I think seeing safety from the perspective of systems, organization, and complexity is enlightening. There is a complex, recursive relationship between the whole system and its parts. The French sociologist and philosopher Edgar Morin (born 1921, and still living at 102), is an important writer in this field.
 
Edgar Morin was anti-fascist during the Spanish Civil War then resistant against the occupation of France by Germany during the Second World War in 1942. From the 1950s, he was a prominent sociologist of complex thought, writing about the collaboration of the external world and our minds to construct reality.

Morin (1992) writes that organization is not a fixed thing but a continuous process of planning, communication, and adaptation. Organization is an ongoing, self-regenerating process in both living and non-living systems. System, interactions, and organization are interrelated, and each term is essential to the others.
 
Complexity is inherent in the very principles of reality, from subatomic particles to biological systems and beyond. This complexity requires that we make a shift from seeking order to understanding organization. We need an integrated approach of - traditionally separated - physical and social sciences that includes both the observer and the observed system.
 
Complexity and organization can’t be reduced to simple principles of order or reductionism, Morin writes. When we focus on simplifying everything, we make things abstract and hard to understand. This only makes us find order in nature but it doesn’t explain everything. Morin suggests a way of thinking that lets us see the bigger picture. Morin's idea organizes things based on how they interact and affect each other. In this way, it's organizing, not ordering.
 
Because conflicts and uncertainties are inherent in systems, a non-totalitarian and non-hierarchical approach is needed to understanding and utilizing systems for social and political purposes. Instead of trying to control nature, we should control our desire for control. This means we need to be more aware of what we're doing and how it affects the world. This way of thinking helps bridge the gap between thinking and doing in society.
 
“Spaceship Earth is propelled by three coupled engines science/technology/economy, but is devoid of a pilot. This prepares two antagonistic futures, one of catastrophes, the other of transhumanism. This ignores the need for enormous moral and intellectual progress to avoid catastrophes and not subject humanity to an algorithmization which would robotize it”. - Morin (2011; La Voie - Pour l'avenir de l'humanité).

Source: Morin, E. (1992), From the Concept of System to the Paradigm of Complexity, in: Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems 15 (4: 371-385)
and his French Wikipedia page.