Yes, John, if you read my book, A Quick Look at the Essence of Man and His Universe, you would see that I absolutely agree with you that via a highly developed intellect men rise above their base ego impulses such as the negative part of the tribal impulse.

In fact I see the mind in three parts — base ego, cognition and intellect.

The very primitive base ego is all about self survival and seeking advantage at every opportunity — me me me. Cognition is simply a neutral memory processing capability, like the cpu of a computer. And intellect is the ability to see the big picture beyond self-interest.

Unfortunately because of what I have termed the universal law of probability balance, wise intellect (a positive force) can be approximately no more than 50% of mankind. Thus peace is constantly offset by war, good offset by evil and so forth.