This thesis argues that theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and journalist Walter Lippmann developed similar ideas about the origins of evil, and it is their realistic understanding of the causes of social injustice in American democratic society that might correct contemporary cultural and academic misperceptions about the nature of evil.
In todays technologically advanced society, pragmatic theories in education, sociology, and philosophy put forth an idea of progress that promises to eradicate evil. The media produces fast moving and horrific images that desensitize us to its presence. Today, the idea of evil has become less terrible and less real; we are no longer able to imagine its horror as we once did, nor do we see the problem of evil as each persons moral responsibility.
The conclusion is that contemporary modern society lacks an apparatus for detecting the evil around us. Both Lippmann and Niebuhr recognized this problem. They tried to find a perspective that balanced individual and social views on evil, one that saw evil originating within rather than outside the self. Thus, they made it a universal problem, one that we all must confront as a community in order to find salvation for humanity.