War & Peace Quote by Arthur Keith

Keith’s sentence reads like a calm field note, but it smuggles in an argument about what humans are for. “Tribal organization” isn’t just descriptive; it’s a framing device that treats collective loyalty as a natural habitat, not a political choice. The word “even” does quiet work here: peace is supposed to be the relief valve for individuality, yet Keith insists the tribe’s claims still outrank “all self seeking.” The phrase is loaded with moral shading. “Self seeking” suggests petty appetite, while “service” carries the glow of virtue. By choosing those terms, he nudges conformity into the position of ethical default.

The pivot to war sharpens the bargain. “Becomes supreme” and “is suspended” present the state’s reach as an almost mechanical escalation, as if liberty were a feature you temporarily toggle off when conditions change. That grammatical passivity is the tell. No agent is named; no one suspends liberty. It just happens, like a natural law. That erases the messy realities: leaders manufacturing threats, publics consenting, minorities paying the bill.

Context matters. Keith was writing in an era when “tribe,” race, and nation were often braided together in scientific-sounding narratives about evolution and social cohesion. Coming out of the world wars, the claim would have felt less like theory than like reportage. Yet the subtext is permission-giving: if collectivism is biologically rooted, then emergency politics can be cast as inevitable rather than contested. The quote doesn’t merely describe sacrifice; it normalizes the state’s most expansive moment as the tribe’s truest self.