the root cause of all evil. I am not here to decide whether he is wrong or right but what I am trying to suggest is that he makes an interesting point.
What I make out of this is that root cause is ignorance.