Uh, most things involving people are kind of mushy, because you can't experiment on them like you would with rats. And they tend to behave oddly at times. Also, there are a tremendous number of things that bear on their behavior - isolating them is not easy.
> modern stability that we enjoy is maintained
Could it be that the modern stability also exists because most of us feel relatively safe in our persons?
It's not as if the only thing preventing most of us from running amok is the presence of police, but some kind of security force does act as a backstop for those individuals who do not care about your self-interest, social norms, or whatever.
Once again: not trying to justify the NSA stuff, but I think the idea that no security at all is needed for one to live in freedom is handwavy bullshit.
You mean, stability is mantained by structures like the state?
These are orthogonal issues. There are strong reasons to believe that the modern stability that we enjoy is maintained by networks of mutual self-interest, soft social norms and overall cultural sophistication. The idea that we are being protected by the state is just a fairy-tale and there is no scientific evidence of this whatsoever.
Saying that something is not "black and white" sounds clever, but can be used as a way to disguise unscientific, mushy ideas.