"Keep violence in the mind where it belongs"

Brian Aldiss’s admonition to "keep violence in the mind where it belongs" challenges the boundaries between thought and action, suggesting a crucial distinction for human morality and civilization. Violence is intrinsic to the human psyche: anger, aggression, and dark impulses reside in everyone, surfacing in moments of frustration, pain, or existential fear. By acknowledging their existence, Aldiss cautions not against the presence of violent thoughts, but against their manifestation in actions.

The mind serves as a crucible, a safe space in which the impulses of aggression can be examined, processed, and contained without harm to others or oneself. By confining violence to imagination or reflection, society is protected from its destructive consequences. Creative expression, literature, art, drama, often channels violent thoughts, transforming raw, dangerous energy into works that instruct, warn, or cathartically relieve tension. Thus, violence, when sublimated, becomes a source of insight rather than injury.

In a broader sense, the assertion recognizes the reality of internal struggles, refusing to moralize away the complexity of human nature. Pretending violence does not exist within us leads to repression or hypocrisy. Instead, embracing self-awareness and self-control as virtues allows us to live ethically in a world rife with potential provocation and conflict. Civilization depends not on the absence of violent instincts but on their domestication through culture, reason, and empathy.

Violence belongs in the mind not because it is good, but because there it can be observed, understood, and kept in check. Individuals who can engage with their darker urges responsibly are freer and safer than those who act them out or deny them entirely. Aldiss’s statement ultimately urges responsibility: our thoughts are private, our actions public. To safeguard others and ourselves, conscience must remain vigilant, ensuring violence finds its place within, not without.