Indeed I will offer more questions than answers. Asking questions of this nature, I am forced to pursue analogies from the biological world which would not be viable without, a well developed immune system. It is clear that without a defence mechanism, or an immune system, an organism, biological or social, is at risk. The existence of a small police force, and an ability to augment it at the time of an attack is essential. But too large a force, or too strong a defence or immunological response can lead to sickness and deconstruction which is difficult to heal.
Over- defence is dangerous to the defender.
From this it might appear that all external influences are dangerous because they could disrupt the 'self', directly or through the unreasonable immune response they might induce. This would be an unreasonable extrapolation of the argument. Both, the biological systems and the social systems, include in their make up mechanisms for evolving symbiotic configurations or selectively suppressing the immune response. There are many examples in evolutionary biology where dissimilar organisms discovered, through appropriate modification and adjustment, the advantage of a symbiotic relationship. The problem with such analogies is that we are likely to be misled unless we also keep in mind the time scales involved in such adjustments.