IS THERE an acceptable level of fear? Is there some nice half way house between being reckless and being rigid with terror? And if so how do we achieve it for ourselves and others?
Because one thing is very sure you're not going to make a frightened person I less frightened by telling them there's no need for four locks and two burglar alarms, any more than you are going to cut short the gallop of someone who sees no danger in hitch hiking alone around the world.
And it's quite hard to cure your own fears, no matter how irrational they may sound, and on the other hand it's almost impossible, without huge, resentment, to change your lifestyle to make other people less anxious about you.
I am a bit afraid of horses. Actually very afraid of them. I think they are going to walk on me, they seem to have many mores than four hooves each, I don't like their nostrils and the way they flare and I'd as soon hand over my arm for medical research during my lifetime as give a horse a lump of sugar.
So it's ludicrous. I know it but I keep far away from anything that whinnies. Easy to do since mercifully I was born in an age that doesn't need them for transport.
And I'm tolerant if uncomprehending of those who look fearfully at our two comatose cats, thinking that any moment they will spring from their sofas and take people by the throat.
They say that fear is not only a normal emotion but also an essential one - it's a defence mechanism and it makes our bodies ready for fight or flight. Like the way little hairs stand up where little hairs normally lie flat. Not much use as a defence nowadays, a bit of down wouldn't put off a roaring lion or an intruder with a pickaxe.
But fear brings other things we breathe more quickly when we are frightened and that gives us more oxygen, the heart pumps more blood all round the body and some of that goes into the muscles making them stronger, we sweat and that apparently makes us slippery and less easily grabbed and held onto.
They say that all these signs of fear are put there by Nature and we should be glad of them, because it shows that the responses are working as they should. Yes, fine, but suppose they are there all the time.
Working when you hear a floorboard creak in the night, or a slate move on the roof, or a branch touch the window or a dustbin fall over, four houses away. Suppose the little bits of hair were standing up on your arms at every shadow, every sound.
That can't be any way to live out your life, and yet this week there must be many who are fairly near that state.
And the argument rages on, there are those who say that you must widely publicise the crimes, detailing their violence, hoping both to inflame public opinion against the criminals and also of course to make potential victims more watchful.
But then there are those who believe that this will frighten those who have to live alone even more, and make their lives intolerable. In west London there are several local newspapers which would put the heart across you. I used to watch the elderly on our road reading, often with magnifying glasses, details of crime after crime in streets with familiar names. The word Youth used to make them quake. There were always Two Youths Held, or a Youth Made His Escape Through A Window, or Police Seek Three Youths For Questioning.
There was nothing about the word which made them think of springtime or what they had been once themselves, or people's children or grandchildren. No, it was just another word for danger.
And it wasn't only the old people who were frightened. There's a street nearby called Charecroft Way, a very short road behind a shopping precinct, overlooked by a block of flats, a harmless kind of place you'd think, a short cut to Shepherd's Bush tube station, but if you were to read the local papers it seemed to be the epicentre of crime in broad daylight. Youth were rampant there, snatching handbags, mugging, assaulting - I used to scuttle through it myself, hair upright on the back of my hands, and breathe relief when I got through. Why?
Only because of what I had read in the newspapers.
So do you suppress news for fear of alarming people? Or is this becoming a Nanny State? Do you build it up to heightened proportions because, it will make people careful - and sell more papers?
I SUPPOSE in a perfect world you would aim for an acceptable level of fear, although like everything else it's hard to achieve. There's always the chance that you are going to terrify the ones you want to reassure and fail to alert the foolhardy.
The argument could easily go on forever with huge points being made on each side, but perhaps it might be wiser to direct it elsewhere, like in waging war on those thousands of people who in the past have been keeping money in their houses, envelopes of cash, paper bags full of it. Money sent home by emigrant sons and daughters, money hard earned over the years, hidden in houses all over the country. Money kept quiet so that pensions and allowances won't be taken away if they are known to be People Of Means.
Nobody needs money under the carpet. No, truly, I am not being like Marie Antoinette and saying "Let them use credit cards." But there has been too much of a culture of people not wanting anyone else - from bank managers, building societies and the government to friends and relations - to know what they have.
There are far too many people congratulating themselves today that they've got through another Friday night without anyone coming in to get at their store which is under the breadbin, or the coal scuttle or on the third step of the stairs pushed well in.
They could be the architects of their own or other people's tragedies. These are relatively easy pickings for people callous enough to terrorise the old, the frail, the people who live alone. But should we terrorise them further with every detail of the slow death and the last agonies of the unfortunates who did die?
If people were able to come out of this tragic violent winter with a heightened sense of awareness for neighbours, and with a realisation that hiding money at home is inviting disaster then a lot will have been achieved.
I am not sure that any more pictures of the anguished bereaved or the savagely beaten elderly victims will save lives. I am afraid that they will diminish the quality of life for many who are already anxious and fearful, and for whom these images and descriptions have made their sleepless nights into living nightmares.