Even if evil vapors of cultures can enter the self and even if the structures—institutions, communities, nations—are more sinful than the individuals that comprise them (Niebuhr 1960), the system needs persons to make it “breathe” with the spirit of evil. If people acquiesce, it is not because they are forced to acquiesce, but because there is something in the texture of their selves that resonates with the logic of exclusion.
