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In the most common expression of violence action predominates over thought. The recourse to acting out on the part of the impatient, psychopaths or other borderline states is a means of discharging excitation, due to an insufficient inscription of their link to the object and an insufficient representation of their desire. The resonance between these deficiencies in the individual’s psychic elaboration and those of group thinking is at the origin of pathological ideologies. Such collective pathologies of the ideal can lead to violence, war, religious fundamentalism or a return to totalitarian forms of authority. Conversely, a healthy degree of combativeness, the constructive confrontation of differences, is a useful form that does not lead to violence, but to love, work and creativity. Similarly, a democracy that contains all the primal fantasies, in their elaborated and collective form – freedom, equality, fraternity and respect for the law – can fight against violence, without excessive destruction.