As you say, peace itself cannot serve as motivation for action. That's impossible. But there are also no "foundational emotions"--just emotions. All emotions are up for grabs. The "correct" ones simply does not disturb the peace. Also, I don't disagree that disgust didn't play a role in rise of civilizations. I just think that there was also laziness, fear of death, curiosity, or plain necessity involved. After all, people didn't leave their original habitat in Africa because they wanted to -- the "bigger dicks" drove them out, and the same is true for the whole migration eastward. No wonder that Europeans excel at screwing each other, that there's so much emphasis put on effort in east Asian cultures (and that there's that implied attitude of mental and cultural superiority toward everything in the West), or that Africans, left to their own devices, prefer a “social jungle arrangement” based on raw strength, but I mightily digress here.