It's dark amusement.
that would >otherwise categorically identify certain kinds of person, place, or thing -- making it >difficult or impossible to think analytically about such objects.
While that is technically correct, you should consider that it is the fashion today to place everything in neat categories with easily recognized labels: Democrat, Republican, Christian, White, Leftist, etc. These identifiers mean nothing and everything simultaneously. But if someone is identified as a Christian, what does that mean? What kind of Christian? So we do have a few more categories in such cases: Catholic, Protestant, Born Again Christian, Christian Scientist, Coptic Christian. These identifiers differentiate sects, but the taxonomy of Christianity stops there. We have no identifiers to differentiate according to the variations in ontology that occur within such groups, excepting administrative roles and such. Yet, the ontological variance occurring within any arbitrary sect may be considerably larger than the official ontological differences between sects.
The language and Lexicon has been structured to conceal a large amount of detail that pertains to the realpolitik of politics, religion, and sociology. To wit: it is my impression that there is a rather large hidden subculture of heroin within Western society, with its own rituals, politics, and norms. I am not speaking of gutter addicts, but of a functional group that spans the middle-class to the political elite. In practice a secret society (or several secret societies), who live and work among mere mortals largely undetected because they seem to be adept at concealing their addiction and mores in so far as they are different from those of the average Joe and Jane. Even their use of language has numerous defining characteristics which differentiate their speech from accepted use.
Consider if some non-trivial segment of Federal political office was occupied by individuals who have an interest in securing and perpetuating the conditions that give them access to the drug. Would that not constitute something of an Orwellian threat?
Let's try that again, shall we?
Regards,
Uncle Steve