For, I have seen the devil, by day and by night, and have seen him in you and in me: in the eyes of the cop and the sheriff and the deputy, the landlord, the housewife, the football player: in the eyes of some junkies, the eyes of some preachers, the eyes of some governors, presidents, wardens, in the eyes of some orphans, and in the eyes of my father, and in my mirror.  It is that moment when no other human being is real for you, nor are you real for yourself.  The devil has no need of any dogma–though he can use them all–nor does he need any historical justification, history being so largely his invention.

James Baldwin

Baldwin often ties moral failure to (and defined evil as) indifference, and he repeatedly insists that the problem isn’t only “out there” but within ourselves, within himself.