Exclusion and Embrace - Miroslav Volf

I started reading this a few months ago, full of enthusiasm for the topic and hoping to come to understand something with which I struggle. My enthusiasm ran out when I found that I couldn't easily understand or follow Volf's argument. I was quite unhappy because I didn't like to think that I was 'too stupid' to read the book. At the same time I was wondering whether it was my shortcoming or whether it was perhaps that Volf was not writing as clearly as could be desired. But so many people have recommended the book. And it has won an award.
So I am trying again, but willing to be as critical and as slow as it takes. Maybe some day I will find someone to engage with me and show me where I have gone wrong. Or maybe even I will begin to understand as I read slowly and make notes. I have picked the book up where my bookmark was, somewhere near the end of chapter 2 (my page 86).
Volf speaks of how when we are confronted with evil the evil in us responds (or the beast). I can identify with that - I know that if someone loses their temper with me I want to respond in the same way. Injustice can make me irrationally angry. On the other hand, I very nearly always moderate my response and stay in control. So while evil may call forth evil, if Volf is saying that this is always so, I disagree.
On page 87 he goes on to talk about the power of evil and quotes Walter Wink. Wink says that 'powers' are essentially good, but when become 'hell-bent' on control they become a domination system (not good). Volf chooses to replace the word domination with exclusion, because, he says, domination desires to exclude the other from resources and so on. Even if this is so, the logic is fundamentally flawed because the reverse implication is not necessarily true - exclusion does not imply a desire to dominate. For example a bowls club does not usually want to control the affairs of the rugby club just because their members are excluded by their interests. Somehow from this Volf reaches the point where he sees exclusion as part or all of a "background cacophany of evil". There is an interesting article on self-determination here.
He then goes on to talk about the power of community to resist change (it is always 'they' who have made the decisions, but no one really knows who 'they' are.) He also talks about the roles of politicians and other influencers in changing a community's mind. I guess I can go along with that. He makes is sound evil, but it seems to me that it is how communities work and we need to deal with that. He then goes on to say that it is the very desires of the community for health and success that lead to genocides and destruction of the other. Again, there might be truth in this, but that doesn't make it wrong to desire health and strength and success for one's community.
This is a summary of what I found on pages 86-89. I had to look up the words 'interiority' and 'transpersonal' in the dictionary.
Man, I am disappointed. But if I struggle on, maybe I will pick up some key that will help me understand better.