Where is the battle for security being fought?
Most of us are daily in positions where someone could easily walk up to us, pull a gun or knife, and kill us. In most social environments, we don’t worry about that, and the crime rarely occurs. We are “exposed,” so to speak, but the prevailing mores of society are such that it turns out not to be a risky exposure. On the other hand, when the risk of the crime becomes too great, we have little choice but to minimize our exposure. As a society we may then start conceiving the challenge as a wholly technical one–how to wall ourselves off from each other, devise new alarm systems, beef up police forces, and so on. Actions of this sort may become necessary, but we should realize that they are signs of a losing battle and may actually worsen the underlying causes of the problems. Again (see question 38), the decisive battle is not the technical one. Healthy public and private spheres exist only by virtue of each other, in a complex and delicate balance.
