Why fear is a good thing
The question is not whether to take risks, but what risks are reasonable and which ones are not.
I got The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker for Christmas. I wanted to go through some of my thoughts about why fear is good before I start reading the book (and there may or may not be observations posted to the blog as I go through it) so my initial thoughts on this subject are not influenced by it.
The example I used a lot in 2025 is violent crime. We should have a reasonable fear of predators, which is why violent criminals should be locked up rather than running free and victimizing more innocent people. There are many examples of this, but the most famous from 2025 was Decarlos Brown Jr. Who viciously murdered a Ukrainian refugee seeking to escape from Vladimir Putin's war of aggression. We should expect our civil magistrates to protect us from thugs who have a history of violence, but a so-called "judge" betrayed her duty and the American people by releasing Brown to maim and murder.
Another example is disease. Modern sanitation has saved more lives than doctors by preventing the spread of disease. It is far better to not get cholera in the first place than to have the best doctors on the planet treat you after you have already been infected. Fear of disease causes us to wash our hands to prevent the spread of disease. It also causes us to prepare food in such a way that we reduce the risk of food-borne illness, and also causes us to throw away food that has gone bad.
Reasonable fear also keeps us safe in traffic, whether we are walking or driving. We obey the rules of the road and watch for others who are not, so to not cause a needless accident that results in property damage, injury or death. Fear is also a good thing when we avoid doing needlessly foolish things, preventing household accidents and falls. This is why we teach our children not to run with scissors, to use a very common example.
Obviously, fear can be a very bad thing when allowed to run wild. It can lead to witch hunts and injustice. It can lead to overly strict public health measures, as we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic. It can lead to "helicopter parenting" and stealing independence and maturity from children. We see men spooked by "modern women" into avoiding marriage. What we must recognize is that all of life is risk. The question is not whether to take risks, but what risks are reasonable and which ones are not. Fear is an important part of our lives, and we are foolish to disregard reasonable fear.