Basic anxiety is the anxiety of biological survival, the anxiety of our fight-or-flight response, the anxiety associated with vigilantly monitoring threats in our physical environment. Basic anxiety is connected to the survival instincts we have as biodegradable animals in a world of real or potential scarcity. The logic here, as we’ve noted, is fairly straightforward: in the face of survival threats, our self-interest intensifies. And if the situation becomes dire, violence breaks out.
