Is Safety More Important Than Fun?

In June 2023, a boat carrying approximately 750 people capsized off the coast of Greece. Over 350 people died, with many others still unaccounted for. These people were migrants from Pakistan in a vessel designed for a fourth of them. They were packed in like sardines, short on hope and sinking in despair. They were leaving the instability of their lives in Pakistan, seeking the relative calm and safety of Greece.

Safety.

“Fun” is an exceptionally vague word. Its importance is very much in the eyes and minds of each person. Despite its desirability, fun is fundamentally a luxury. “Safety,” too, has a variety of definitions but also has a much broader consensus around its essence. Across nations and continents, cultures vary and characteristics diverge, but the core questions that animate us remain the same:

1. Will my family be protected?

2. Will my life be secure?

3. Will my tomorrow be better than today?

All of them are variations of the same, percussive theme—safety. In the Faustian bargain between the two life forces, most of us will look longingly and achingly at winsome and wholesome fun, but will eventually opt to get “food, clothing, and shelter” first. Or, in one word, safety. This essay will explain why safety is of primary importance for all, especially immigrants, women, and racial and ethnic minorities.

The World Bank reports that Latin America, home to 8% of the world’s population, has 42 of the 50 most violent cities worldwide, with over 400 homicides a day. Even “normal” life is, sadly, dangerous. It is inevitable, therefore, that people try to get to the greener side—the “shining city on a hill” that is America. Every month, approximately 206,000 people crossover into Texas from Mexico, Ecuador, Guatemala, and even as far south as Paraguay. Some months, they are a trickle, and in others, a torrent. They enter America after surviving figurative hell and literal high water. They are not clamoring to go to Disneyland or eat caviar—they just want to survive.

As numbing as the plight of the Latin American poor is, they have one advantage: proximity, if not to a promised land, at least to the promissory note that is the United States. Religious and ethnic minorities fleeing violence and destitution in the Middle East or North Africa are stuck in an intersecting cycle of violence and a circle of despair with no exit route. This disorienting desperation is why when an opportunity arises to immigrate to Minnesota or Sweden, they jump at the chance, no matter the differences in culture, cuisine, climate, or other characteristics.

This story repeats itself worldwide with unnerving regularity. Bangladeshis gashing their skin on barbed wire while crawling in the Sunderbans delta into West Bengal, India. Sri Lankan Tamils spread far and wide from Toronto to Singapore to escape ethnic cleansing. The “boat people” yearning to enter Australia. The Rohingya of Burma fleeing to Thailand and elsewhere. The Yazidis sheltering by the thousands in Turkey. The misbegotten meme that is the “Polish plumber” in England. And on and on.

It is easy for people living in stable first-world countries to think that a poor Wi-Fi signal is a tragedy. Or, to imagine not having a gourmet butcher shop within a half-mile from home is an insult. But the trade-off that these migrants are making is a no-brainer: leave the danger and corrosion to get to a relatively safe environment.

These immigrants are scared, tired, and anguished. In their desperation, they search for any possibility for access to safety and security. Theirs is a search, not for thriving, but for merely surviving. They know they could be deported in the blink of an eye and will have no health insurance. They know they could be victimized in the very place they sought solace. They know theirs would be a mealy-mouthed existence. They know they must live in the “shadows.” But they also know that the uncertain, uninsured, and unstable life in their new home is a better deal than their alternative. They know that the forced silence in the squalor of the “refugee camps” is safer than waking up to the spray of gunfire. Most importantly, they know the “shadows” of Canada, France, and elsewhere have more security than their localities.

It is morbidly ironic: people taking incredible risks … to be safe. It is not that their new environments are safe; it is just that they are safer. Such is the all-consuming human need for safety. The undeniable truth is that until people feel secure and comfortable, they will not chase fun or even consider adventure. For example, Switzerland and New Zealand are two of the top vacation destinations in the world. It is not a coincidence that those two countries are first and third in the “Safest Countries in the World” list.

Another large group that prioritizes safety over fun is women and, in fact, anyone other than straight men, including members of the LGBTQ+ communities and ethnic minorities. Violence against women, including sexual assault and rape, is a permanent plague bedeviling humanity. For all the progress societies have made, and despite all the superficial sloganeering about “girl power,” sexual violence is a persistent pandemic with no cure and shows no signs of abating. Time, technology, and tradition have all conspired to form an ugly stew that foments new reasons and inventive ways to subjugate and victimize women.

In India, the world’s most populous country, gendered violence is common. UNICEF reports the simultaneously sad and infuriating statistic that 50% of all rapes in India occur when women go outside to relieve themselves late at night, since 70% of homes in India lack indoor toilets. In the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India, this problem is particularly acute. In 2014, two teenage girls were raped, brutally attacked, and hung from a tree—for the crime of attempting to empty their bladders. For Westerners, this might seem unfathomable—a problem countries like America, England, and Australia solved more than 200 years ago. And yet, this is the reality of billions of women worldwide. Like dogs that look around, smell, and eventually pick a spot before they relieve themselves, women, who make up 52% of the world’s population, have been reduced to looking around, not before they leap to success, but before they let go of their bodily waste. A basic biological function has become a life-or-death proposition. The gory, infamous “Nirbhaya” episode where a young woman was raped, tortured, had her inner organs torn out, and eventually died for daring to go outside at night happened in an educated, modern, and urbane section of India’s capital, New Delhi—not in a remote backwater. In such societies, the primary goal for everyone, especially women, is never fun; it will always be safety.

Life in advanced societies can seemingly be a bed of roses for women. But even there, the thorns prick deeply. Today, in America, a woman’s access to abortion is a hodgepodge of rules depending on which state she is in and what her age is. Traveling across state lines for an abortion can result in jail time. In Texas and Oklahoma, the law provides “bounties” for unrelated third parties who can “prevent” abortions. Doctors, nurses, and even taxi drivers who transport patients to their abortion appointments are liable for civil penalties starting at $10,000 per abortion.17 This state-sponsored vigilantism is scary, chilling, and sets family and friends, and sometimes even spouses, against each other. In such a nihilistic environment, it is natural that women and other minorities prioritize safety over anything else. It is not that all women are blameless. Indeed, there are also men who are victimized by laws and society. But, in general, the risks borne by men and women are asymmetric, causing women to prioritize safety, as alluded to by Margaret Atwood:

“Men are afraid that women will laugh at them.

Women are afraid that men will kill them.”

The same life-or-death tale is the norm for racial, religious, and ethnic minorities and LGBTQ+ members in every region of the world. Be it the “Arab Spring” or “Black Lives Matter,” whether it is the Uighurs in China or the Kurds in Iraq, those movements are not carping for money or fun but crying for essential freedoms and basic safety. The political anchors, social burdens, educational afflictions, and economic crosses that the African American communities have had to and continue to bear have been well documented. Whether it is getting gerrymandered into very few Congressional districts or being stuck in ill-performing schools, whether it is getting “redlined” when buying homes or always being second-guessed in their professional lives, theirs is a tale of woe, pain, and suffering. So why would they not always be laser-focused on safety and survival when they “can’t breathe?”

The Coronavirus pandemic is another excellent example of when society collectively chose safety over fun—with great benefits for everyone. Billions of us stayed home, remoted into schools and workspaces, and even did family gatherings and weddings online. To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, we all surrendered some temporary fun and freedoms for some essential safety and health. The global quarantine helped save the lives of doctors and frontline workers. The world was a very different place in 2021. However, the sacrifices we all made to prioritize mutual safety during that time has made 2023 and beyond safer, healthier, and more fun for all of us. 

These arguments do not amount to a cynical treatise against fun. Nor do these thoughts cohere as an empty bromide for safety. Fun and its emotional value are not diminished by arguing that safety has higher importance for more people. The balance between fun and safety is a moral question. Those who prefer safety are not joyless automatons. Pursuing safety does not require one to take a self-defeating, extreme position in favor of an impossible, foolproof notion of safety. Likewise, there is no such thing as unlimited fun.

It is not utopian idealism to desire a baseline safety for everyone. Fun and safety are not orthogonal, but actually synergistic. Ideally, the two in combination should work together as the yin and yang for life, with safety as the ballast and fun as the engine. Once basic safety is assured, people will automatically have whatever fun their personalities and finances permit them to. Surfing off the Portuguese coast or scuba-diving near the Great Barrier Reef may appeal to some while playing chess or watching TV may catch others’ eyes. People will be more inclined to seek enjoyment and leisure if a safety net exists—where simple, honest mistakes have consequences, but do not result in calamity.

All work, or in this case, trying to be safe, and no play, or fun, makes not just Jack, but also Janaki, Jamal, and Jingsheng not just dull but also bored, sick, and morose. But that fun comes after safety. To paraphrase H.L. Mencken: the average person would like to have fun—but wants to be safe. Being forced to choose between fun and safety is a dilemma akin to Sophie’s Choice. But let us not forget that Sophie eventually did make a choice. And that choice, for most of the Sophies among us, would be safety.

Everyone wants fun. Everyone needs safety.

Fun enriches life. Safety enables life.