Personal physical insecurity

Fear of violence
Anxiety about personal safety
Increasing sense of personal vulnerability

Incidence

Many people live with an unremitting sense of fear for their personal safety. Many communities are pervaded by a feeling of physical insecurity. An environment of uncertainty leads to a heightened sense of insecurity among the inhabitants: day-to-day operations are carried out in (often unconscious) fear.

Claim

Insecurity feeds on itself. People remain indoors out of fear, emptying the streets, and thereby adding to the already prevalent feeling of insecurity.

Crimes committed by strangers and crimes with unknown motives are the most frightening, and, in some countries at least, are on the rise. As the quality and nature of crimes changes, becoming more unpredictable and random, it is only natural that people should become more scared.

Counter-claim

Personal physical insecurity is vastly overblown as a concern. People have always had doubts about their appearance, and society wastes far too much energy focusing on these trivial feelings. Real problems require our attention—poverty, disease, and climate change—not individuals worrying about how they look. Instead of obsessing over insecurity, we should encourage resilience and self-acceptance. Frankly, personal physical insecurity is not even close to being a genuinely important problem.